Drake (Rapper)

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    Universal Music Calls Drake’s ‘Not Like Us’ Lawsuit ‘Misguided’

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    The label behind Drake and Kendrick Lamar filed a motion on Monday to dismiss Drake’s lawsuit, which accused it of defamation and harassment over the diss song.With the Drake takedown “Not Like Us,” by Kendrick Lamar, now officially the most celebrated rap diss ever, the record label behind both artists is seeking to dismiss Drake’s defamation lawsuit, arguing that its lyrics are merely “a series of hyperbolic insults,” the lingua franca of any hip-hop feud.In a filing on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the company, known as UMG, provided its first substantial response to the lawsuit brought in January on behalf of Drake, the artist born Aubrey Drake Graham. He accused the label of defamation and harassment, claiming that Lamar’s track “intended to convey the specific, unmistakable, and false factual allegation that Drake is a criminal pedophile, and to suggest that the public should resort to vigilante justice in response.”Last month, “Not Like Us,” which accuses Drake of liking young girls, among other personal attacks, won five Grammy Awards, including song and record of the year, and provided the centerpiece for Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime performance.According to UMG, Drake “lost a rap battle that he provoked and in which he willingly participated” and then “sued his own record label in a misguided attempt to salve his wounds.” The label, citing in its filing lyrics by both artists tied to last year’s heavyweight fight, added that Drake had leveled “similarly incendiary attacks at Lamar” and that the tone and context of the back-and-forth made the defamation claim impossible to prove.The lawsuit, UMG said in its filing, “disregards the other Drake and Lamar diss tracks that surrounded ‘Not Like Us’ as well as the conventions of the diss track genre,” adding: “diss tracks are a popular and celebrated artform centered around outrageous insults, and they would be severely chilled if Drake’s suit were permitted to proceed.”In the suit, lawyers for Drake had argued that “Not Like Us” was beyond the pale of a typical rap beef because the song’s accusations were framed as fact — for instance, using as its cover art a map of Drake’s home with sex offender markers superimposed on top — and that it led to real world violence, citing a shooting at the residence days after the song’s release that injured a security guard, calling it “the 2024 equivalent of ‘Pizzagate.’” The claim also cited two other attempted trespassers in the days that followed.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Drake Postpones 4 Australia and New Zealand Tour Dates

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      Dates for Brisbane, Sydney and Auckland were postponed for a “scheduling conflict,” representatives for the rapper said. The tour coincided with the release of his latest album.Drake, whose new album topped the Billboard 200 chart this week after Kendrick Lamar had made him a punchline at the Super Bowl halftime show, has canceled four tour dates in Australia and New Zealand because of a “scheduling conflict,” representatives for the rapper said on Wednesday.It was not immediately clear what the conflict was, but Drake’s team said it would work to reschedule the dates along with adding additional shows.“We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience,” Drake’s representatives said in a statement. “Drake and the entire team have had an incredible time doing these shows and are excited to return soon. We look forward to sharing the rescheduled dates with you as soon as possible.”The Anita Max Win Tour kicked off this month in Perth, Australia, and was scheduled to have 16 shows across major cities in the country and New Zealand.But Drake canceled a March 4 show in Brisbane, a March 7 show in Sydney and two shows in mid-March in Auckland, New Zealand.The tour coincided with the release of his latest album, “Some Sexy Songs 4 U,” a collaboration with PartyNextDoor, a longtime Drake associate. The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 this week.It was the first new album since his much-publicized beef with Lamar, whose diss track “Not Like Us” accused Drake of pedophilia. Drake sued Universal Music Group for defamation for releasing and promoting the song. His lawsuit called the allegations in the song false and accused the label of valuing “corporate greed over the safety and well-being of its artists.”But the song has continued to grow. This month Lamar won five Grammy Awards for the song, including song and record of the year, and performed it to a huge global audience at the Super Bowl halftime show.Joe Coscarelli More

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      Drake and PartyNextDoor’s ‘Some Sexy Songs 4 U’ Is No. 1

