Drake Makes a Major Move in Exchange for Documents in Lawsuit
Drake has made a major chess move in exchange for documents in his lawsuit over Kendrick Lamar‘s “Not Like Us.”
Drake Drops iHeartMedia From Texas Court Probe
On Monday (March 3), Rolling Stone reported iHeartMedia is no longer a defendant in Drake’s probe into alleged payola in connection to Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.” The two parties have come to an “amicable resolution” after Drizzy sought to depose the company about their possible involvement in a pay-for-play scheme with K-Dot’s hit single.
“In exchange for documents that showed iHeart did nothing wrong, Drake agreed to drop his petition. No payments were made—by either one of us,” a source at iHeartMedia tells Rolling Stone.
Drake’s legal team responded to the update in the case saying, “We are pleased that the parties were able to reach a settlement satisfactory to both sides and have no further comment on this matter.”
Drake is still taking Universal Music Group to court in Texas as part of the legal probe he filed last November. The rapper claims they used bots and payola to artificially inflate “Not Like Us.” In addition, Drizzy has also filed a federal defamation lawsuit against UMG in New York Supreme Court over the song, which calls Drake a child predator.
The next court date for the Texas case is scheduled for April. However, Drake’s legal team wants the date pushed forward.
“Delaying discovery would unfairly prejudice Plaintiff, who is continuing to suffer the consequences of UMG’s defamatory campaign,” they wrote in a recent motion. “Indeed, at the same time UMG has been delaying here, UMG launched new campaigns to further spread the defamatory content, including at the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show, which had over 133.5 million viewers.”
UMG has denied the allegations.
XXL has reached out to Drake’s team and iHeartMedia for comment.