Drake has secured a major legal win in his ongoing battle with you Universal Music Group (UMG).
On Wednesday (April 2), Judge Jeanette Vargas ruled in favor of Drake’s legal team, beginning the discovery process in his lawsuit against UMG over his claims regarding Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” during a pre-trial conference in a New York courtroom.
Now, the Toronto native’s legal counsel can begin requesting document production and conducting depositions with key executives at UMG as a result of the record labels motion to delay discovery being denied.
NOT LIKE US: In Drake UMG Lawsuit About Kendrick Lamar's "Not Like Us," Discovery Is Not Stayed As Complaint Gets Amended – Inner City Press story: https://t.co/iUE8W0NU0u Extra/analysis on X for Subscribers and on Substack here: https://t.co/eKh5rd6ZHj pic.twitter.com/LpV5TbAKIX
— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) April 2, 2025
Immediately following the ruling, AllHipHop obtained a brief statement from Drake’s lead attorney, Michael Gottlieb.
“Now it’s time to see what UMG was so desperately trying to hide,” Gottlieb wrote in the statement.
The lates ruling follows weeks of bitter back-and-forth dialogue between both Drake’s legal team and UMG, via a string of legal filings. On March 17, Gottlieb called UMG “greedy” and “desperate” in response to the 32-page legal document UMG filed in which it categorized Drake’s lawsuit as an “unfounded complaint.”
“UMG wants to pretend that this is about a rap battle in order to distract its shareholders, artists and the public from a simple truth: a greedy company is finally being held responsible for profiting from dangerous misinformation that has already resulted in multiple acts of violence,” Gottlieb’s statement reads in part.
Additionally, on March 20, Drake’s legal team filed a court document which argued that UMG’s attempt to dismiss the defamation lawsuit relies on a flawed legal precedent, specifically, Michael Rapaport’s failed defamation case against Barstool Sports. While Rapaport’s case was dismissed because the court ruled that no reasonable person would interpret Barstool’s over-the-top attacks as literal truth, Drake’s attorneys argue that millions of people worldwide did, in fact, take Kendrick’s lyrics seriously.