UMG disses Drake in savage motion to dismiss defamation lawsuit

thefader.com:

Universal Music Group (UMG) has launched a broadside against Drake, one of the label's biggest artists, in its motion to dismiss the Canadian rapper's defamation lawsuit over the release of Kendrick Lamar's diss track "Not Like Us." The motion, obtained by independent journalist Meghann Cuniff, was filed on March 17 in the Southern District of New York.

Drake sued UMG for defamation and harassment in federal court in January over lyrics in "Not Like Us" accusing him of pedophilia.

Fittingly, UMG's motion starts off like its own diss track. It opens with a line from Drake's 2009 song "Successful: “Yeah, I want it all, that’s why I strive for it / Diss me, you’ll never hear a reply for it.” The motion goes on to paint Drake as a hypocrite "who lost a rap battle that he provoked and in which he willingly participated." Read Next: Drake and iHeartRadio “amicably resolve” claim over “Not Like Us” "Instead of accepting the loss like the unbothered rap artist he often claims to be," the motion continues, "he has sued his own record label in a misguided attempt to salve his wounds." UMG calls the lawsuit "utterly without merit and should be dismissed with prejudice." UMG claims that Drake's lawsuit "ignores the context of the dispute" between Lamar and Drake, as well as the larger history of diss tracks, suggesting that the art form itself would be "severely chilled" if Drake were to prevail.