EXCLUSIVE: Drake's spokesperson says UMG will have to answer for "the damage it has caused to every artist that has been silenced" after the hearing
On Monday, June 30, 2025, Drake's spokesperson sent Sportskeeda an exclusive statement following the rapper's legal team's appearance in a Manhattan federal court, which read:
"UMG is desperate to see this case not move forward because the company can't hide its misconduct in a courtroom the way it does in the boardroom."
The statement continued:
"Soon, in addition to facing concerned regulators and investors, the leadership of music's most powerful label will have to answer for the damage it has caused to every artist that has been silenced, exploited, endangered or discarded."
Drizzy's legal team was in court to urge the judge to allow his defamation case against UMG to proceed. The One Dance rapper first filed the lawsuit on January 15, 2025.
The lawsuit accuses UMG of publishing Kendrick Lamar's Not Like Us and allegedly launching a campaign to make it a viral hit.
Per the suit, the diss track was "intended to convey the specific, unmistakable, and false factual allegation that Drake is a criminal p*dophile, and to suggest that the public should resort to vigilante justice in response."
Judge Jeannette Vargas considered the nature of the Drake-Kendrick rap battle in court on Monday
As Drake's defamation lawsuit saw its first court hearing on Monday, US District Judge Jeannette Vargas pondered the nature of rap battles, including the one that Drizzy and Kendrick Lamar were embroiled in last year.
Judge Vargas said in court:
"Who is the ordinary listener? Is it someone who's going to catch all those references? There's so much specialized and nuanced to these lyrics."
Arguing in Drake's defence, his attorney, Michael Gottlieb, said that it was UMG's intention to make the song "a de facto national anthem," saying:
"This song achieved a cultural ubiquity unlike any other rap song in history. [The average listener could be] a 13-year-old who's dancing to the song at a bar mitzvah."
Released on May 4, 2024, Kendrick's Not Like Us has indeed become an international success, not only topping multiple streaming charts but also winning the rapper multiple awards, including five Grammys, a Billboard Music Award, and three BET Hip Hop Awards.
The song not only accuses Drake of being a "certified p*dophile," but also makes comments about his sexual preferences, and calls him a "colonizer" who leeched off the hip-hop scene.
Meanwhile, UMG's lawyer, Rollin Ransom, responded by citing the lyrics of Taylor Made Freestyle — a 2024 diss track that Drizzy had released, aimed at Lamar.
Then, highlighting that context was "key" in rap battles such as this one, Ransom added:
"What you hear in these rap battles is trash-talking in the extreme, and it is not, and should not be treated as, statements of fact."
While the conclusion of the first hearing — about whether or not the case will move forward — remains to be seen, neither Drake nor Kendrick Lamar was present in the courtroom on Monday.
Despite suing UMG over Kendrick Lamar's song, Drizzy hasn't sued the rapper himself.
