Hip hop celebrity Drake is now complaining about rival rapper Kendrick Lamar’s efficiency of “Not Like Us” at this 12 months’s Super Bowl, including it to his defamation lawsuit towards Universal Music Group over the diss monitor and its allegations of pedophilia towards Drake.
“The Recording was carried out in the course of the 2025 Super Bowl and broadcast to the most important viewers for a Super Bowl halftime present ever, over 133 million folks, together with hundreds of thousands of youngsters, and hundreds of thousands extra who had by no means earlier than heard the tune or any of the songs that preceded it,” says the amended lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal courtroom in Manhattan.
It provides, “It was the primary, and can hopefully be the final, Super Bowl halftime present orchestrated to assassinate the character of one other artist.”
Although Lamar eliminated the phrase “pedophile” that is within the monitor in the course of the halftime present, the truth that it was omitted confirmed that “nearly everyone understands that it is defamatory,” the swimsuit says. It additionally alleges Universal Music used monetary advantages and leveraged enterprise relationships to safe the headliner spot for Lamar on the Super Bowl, and promoted the efficiency.
“Drake’s amended complaint makes an already strong case stronger,” his lawyer, Michael Gottlieb, mentioned in a press release. “Drake will expose the proof of UMG’s misconduct, and UMG shall be held accountable for the results of its ill-conceived selections.”
This 12 months’s Super Bowl and its halftime present have been the most-watched ever, based on Nielsen.
In a press release responding to the courtroom submitting, Universal Music, the guardian file label of each artists, continued to disclaim Drake’s allegations.
“Drake, unquestionably one of the world’s most accomplished artists and with whom we’ve enjoyed a 16-year successful relationship, is being misled by his legal representatives into taking one absurd legal step after another,” the company said. “It is shameful that these foolish and frivolous legal theatrics continue.”
The amended lawsuit additionally provides that defamatory parts of “Not Like Us” have been performed on the Grammy Awards in February, when the only gained 5 awards, together with tune and file of the 12 months. The swimsuit claims that Universal Music additionally helped safe the Grammy nominations and allowed the tune to be performed on the ceremony.
Drake sued Universal Music, however not Lamar, for undisclosed damages in January, saying the corporate printed and promoted “Not Like Us” regardless of its false pedophilia allegations and solutions that listeners ought to resort to vigilante justice.
The outcome, the swimsuit says, was intruders capturing a safety guard at Drake’s Toronto house and two tried break-ins there, on-line hate and harassment, a success to his repute and a lower in his model’s worth earlier than his contract renegotiation with UMG this 12 months. The amended lawsuit additionally provides extra on-line feedback indicating folks imagine the pedophilia allegations.
Drake, a 38-year-old Canadian rapper and singer and five-time Grammy winner, and Lamar, a 37-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner with 22 Grammy wins, have been beefing for years. The feud is among the many greatest in hip hop lately.
The two have been occasional collaborators greater than a decade in the past, however Lamar started taking public jabs at Drake beginning in 2013. The combat escalated steeply final 12 months, as each launched diss tracks at one another, together with Lamar’s “Not Like Us.”
“Say, Drake, I hear you like ’em young / You better not ever go to cell block one,” Lamar raps.
In its movement to dismiss the lawsuit, Universal Music says Drake helped gas the meat along with his personal inflammatory diss tracks geared toward Lamar.
“Plaintiff, one of the most successful recording artists of all time, lost a rap battle that he provoked and in which he willingly participated,” the motion says. “Instead of accepting the loss like the unbothered rap artist he often claims to be, he has sued his own record label in a misguided attempt to salve his wounds.”
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