Lucian Grainge‘s patience is seemingly wearing thin as Universal Music Group‘s legal battle with rapper Drake rumbles on. In a declaration letter, filed Thursday with the Southern District of New York and obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, the all-powerful head of UMG, the world’s biggest music company, fired back at Drake’s latest push to secure more documents related to the company’s relationship with Kendrick Lamar, describing the specific claims made by Drake as “farcical,” “nonsensical” and “groundless and indeed ridiculous,” with Grainge pointedly remarking that the company had spent “hundreds of millions” in supporting the Canadian rapper’s music career.
Earlier this week, Drake’s legal team made moves to find more ammunition in his defamation lawsuit against UMG. In a discovery bid, Drake urged the court to force UMG and Grainge to turn over the label’s contract with Lamar, as well as information relating to allegations of domestic violence and other alleged crimes committed by the Compton, California, rapper.
In his declaration letter, Grainge made clear he was not involved with the release and promotion of “Not Like Us” and also sought to make clear that UMG was not trying “devalue” Drake, one of its best-selling artists. Lamar (Interscope Records) and Drake (Republic Records) are represented by different divisions of UMG.
Grainge writes that “claims that I was behind a scheme to ‘devalue’ [Drake’s] brand through the release and promotion of the Kendrick Lamar recording ‘Not Like Us’ — an allegation that makes no sense due to the fact that the company that I run, Universal Music Group N.V., has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Drake, including longstanding and critical financial support for his recording career, the purchase and ownership of the bulk of his recording catalog, and the purchase of his music publishing rights.”
Further, Grainge said it “makes no sense whatsoever” that he was “in the weeds as to the release and promotion of any particular sound recording, from the thousands of UMG releases throughout the world” as his job encompassed “global strategy” at “a publicly traded, multi-billion dollar, multi-national corporation whose operations in over sixty countries covering nearly 200 markets,” adding, claiming otherwise was “farcical.”
Grainge ends the letter with a more emphatic statement that he had nothing to do with “Not Like Us.” “Given my role, I am accustomed (and unfortunately largely resigned) to personal attacks, and I further recognize that a frequent strategy of UMG’s litigation opponents is to attempt to waste my and UMG’s time and resources with discovery of the sort that Drake is seeking here — either in an attempt to gain media attention or in an effort to force some kind of commercial renegotiation or financial concessions,” Grainge writes.
He adds, “But given Drake’s motion, I would like to make it quite clear that I had never heard the recording ‘Not Like Us,’ nor ever saw the corresponding cover art or music video, until after they were released by Interscope Records. Whilst, as part of my role, I certainly have financial oversight of and responsibility for UMG’s global businesses, the proposition that I was involved in, much less responsible for, reviewing and approving the content of ‘Not Like Us,’ its cover art or music video, or for determining or directing the promotion of those materials, is groundless and indeed ridiculous.”
In a separate letter submitted by UMG’s lawyers to the Southern District of New York on Thursday, the company said, “Drake’s motion is a transparent attempt to use discovery to harass UMG and force it to waste time and resources out of spite.”
The letter adds that “the premise of Drake’s motion — that he could not have lost a rap battle unless it was the product of some imagined secret conspiracy going to the top of UMG’s corporate structure — is absurd. Sir Lucian is the CEO of a multinational enterprise; his days are spent determining and implementing global strategy, not vetting individual tracks or album covers or driving the release and promotional plans for any one recording. And even if Sir Lucian had any responsive documents, they would surely be captured by discovery from UMG’s other document custodians, who were actually responsible for releasing and promoting ‘Not Like Us.’ Drake does not come close to meeting his burden of showing that Sir Lucian must be a custodian. His motion should be denied.”