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      Their collaborative album “Some Sexy Songs 4 U” opens atop the Billboard 200, unseating his foe Kendrick Lamar’s “GNX,” which surged after the Super Bowl halftime show.News flash: Drake’s music is not dead.Although the Canadian rapper, the longtime prince of streaming, was badly pummeled in a diss-track war with Kendrick Lamar last year, and two weeks ago Lamar performed Exhibit A of that fight — the vicious “Not Like Us” — at the Super Bowl halftime show, Drake’s latest album has sailed to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.“Some Sexy Songs 4 U,” a collaborative album with the singer and producer PartyNextDoor — with scant reference to Drake’s feud with Lamar — was released on Valentine’s Day and opens at the top of the latest chart. It had the equivalent of 246,000 sales in the United States, including 287 million streams and 25,000 copies sold as a complete package, according to the tracking service Luminate.It is Drake’s 14th title to go to No. 1, counting collaborative releases, which ties him with Jay-Z and Taylor Swift for the most albums by a solo act to reach the top of Billboard’s chart. (The Beatles have more No. 1 albums than anybody, solo or group, with 19.)The release of “Some Sexy Songs” also came after Drake sued Universal Music Group, the giant label behind him and Lamar, for defamation in “Not Like Us” (which was lightly censored at the Super Bowl). His joint album was released by Republic, a Universal label, along with OVO Sound, a Drake imprint, which is distributed through Sony Music, a Universal competitor.The numbers for “Some Sexy Songs” are modest for Drake, whose knack for taking over streaming services has made him one of the top-selling artists of the last decade-plus. Its 246,000 “album equivalents” last week — a composite figure that combines popularity on streaming with old-fashioned unit sales — is considerably lower than the opening-week totals for Drake’s last two releases, “For All the Dogs” (402,000 in 2023) and “Her Loss,” a joint album with 21 Savage (404,000 in 2022). But it is better than the 204,000 he had for “Honestly, Nevermind” in 2022 — still his lowest opening-week number for a studio LP — and the 109,000 for “Care Package,” a 2019 collection of non-album tracks.Also this week, Sabrina Carpenter’s “Short n’ Sweet” rises five spots to No. 2 after the release of an expanded version, and Lamar’s “GNX” falls two to No. 3, after it returned to the top slot in the week following his triumphant Super Bowl appearance. SZA’s “SOS” is No. 4 and Bad Bunny’s “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” is in fifth place. More

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      Drake’s Tentative Comeback, Plus: New Music From the Weeknd and More

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTubeLast week saw the release of “Some Sexy Songs 4 U,” the collaborative album from Drake and the Toronto R&B singer and songwriter PartyNextDoor, a longtime collaborator. For the most part, the sound is a vintage one for Drake, feeling something like a retreat to a comfort zone: moody heartbreak soul bathed in self-loathing and suspicion.It’s an album that, from a distance, appears to exist in a space totally parallel to the dominant narrative of his last year, which is the toxic and very popular beef he’s had with Kendrick Lamar, which seemed to culminate this month with Lamar’s five Grammy wins for “Not Like Us,” followed by his performance of the song at the Super Bowl halftime show.But there are a handful of songs on this new album that suggest Drake is already looking at musical pathways forward, or away, from that bumpy stretch.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about Drake’s post-Kendrick predicament and the ways he might move on. Plus: a host of promising new albums that have brightened up the beginning of the year from artists like the Weeknd, Central Cee, Oklou, Skaiwater and OsamaSon.Guest:Joe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporterConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica.Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. More

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      Sabrina Carpenter Flirts With Country, and 12 More New Songs

