Top Dog Entertainment President Punch seems to co-sign the social media theory that Drake will lose the defamation portion of his possible lawsuit against UMG over Kendrick Lamar‘s “Not Like Us.”
In his recently-filed petitions, Drizzy claims that UMG released K.Dot’s now-Grammy-nominated song despite knowing that the track “falsely accus[es] him of being a sex offender.” The petition says that the Canadian superstar now has enough evidence to bring a defamation claim against the company.
However, a recent discussion on the Rap Latte Podcast found co-host Curtis King arguing that Drake’s claims won’t hold up – as Kendrick never directly calls the OVO superstar a pedophile, and instead pluralizes the word and seems to actually be referring to the people in Drake’s camp.
In response, Punch wrote in a now-deleted post to X: “You cooking Curtis. I was wondering when would ppl pick up on that.”
It’s unclear why he deleted the post
Meanwhile, Drake now has the next steps set for his legal battles against UMG — one court date in December, and one in January.
According to court records viewed by HipHopDX, Drizzy’s petition that was filed in Bexar County, Texas will be heard before a judge on December 20. That hearing will be to determine whether the superstar is allowed to depose people from iHeartRadio and UMG, to ask them if they engaged in illegal activity around Kendrick’s chart-topping diss record.
Drake has another “Not Like Us”-related legal petition as well, this one in New York. For that one, a judge is set to make a decision on January 16, 2025. In that case, The Boy is asking the court to require Spotify and UMG to preserve any documents or messages relevant to their promotion of “Not Like Us.”
In the New York case, Drizzy’s legal team filed a “pre-action” petition in a Manhattan court on November 25, alleging UMG used bots, payola and other methods to inflate the chart-topping song.
“UMG did not rely on chance, or even ordinary business practices,” the docs read. “It instead launched a campaign to manipulate and saturate the streaming services and airwaves.”
The filing also alleges that the label paid Spotify to promote “Not Like Us” to users searching for unrelated songs and artists. Additionally, it claims UMG paid Apple to have Siri intentionally redirect users requesting songs from Drake’s catalog, instead offering “Not Like Us” as a result. It also claims the company used bots to burnish the song’s numbers.
The Texas case is similar, but adds iHeartRadio to the list of companies at issue. That petition brings up the specter of suing for defamation over the Kendrick Lamar diss track.
The document names iHeartRadio as possibly being the recipient of payola from Universal Music Group as part of an alleged illegal plan to get “Not Like Us” on the airwaves.
Universal has strongly denied all of Drake’s claims.
