Drake first involved lawyers in what was otherwise a purely music-based conflict just before Thanksgiving 2024, when he submitted a bombshell pre-action filing to New York court accusing UMG — to which he’s been signed for the entirety of his career — of inorganically boosting the streams on “Not Like Us” through bots, payola and other methods designed to “deceive consumers into believing the song was more popular than it was in reality.”

“UMG’s schemes … were motivated, at least in part, by the desire of executives at Interscope to maximize their own profits,” Drake’s attorneys wrote. “Executives at Interscope have been incentivized to maximize the financial success of Interscope through the promotion of ‘Not Like Us’ and its revitalizing impact on the artist’s prior recording catalog.”

The star also alleged that he’d previously tried to resolve the issue with UMG behind the scenes, but that the company had “no interest in taking responsibility for its misconduct” and had even gone as far as firing employees “perceived as having loyalty to Drake.”

In a statement to Billboard, UMG quickly and emphatically denied the accusations against the company in Drake’s first filing. “The suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue,” a spokesperson said. “We employ the highest ethical practices in our marketing and promotional campaigns. No amount of contrived and absurd legal arguments in this pre-action submission can mask the fact that fans choose the music they want to hear.”

Spotify declined at the time to comment on the allegations involving the streaming service.

Just one day later, Drake turned to Texas court to file a second motion against UMG, this time alleging defamation and claiming that the corporation had wrongfully allowed for the release of a song “falsely accusing him of being a sex offender.” The rapper’s legal team also named iHeartRadio as UMG’s co-conspirators in a “pay-to-play” scheme to promote “Not Like Us” on airwaves, alleging that Universal had operated “with the intent of using the spectacle of harm to Drake and his businesses to drive consumer hysteria and, of course, massive revenues.”

“UMG … could have refused to release or distribute the song or required the offending material to be edited and/or removed,” attorneys for Drake added. “Before it approved the release of the song, UMG knew that the song itself, as well as its accompanying album art and music video, attacked the character of another one of UMG’s most prominent artists, Drake, by falsely accusing him of being a sex offender, engaging in pedophilic acts, harboring sex offenders and committing other criminal sexual acts.”

Nearly a month after Drake first brought Spotify into the mix by naming the company in his first legal action against UMG, the streaming service hit back with a response motion filed to Manhattan court calling the musician’s claims “false,” “far-fetched” and “speculative.”

“What petitioner is seeking to do here … is to bypass the normal pleading requirements … and obtain by way of pre-action discovery that which it would only be entitled to seek were it to survive a motion to dismiss,” Spotify’s lawyers wrote of the nature of Drake’s filing, criticizing his choice to submit a pre-action petition aimed at demanding information. “This subversion of the normal judicial process should be rejected.”

In a statement to Billboard shortly after Spotify’s response filing, Drake’s legal team wrote, “It is not surprising that Spotify is trying to distance themselves from UMG’s allegedly manipulative practices to artificially inflate streaming numbers on behalf of one of its other artists.”

The rapper’s attorneys also defended Drake’s right to go the pre-action petition route, writing, “If Spotify and UMG have nothing to hide then they should be perfectly fine complying with this basic discovery request.”

After nearly two months of quiet in the wake of his first legal action against UMG and Spotify, Drake voluntarily withdrew his original filing to New York court “without costs to any party.” He did not, however, withdraw his Texas court filing against UMG and iHeart, which remained pending as of Jan. 14, 2025.

As it turned out, the rapper’s dropping of the motion ended up being a procedural move for what would happen the following day …

Any sense that Drake was backing down from his legal pursuits because of his withdrawal the day prior quickly dissipated Jan. 15, when the star launched a full-blown defamation lawsuit against UMG for boosting the “false and malicious narrative” that he is a pedophile — which he alleges has put his life in danger. Citing a drive-by shooting that left a security guard seriously injured at the hitmaker’s Toronto home, Drake’s team likened the situation to “Pizzagate” and wrote that UMG had deceitfully and recklessly promoted “Not Like Us” at the expense of Drake’s image, and consequently his safety from violence and harassment.

“UMG intentionally sought to turn Drake into a pariah, a target for harassment, or worse,” his lawyers blasted the label in a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court. “UMG did so not because it believes any of these false claims to be true, but instead because it would profit from damaging Drake’s reputation.”

The suit also stressed that the case was not aimed at Lamar himself, despite the “Humble” artist having composed the allegedly damaging song in question. “UMG may spin this complaint as a rap beef gone legal,” Drake’s attorneys wrote. “But this lawsuit is not about a war of words between artists.”

In a statement obtained by Billboard, UMG vehemently denied the claims the rapper made in his lawsuit, writing, “We have not and do not engage in defamation — against any individual.”

“We have invested massively in his music and our employees around the world have worked tirelessly for many years to help him achieve historic commercial and personal financial success,” the company continued. “Throughout his career, Drake has intentionally and successfully used UMG to distribute his music and poetry to engage in conventionally outrageous back-and-forth ‘rap battles’ to express his feelings about other artists. He now seeks to weaponize the legal process to silence an artist’s creative expression and to seek damages from UMG for distributing that artist’s music.”