Drake adds Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl performance to his lawsuit against record label | CBC News (2025)

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· Posted: Apr 17, 2025 1:44 PM EDT | Last Updated: April 17

Drake has expanded his defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group, saying more people were duped into believing he was a pedophile after rapper Kendrick Lamar performed Not Like Usduring the Super Bowl halftime show and at the Grammy Awards.

In an amended complaint filed late Wednesday night against his record label, Drake said the performances introduced millions of new listeners to Lamar's smash hit, and have led to more threats against the Canadian rapper and his family.

Drake said this occurred even though Lamar omitted the word "pedophile" from his Super Bowl performance, seen by more than 133 million people, ostensibly because "nearly everyone understands" it was defamatory.

"It was the first, and will hopefully be the last, Super Bowl halftime show orchestrated to assassinate the character of another artist," Drake said in the lawsuit.

Not Like Us also includes the lyric "Drake, I hear you like 'em young," which Lamar sang at the Super Bowl.

In a statement on Thursday, UMG called Drake's accusations baseless and his lawsuit an affront to creative expression.

"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," UMG said.

"It is shameful that these foolish and frivolous legal theatrics continue. They are reputationally and financially costly to Drake and have no chance of success."

Allegation UMG boosted Lamar's music

UMG had sought to dismiss Drake's original lawsuit,filed on Jan. 15 in a Manhattan federal court, and will have a chance to dismiss the amended lawsuit.

Drake is seeking unspecified damages, alleging UMG tried to boost its profit and make him a pariah by promoting Lamar. He alleges in the suitthat the promotion of Not Like Us contributed to incidents of violence targeting Drake's Toronto home, such as intruders shooting a security guard and two attempted break-ins.

In the amended lawsuit, he alleges that UMG"made significant financial investments and leveraged its professional connections" to arrange specifically for Not Like Usto be performed at the Super Bowl. The latest version also adds more online comments, indicating people believe the pedophilia allegations.

Drake furtheralleged that the Super Bowl performance introduced the song to "millions more who had never before heard the song or anyof the songs that preceded it."

"UMG will be held accountable for the consequences of its ill-conceived decisions," Drake's lawyer Michael Gottlieb said in a statement.

The amended lawsuit notes that defamatory portions of Not Like Uswere also played at the Grammy Awards in February, when the single won five awards, including song and record of the year. The suit claims that Universal Music also helped secure the Grammy nominations and allowed the song to be played at the ceremony.

Drake, whosegiven name is Aubrey Drake Graham, and Lamar have feuded for about a decade, including through a series of competing diss tracks.

Not Like Us—which topped Billboard's Hot 100 for three weeks—was released onMay 4 of last year, one day after Drake's Family Mattersappeared to accuse Lamar of physical abuse andinfidelity, and questioned the parentage of one of his children.

In its initial motion to dismiss the lawsuit, Universal Music says Drake helped fuel the beef with his own inflammatory diss tracks aimed at 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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