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      Hear Dolly Parton duet with the young star and tracks from Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco, plus Drake and PartyNextDoor.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Sabrina Carpenter featuring Dolly Parton, ‘Please Please Please’Sabrina Carpenter teases out the latent country elements of her slick synth-pop smash “Please Please Please” on this rework from the new deluxe edition of her Grammy-winning album “Short n’ Sweet.” Lightly brushed percussion replaces the original’s insistent, syncopated smacks, while fiddle embellishments take the place of electric guitar licks. But what’s most interesting about this version is how little needs to be changed to make “Please Please Please” work as a convincing country tune — although it certainly helps to have none other than Dolly Parton providing high harmony. “I beg you, don’t embarrass me like the others,” Carpenter and Parton sing together on a cleaned-up rewrite of the chorus’s most irreverent line. Which is to say that although Parton is willing to meet the young star on Carpenter’s turf, she still has decorous boundaries. LINDSAY ZOLADZSelena Gomez and Benny Blanco, ‘Scared of Loving You’Billie Eilish’s brother, Finneas, is behind the scenes as collaborating songwriter and producer on the quietly imploring “Scared of Loving You.” It’s a folky ballad, with a glockenspiel tinkling behind an acoustic guitar and piano, as Selena Gomez sings — just above a whisper — about an obsessive infatuation. “How could they love you as much as I do?,” she sings, along with a worrisome line: “Don’t let ‘em send me back.” Is this a romance or a stalking situation? JON PARELESPartyNextDoor and Drake, ‘Somebody Loves Me’It’s unlikely that many people were clamoring for a Valentine from Drake this year, but he’s offering one up just the same: “Some Sexy Songs 4 U,” a 21-track collaborative album with longtime Canadian collaborator PartyNextDoor. These 74 minutes are heavy on amorphous braying, broken up by several interesting genre experiments: Drake and Party fully embrace traditional Mexican sounds on “Meet Your Padre,” which features the young urban sierreño star Chino Pacas; and they’re joined by the R&B singer Yebba on “Die Trying,” a bouncy, acoustic-guitar-driven pop number. The single “Somebody Loves Me” isn’t exactly a standout, but it’s representative of much of the album’s mid-tempo, melancholic sound. “Who’s out there for me?” Drake croons through auto-tune; the question echoes unanswered in the song’s cold, nocturnal atmosphere. ZOLADZObongjayar, ‘Not in Surrender’The Nigerian-born, England-based songwriter Obongjayar celebrates a deep connection in “Not in Surrender,” declaring, “I only want this, this hallelujah / For the rest of my life.” He starts out singing over a brisk bass riff and snappy drums, and Karma Kid’s production keeps adding layers of percussion and guitars to stoke a mounting euphoria. PARELESAlessia Cara, ‘Dead Man’The resentment keeps increasing in “Dead Man,” an I’ve-had-enough song from Alessia Cara’s new album, “Love & Hyperbole.” As it does, the music grows more retro, moving through boom-bap drums to piano-pounding neo-soul, all the way to a brassy big-band arrangement that gives her annoyance some muscular swing. PARELESWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Drake’s New Valentine’s Day Album Pivots From Kendrick Lamar Beef

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      The Valentine’s Day release, a collaboration with PartyNextDoor, tries on different styles (acoustic pop, traditional Mexican) while only alluding to Kendrick Lamar.Following a Grammy Awards and a Super Bowl halftime show in which he featured heavily in absentia — at least as a punchline — life goes on for Drake, who released his first new album on Friday since his much-publicized beef with Kendrick Lamar.The album, “Some Sexy Songs 4 U,” a collaboration with PartyNextDoor, a longtime Drake associate with success as an enigmatic R&B singer, pop songwriter and producer, was released via multiple record companies at a fraught moment: Drake is currently suing his own label, Universal Music Group, or UMG, for defamation and harassment.In a lawsuit filed last month, lawyers for the Toronto rapper, born Aubrey Graham, said that UMG’s release and promotion of Lamar’s diss track and No. 1 smash “Not Like Us,” which accuses Drake of pedophilia, was an example of valuing “corporate greed over the safety and well-being of its artists.”Still, the release of “Some Sexy Songs 4 U” seemed to be business as usual, as UMG (and its Republic flagship) are credited with the release. The album is also credited to OVO Sound, Drake’s boutique label and the home of PartyNextDoor. OVO Sound is distributed by the Santa Anna Label Group, a subsidiary of UMG’s corporate rival, Sony Music.Representatives for Drake, who is on tour in Australia, and UMG did not respond to requests for comment.“Not Like Us” won five Grammys this month, including song and record of the year. A week later, it was the centerpiece of Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show, in which Lamar rapped “Say, Drake, I hear you like ’em young” but stopped short of performing the line calling Drake and his crew “certified pedophiles,” replacing the controversial designation with a prerecorded scream.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Breaking Down Kendrick Lamar’s Drake-centric Super Bowl Halftime Show

