LOS ANGELES — Drake claims he was defamed by Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show, and at the Grammy Awards, where over 100 million combined television viewers heard Lamar’s notorious diss track “Not Like Us,” according to court filings.
The Canadian rapper levied the new allegations Wednesday in an expanded federal defamation lawsuit against his own record label, Universal Music Group. Drake originally filed the lawsuit in connection with the track in January.
“These prestigious and high-exposure events introduced new listeners” to the allegedly defamatory song, Drake’s lawyers wrote in the latest filing. “Not only did streams of the Recording increase significantly following these two mega-cultural events, but threats against Drake and his family did as well.”
Drake’s current label is Republic Records, a division of UMG. Lamar – who is not named in the lawsuit – is an Interscope Records artist, also a division of UMG. Drake’s amended complaint does not accuse Pulitzer Prize-winner Lamar of …