“He’s not coming at Kendrick”: Everything to know about Drake’s “Not Like Us” lawsuit

The feud between Drake and Kendrick Lamar has been dominating headlines and hip-hop culture for nearly a year now. What started as a rap battle between two revered artists has evolved into a lawsuit by Drake against Universal Music Group. In an 81-page filing, Drake accuses UMG of defamation, alleging that the label both he and Lamar are signed to prioritized corporate greed over the well-being of its artists (and that’s just on page two). The track at the centre of the scandal is Lamar’s five-time Grammy-winning “Not Like Us,” in which he implies Drake is a pedophile several times over.

All’s fair in love and diss tracks, but this is something different. “Drake isn’t coming at Kendrick—he’s coming at the label,” says Salman Rana, a legal theorist, assistant professor at Toronto Metropolitan University’s School of Creative Industries and counsel at Froese Law. According to Rana, Drake’s legal beef is with a corporate entity that profits off hip-hop culture while exploiting artists. But does Champagne Papi have a case? Why didn’t he sue the guy who wrote the song? And—perhaps most importantly—will Lamar sling yet more mud from the Super Bowl stage this Sunday?

First off, I’ll ask you to declare any allegiances. Are you Team Drake or Team Kendrick? I’m a fan of the culture. I’m a hip-hop head—not a famous one by any means, but back in the 1990s I was a founding member of a crew called the Circle, which included Toronto MCs like Jully Black, Kardinal Offishall and Choclair. I did a little emceeing back in the day, though these days the only rapping I do is to get my kids up in the morning. I was always a pretty academic guy, and law school was my dream. I’m a fan of Drake. As much as he experiments with other genres, when put to the test, his MC skills come to light. And Kendrick is a master of the craft. I’m always happy to sit back and watch a good battle, which is an important part of the tradition and the genre. The big feuds play out in the mainstream—ones like Biggie versus Tupac. But there are also young, independent artists in battles across North America and Europe. With social media, the dissemination of these feuds has changed, but it’s still somewhat rare that they have dangerous consequences.

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And that’s what Drake is saying happened here? Can you explain the specifics of his lawsuit? Drake’s lawsuit against Universal Music Group is predicated on a claim of defamation, specifically relating to Kendrick Lamar’s song “Not Like Us,” which includes multiple lyrics that position Drake as a pedophile. Drake is saying that UMG should have been cognizant of the foreseeable harm that those comments could cause—both the economic consequences, in terms of his reputation and brand, and the potential risk to his safety and the safety of those around him.

In Drake’s claim, he points to the cover art of “Not Like Us,” which is a birds-eye image of his Toronto mansion covered with red dots—the kind of dots that are associated with a neighbourhood watch list for predators. Drake asserts that a shooting that took place at his home last year was the result of the track. He also claims that he had to take his child out of school in Toronto because of safety threats. The bar for proving defamation is extremely high. Out of respect for freedom of expression as it relates to criticism of public personalities, the bar is even higher for celebrities. The burden will be on Drake to prove that UMG deliberately published false statements, knowing it would potentially cause harm, and that there was an actual intent of malice.

But why would Universal want to harm one of its top artists? There is a conspiratorial element to all of this. Drake is alleging that, by promoting these allegations, the label engaged in a deliberate effort to diminish and reduce the value of his music and overall brand, and that they did so in advance of upcoming contract negotiations. I would liken it to corporate espionage, where a corporation may want to diminish the value of a contractual partner to have an upper hand at the negotiation table. I have no idea what the evidence is here. This allegation definitely won’t be easy to prove.

Speaking of evidence, how do you go about proving that another party knew you were not a pedophile? It’s more about proving they knew this was a false and potentially damaging claim, and yet they still went about planning the public communication, dissemination and distribution of these records. In terms of proving that, details like the communications between the various parties could come out during the case’s discovery process. Again, this is about how defamatory statements are being wielded, exploited and perpetrated against one party—Drake—by a corporate entity. He’s not going after Kendrick.

But Kendrick wrote the song. Why not sue him? It’s helpful to think of all of this happening on two different levels. There is the battle: Drake versus Kendrick. Both are performers who know and respect the rules of the game. Drake’s response to Kendrick’s comments in this hip-hop context are what we see in the tracks that he released. But then there is the other level: his contractual relationship with a multinational record label. In this legal context, I think he sees this lawsuit as a call for artists’ rights, much the way Chappell Roan has made a call for labels to respect the realities of everyday musicians.

Except these particular artists are multimillionaires. You could argue that this battle has been profitable on both sides, no? When you look at the claims Drake is making, I think there is potentially serious damage in terms of brand and reputation. There is also an underlying cultural argument: here you have a label exploiting two young Black men, and even as things started to escalate and they were aware of the potential safety concerns, they didn’t step back and try to de-escalate. Instead, they added fuel to the fire—or at least that is what Drake is alleging.

So Drake, in your opinion, has a point here? There are a lot of people saying that this is just sour grapes and image rehab. I think what happens when a story this high profile goes public is that you’re going to get people weighing in on all sides: fans with different allegiances, lawyers with different perspectives. But, yes, I do applaud Drake. A lot of folks have come at him as if this is just a strategy to silence an opponent, but that’s not how I see it. He has the ability and the resources to challenge the label in ways that artists in the past have never been able to. He should be commended for that.

He may be doing something worthwhile, but does he have a case? I honestly can’t comment. These kinds of allegations are very hard to prove, but Drake has a very capable legal team. If you’re a legal nerd like I am, that’s what makes this so interesting. We’re talking about a case that is testing a lot of areas of the law where there isn’t necessarily any precedent. So whether or not it winds up in court, this kind of case creates an important conversation about the nature of artist-label relationships, defamation versus freedom of expression and corporate accountability.

Kendrick performed “Not Like Us” at the Grammys, complete with all pedophile references. Were you surprised? No. I mean, it’s his song. It’s not like there has been an injunction or anything.

And then there was the Canadian Tuxedo that Kendrick wore to the Grammys—a clear swipe at Drake. Did Kendrick say that?

No, the internet did! Ha—well, like I said, I’m interested in all of this as a law nerd. Do people outside of Canada even know what a Canadian Tuxedo is? I was just in Nashville, and that’s what everyone was wearing.

Fair enough. What about the Super Bowl? Might Kendrick be under pressure to give the song a miss given all of the legal controversy? Obviously I have no idea whether any of the parties involved would be putting any pressure on Kendrick. Drake is not in a contractual relationship with the NFL or the broadcaster, so it’s not the same thing. And again, if you’re Kendrick, this is a battle, and the battle continues.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.