Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS. Oh, now it makes sense. Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Wednesday, the twelfth of February.
I'm Emma, I'm Zara.
From Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni to Jay Z Diddy and Prince Harry. Celebrity lawsuits have dominated the headlines in recent months. Another high profile case is back in the spotlight, though, this week, after Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl halftime performance. Lamar's disc track not Like Us is the subject of a
defamation lawsuit filed by Drake last month. Today, we'll take you through everything you need to know about this long running Drake Kendrick feud and the latest developments on this lawsuit.
M This is one of those stories that we have received a lot of messages about, asking us to break it down, explain it, especially, as you said, in light of the Super Bowl where everyone was talking about this Kendrick Lamar Drake feud and subsequent lawsuit For anyone that might not be up to date, and for all those people that have slid into our dms. Where does this story begin.
So it's been nearly a year since this feud or this story really started gaining global attention. In case you missed it, American rapper Kendrick Lamar Canadian rapper Drake real name Aubrey Graham were engaged in this serious fight last year that took the form of diss tracks.
So they began distrack.
A distrack is part of hip hop law of generations gone by, where artists will have feuds maybe about where they're from, the kind of music that they're making, and they express those feuds in the form of song. So Drake and Kendrick began exchanging insults through a series of these distracks, and that's soon escalated to personal attacks. It moved really quickly, so you could be forgiven at the time for not quite keeping up with all these tracks.
That's me.
There were multiple songs being released honestly days apart, and that kind of all came to a head in May, so Kendrick dropped back to back tracks aimed at Drake. Drake released a song called Family Matters where he alleged that Kendrick Lamar physically abused his partner. So the lyric in question is they hired a crisis management team to clean up the fact that you beat on your queen.
He rapped worth lagging here that there haven't been any other similar allegations against Kendrick made in public just in Drake's songs, and within minutes, Lamar released the song Meet the Grahams, where he accused Drake of employing sex offenders. The lyrics compared Drake to form a film producer and convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein and urged people to quote keep their family away from him. The day after Kendrick released Meet the Grahams, he dropped not Like Us Now. This
is the song in question. This song is the subject of a defamation lawsuit filed by Drake last month. Now, in terms of where this all started, why they hate each other so much, it seems in the first place, it might be hard to believe now that there was a time when Drake and Kendrick Lamar might have been friends. They featured in music together, they shared tour stages, but that was short lived, and they've been feuding pretty much
ever since twenty thirteen. I do think it's important to kind of acknowledge that rap is a genre of music famous for egos and big personalities and feuds. You know, think Big in Tupac, jay Z and Nas fifty cent and Kanye. So this is kind of a long standing tradition in the genre, but it has gone a little bit further.
So.
Kendrick featured on a Big Sean song in twenty thirteen called Control There with Me Where. On that song he called out Drake, J Cole and a host of other rappers, warning them quote, I got love for you all, but I'm trying to murder you. In an interview with Billboard, Drake dismissed Kendrick's words as an ambitious thought and basically he said there's no way that Kendrick was kind of ever going to succeed more than him or ever be a better or bigger rapper than him. Now, over the
next few years, they exchanged jabs pretty harmless. It never seemed that serious. And then in twenty twenty three, rapper J Cole featured on a Drake song called First Person Shooter, where he referred to himself and Drake and Kendrick as raps big three. So this idea that J Cole, Drake and Kenny are the three most kind of consequential or
popular rappers of their time. In March twenty twenty four, If You're Still with Me, a hidden track with an uncredited verse by Kendrick popped up on an album from producer Metro Boomen and rapper Future. Kendrick rapped that there was no Big Three, It's just Big Me. A lot more was said on that song, but I won't bore you with all of the detail. All you need to know really is that that lit a fuse for Drake.
It seems j Cole released a disc track in response to that about Kendrick, but he later described it as a misstep, apologized took it all back. So the Big Three became the Big two, and it seems like there was kind of no going back for Kendrick and Drake from that point.
Okay, so they've obviously exchanged strong words on a number of occasions through a number of distracks. But why is not like us the song that you said is the subject of this defamation suit. Why is that song any different to anything else that's happened.
Yes, so you could argue there are two reasons for the focus being on this song, and the first is its lyrics and the second is its popularity. We'll start with the lyrics, which drake claims include false allegations that he's a pedophile. So some of the lyrics include Drake, I hear you like him young, make sure you hide your little sister from him trying to strike a chord, and it's probably a minor, certified lover boy, certified pedophile.
That's a lyric in reference to Drake's twenty twenty one album. And then the popular plority of this song is relevant to the legal action that will get too shortly.
Because that song blew up.
It absolutely blew up. It's skyrocketed to the top of the charts. It became Spotify's most streamed American hip hop song in a single day, and at the time of recording, not Like Us is well on its way to one point one billion streams on Spotify. To put that into perspective, Kendrick is, you know, a long time popular figure in rap music. He has twenty two Grammys to his name.
