Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show next month is shaping up to be a disaster.
NFL officials are scrambling to contain the damage after Canadian rapper Drake filed a blockbuster federal lawsuit against his record label for defamation.
Drake accused Universal Music Group (UMG) of defamation. The lawsuit alleges UMG paid radio stations and Black bloggers to hype Kendrick’s diss track, “Not Like Us.”
The diss track implies that Drake is a pedophile — without any proof to back up the harmful allegation.
Both Drake and Kendrick are artists under the UMG corporate umbrella. Drake is signed under Republic Records and Lamar under Interscope Records.
If Drake wins his case, UMG could be on the hook for nearly $1 billion!
That’s because Drake and UMG were negotiating a distribution deal that would have been worth $1 billion.
But UMG allegedly paid for a smear campaign in the form of a beef with Kendrick. “Not Like Us” was allegedly part of the smear campaign to devalue Drake in the marketplace.
There is plenty of circumstantial evidence online that UMG waged a silent campaign to boost Kendrick’s music. Popular streamers who criticized Kendrick’s music complain that they were demonetized on YouTube.
Others say UMG allowed monetization of videos that portrayed Kendrick in a positive light while copyright striking streamers who didn’t.
Jay-Z (left) convinced the NFL to choose Kendrick Lamar (right) as the halftime performer off of the strength of “Not Like Us,” a defamatory diss track that alleges Drake is a pedophile.
Defamation is a malicious act that can lead to civil liability and a huge monetary award in court. Incoming President Donald Trump was ordered to pay an $83 million defamation award last year after he denied assaulting a woman in a Manhattan department store.
And Drake’s law firm won a $150 million judgment against Rudy Giuliani for defaming 2 former Georgia poll workers.
Now the NFL’s lawyers have notified Kendrick not to perform the controversial song during the Super Bowl next month.
The problem for the NFL is that most Americans are not familiar with Kendrick’s style of music which is categorized as mumble rap.
If Kendrick can’t perform the only song that most people know, his halftime performance will go down as one of the worst in Super Bowl history.
