Drake‘s court hearing for his legal battle against UMG over Kendrick Lamar‘s “Not Like Us” in Texas has been delayed due to a miscommunication.
The hearing was initially set for December 20, with intent to determine whether the superstar is allowed to depose people from iHeartRadio and UMG and ask them if they engaged in illegal activity around Kendrick’s chart-topping diss record.
According to journalist Bryson Paul, who was present at the court house, the hearing has been moved to January 13.
“They miscommunicated on the schedule after yesterday’s initial hearing got dropped and moved to January 13 by Drake’s attorney,” he wrote in a post to X. “He submitted a letter yesterday requesting new date. The petition isn’t dropped, just reschedule[d]. The clerks apologize.”
Alright, so here’s what happened. They miscommunicated on the schedule after yesterday’s initial hearing got dropped and moved to January 13 by Drake’s attorney. He submitted a letter yesterday requesting new date. The petition isn’t dropped, just reschedule. The clerks…
— Bryson “Boom” Paul (@brysonboompaul) December 20, 2024
The Texas filing is the second of two similar filings over “Not Like Us” that Drake made in November, but this one adding in iHeartRadio and alleging the company received payola from Universal Music Group to get the song on the airwaves.
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In addition, Drizzy claims that UMG released K.Dot’s now-Grammy-nominated song despite knowing that the track “falsely accus[es] him of being a sex offender.” The petition says that the Canadian superstar now has enough evidence to bring a defamation claim against the company.
The first petition, filed in a Manhattan court days earlier, alleges that UMG used bots, payola and other methods to inflate the song. The filing also alleges that the label paid Spotify to promote “Not Like Us” to users searching for unrelated songs and artists.
For that one, a judge is set to make a decision on January 16, 2025.
The delay arrives just after Spotify finally responded to Drake’s claims.
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According to Billboard, Spotify filed a formal response in Manhattan court on Friday (December 20) in which it vehemently denied Drake’s claims, calling them “far-fetched” and questioning why Spotify — a “stranger” to the feud between Drake and Kendrick — is even involved.
The company’s laywers claimed that there is zero evidence to support the rapper’s allegations of streaming bots or an illicit deal being struck between Spotify and UMG.
“The predicate of Petitioner’s entire request for discovery from Spotify is false,” the filing reads. “Spotify and UMG have never had any such arrangement.”
It adds: “The Petition asserts no specific facts of any kind in support of these alleged RICO and deceptive practices violations. Instead, it relies exclusively on speculation … or the claims of anonymous individuals on the internet.”
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The filing also criticized Drake for filing a pre-action petition instead of an actual lawsuit, claiming his allegations are too flimsy and would have been quickly dismissed in a lawsuit.
“This subversion of the normal judicial process should be rejected,” the streaming giant argues.