He is a Pulitzer Prize winning artist. He's been releasing music for well over a decade, but in less than a year, not Like Us has become one of his most streamed songs, and in terms of its critical success, the track won all five categories. It was nominated in at the recent Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year.
That was a big one. Yeah, And so that song was released in May, but the lawsuit didn't emerge until January of the following year. What happened in between them?
So in the months between the release of not Like Us this lawsuit, the few didn't go away. There was plenty happening. A security guard was shot outside Drake's home in Toronto. There were also several attempted break ins and trespassing incidents at that house last year. And in November, Drake filed but then withdrew, a legal claim against Universal
Music Group. Both he and Kendrick have deals with UMG to publish their music, and that claim accused Universal of using bots to inflate the streaming numbers of not Like Us. Interesting the label denied those allegations and that action was dropped.
And so that brings us to this year when Drake filed defamation action. And what do we need to know about this lawsuit?
So Kendrick wrote and produced the song, but he is not the one being sued. As with that previous petition, Drake is actually suing Universal. So the Canadian rapper is alleging that the song not Like Us suggests he is a pedophile, which he denies, and UMG's publicity of the song is defamatory. Specifically, Drake alleges that the song was quote in tended to convey the specific, unmistakable and false actual allegation that he is a criminal pedophile and to
suggest that the public should resort to vigilante justice in response. Now, Kendrick and Drake have a deal with Universal that means it publishes and promotes their music in exchange for a percentage of streaming and sales revenue. So Drake alleges that Universal publicized not Like Us as much as possible for profit to profit off those big streaming numbers. Legal documents say this lawsuit is not about the artist who created
the song. It's instead entirely about Universal Music Group, which decided to quote, publish, promote, exploit, and monetize allegations that it understood were not only false but dangerous. Drake alleges UMG worked to make the song ubiquitous so that it's not just fans of rap who now believe he is a quote certified pedophile, but also that the broader kind of community, that broad pop culture, the new cycle audiences
around the world that we're talking about it. And Drake has also alleged that Universal organized for Kendrick Lamar to perform the song at this week's Super Bowl halftime show.
Yeah. I mean that's the big talking point here, that all eyes were on Kendrick Lamar as he performed at the halftime show. We were all watching in the office trying to figure out if he was going to perform this, if he was going to be allowed to perform it. He ultimately did perform the song. Talk me through what happened.
Yes, So, as you mentioned, Zara, there was a lot of speculation, will he won't here? Are we going to hear this song? Kendrick did give us a little teaser early in the performance and he said.
This, I want to perform their favorite song. But you know they loved a super.
Fans were then in overdrive wondering what that meant. But he did eventually give them what they wanted and performed part of the track, including some of the controversial lyrics, but he stopped short of using the word pedophile.
I hear you like make sure you had your bills system from sort of fun number points Fun, you tie your trying to strike report, and I'm curious to hear what Universal has said about this. I mean, in the lawsuit that you just spread out, Drake is very clearly calling out their role, or at least what he alleged ess to be their role in all of this. What has their response been.
Yeah, it's an interesting one because, as we've discussed, you know, this is a music label that publishes for both artists in question here, so tricky and unlike anything I've really seen in the public eye. UMG said that it plans to fight the lawsuit. It says, quote, Drake has intentionally and successfully used Universal to engage in conventionally outrageous back and forth rap battles to express his feelings about other artists.
It said, he now seeks to weaponize the legal process to silence an artist's creative expression and to seek damages from the label for distributing that artist music.
Has Drake done other dis tracks about other artists before.
Yes, Drake is well known throughout his many many years of not being shy when it comes to distracks. There have been so many artists in the firing line. Even some of these distracts about Kendrick have also criticized other artists, including The Weekend, so it's not unusual for him as an artist to use that form of expression. Universal has also said, not only are these claims untrue, but the notion that we would seek to harm the reputation of
any artist, let alone Drake, is illogical. It noted the label has invested massively to use its words in Drake, helping him quote achieve historic commercial and personal financial success. We have not and do not, engage in defamation against any individual, the statement concluded. Now, coincidentally, Drake is here in Australia right now.
Is he just thought he'd be on a different time zone to watch the super Bols? Yeah, exactly.
So, I mean he's away from the chaos in the US and the interest in him there. But I'm sure local fans are waiting to see what he might have to say. He's doing a huge run of stadium shows over the next four weeks, so there will be plenty of local interest and local attention to see what he does next and if this escalates.
Look, it's a really interesting story. And again, you know celebrities, that's not really our arena, but I think how this sort of story interacts with the legal system and the ramifications and the precedent that might be set. That is really what makes this so newsworthy. And you know everyone is talking about and I now better understand it. So thanks for explaining that.
Aam a pleasure. Thank you, and thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Daily Hours. If you learned something, feel free to share it with a friend. Don't forget to follow or subscribe wherever you are listening to the podcast or if you're watching us over on YouTube. We'll be back a little later on today with your evening headlines, but until then, have a good one.
My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Arunda Banjelung Kalkadin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and torrest Rate island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.