Amid a broader defamation lawsuit, Drake and his team are embroiled in a discovery dispute with Universal Music Group. Photo Credit: The Come Up Show / CC by 2.0
Do millions believe that “Not Like Us” actually accuses Drake of being a pedophile? He and his legal team think so, and they’re making as much clear amid a discovery dispute with Universal Music Group (UMG).
Drake and his counsel just recently expressed the view when pushing back against UMG’s motion to stay discovery. By now, pretty much everyone is familiar with the overarching lawsuit; focusing on Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” Drake is accusing UMG of defamation and more.
Last time we checked in on the multifaceted showdown (earlier this week, that is), UMG moved to dismiss the complaint. Among other things, the major described “Not Like Us” – including the track’s official “image of Drake’s Toronto mansion with 13 sex offender markers” – as “hyperbolic and exaggerated, conveying opinion, not fact.”
Running with the dismissal position, UMG on Tuesday asked the court to pause discovery because it’d purportedly “presented substantial arguments that Drake’s claims should be dismissed in their entirety.”
“His defamation claim fails because when assessed in context, as it must be, ‘Not Like Us’ conveys nonactionable opinion and rhetorical hyperbole, not fact, an issue for the court to resolve as a matter of law,” Universal Music and its counsel wrote.
As for the sought discovery materials themselves, Drake is working to obtain an abundance of documents relating to “Not Like Us,” alleged payola, Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime-show performance, Interscope CEO John Janick’s compensation structure, and a whole lot else.
Stated differently, even at this relatively early stage, regardless of how the battle plays out, there’s quite a bit riding on the discovery confrontation – hence Drake’s opposition to UMG’s request to halt the process.
“UMG’s headline argument is that the Defamatory Material [‘Not Like Us’] is non-actionable opinion that no reasonable person would understand as a statement of fact. This argument is doomed to fail,” Drake and his attorneys penned in a letter to the court.
“For one,” they continued, “UMG completely ignores the Complaint’s allegations that millions of people, all over the world, did understand the Defamatory Material as a factual assertion that Plaintiff is a pedophile.”
Time will tell whether the parties turn to a social-media poll to eliminate all doubt here. But elsewhere in his letter, Drake took aim at UMG’s other arguments, including the major’s cited cases and the position that it didn’t act with “actual malice” by releasing “Not Like Us.”
UMG, Drake communicated, “brazenly continued to publish and promote” the hit track even after his Toronto “home was attacked by a gunman” and he’d “made UMG aware of the falsity of the allegations (and the harm they were causing).”
In a statement provided to DMN, Drake attorney Michael Gottlieb called out Universal Music as “desperate to avoid discovery.”
“It is unsurprising that UMG is desperate to avoid discovery,” the Willkie Farr & Gallagher partner told us. “This motion is a ploy to delay producing documents and communications that UMG hopes to keep hidden and buried. If UMG has nothing to hide, it should not have an issue with discovery.”
Wherever the discovery cards fall, evidence suggests that the high-stakes defamation disagreement isn’t going away anytime soon. On Wednesday, the presiding judge set a March 27th deadline for Drake to decide whether (in light of UMG’s aforesaid dismissal motion) he’ll submit an amended complaint or move forward with the original lawsuit.
In any event, the “Die Trying” act has until April 16th to either go the amended-action route or respond to UMG’s dismissal motion.