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTubeOn Sunday in New Orleans, Kendrick Lamar became the first solo rapper to headline the Super Bowl halftime show, performing a medley of hits, deep cuts and Drake disses.Writing in The New York Times, the critic Jon Caramanica called it both “curiously low-key” and, in the case of the climactic use “Not Like Us,” complete with a Serena Williams cameo, “quite a spectacle — perhaps the peak of any rap battle, ever.”Immediately after the game, on an emergency episode of Popcast, we discussed the way Lamar’s beef with Drake provided the momentum of the performance; the cameos from SZA, Samuel L. Jackson and Williams; the rest of the set list, including an unreleased, fan-favorite track (and no “Alright”); the surprise leak of the show a few days early; the protester who unveiled a flag for Gaza and Sudan; and whether this is finally the end of the biggest beef in hip-hop history.Connect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica.Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. More

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      The Messy Modern Music Business, According to Larry Jackson

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicThe music executive Larry Jackson, a founder of the entertainment company Gamma, has seen several sea changes in the recording business from different vantages over different eras of disruption.As head of A&R at Arista Records/RCA Music Group under Clive Davis, he oversaw albums by Whitney Houston and Jennifer Hudson while CDs were giving way to the iTunes Store. At Interscope, alongside Jimmy Iovine, he helped sign Chief Keef and Lana Del Rey as YouTube made new stars. As the global creative director at Apple Music, Jackson partnered with artists like Drake, Frank Ocean and Taylor Swift to bring streaming to the masses, while competing with Spotify — and the major labels.On this week’s episode of Popcast, Jackson spoke with the hosts Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli about a topsy-turvy year in music — headlined by the battle between Kendrick Lamar and Drake — and how Jackson is applying lessons from his label days to whatever the industry has become.Connect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. More

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      Best Songs of 2024

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      Listen to 68 tracks that made major statements, boosted big beefs, propelled up-and-comers and soundtracked the party this year.Jon Pareles | Jon Caramanica | Lindsay ZoladzJon ParelesA Little Strife, a Lot of RhythmHere’s a dipperful of worthwhile tracks from the ocean of music released this year. The top of my list is big-statement songs, ones that had repercussions beyond how they sound. Below those, it’s not a ranking but a playlist, a more-or-less guided cruise through what 2024 sounded like for one avid listener. I didn’t include any songs from my list of top albums, which are worth hearing from start to finish. But in the multiverse of streaming music, there are plenty of other possibilities.1. Kendrick Lamar, ‘Not Like Us’Belligerent, accusatory and as tribalistic as its title, “Not Like Us” wasn’t an attack ad from the 2024 election. It was the coup de gras of Kendrick Lamar’s beef with Drake, a rapid-fire, sneering assault on multiple fronts. Its spirit dovetailed with a bitterly contentious 2024.2. Beyoncé, ‘Texas Hold ’Em’“Texas Hold ’Em” isn’t just an invocation of Beyoncé’s home state. It’s a toe-tapping taunt at the racial and musical assumptions behind country music as defined by record labels and radio stations. Rhiannon Giddens picks an oh-so-traditional claw-hammer banjo intro and Beyoncé — raised in Texas — promises “a real-life boogie and a real-life hoedown,” singing about drinking and dancing and daring gatekeepers to hold her back.3. Sabrina Carpenter, ‘Please Please Please’Sabrina Carpenter delivers a sharp message on the slick “Please Please Please.”Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesComedy is tricky in a straight-faced song, but Sabrina Carpenter’s eye-roll comes clearly through the shiny pop of “Please Please Please.” The singer tries to placate and possibly tame a boyfriend who sounds more obnoxious in every verse. “I beg you, don’t embarrass me,” she coos; eventually she reaches a breaking point.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More