Photo Credit: Drake by Drew for The Come Up Show / CC by 2.0
Drake denies sending a DM to stylist Chris Blake Griffith about his legal battle with UMG, calling the alleged message completely fake.
Drake has denied sending a message about his legal battle with Universal Music Group to celebrity stylist Chris Blake Griffith. In an alleged Instagram DM posted by Griffith on Tuesday, Drake outlines his reasoning behind the legal action — but the star claims the message is a fake.
“Me and Universal is like if Nike was funding a campaign about LeBron cheating on his wife… not adidas or Reebok… Nike, the company he been with since he started… my situation is not no street shit,” Drake allegedly wrote in a screenshot posted by Griffith.
“Everybody before me that tried the label was too eccentric, so they wrote them off as crazy and they never had to pay for their sins and mistakes,” the message continued. “I’m going to change that and make the building a safer place for every artist moving forward.”
But once Griffiths’ post gained traction on social media, Drake denied sending the messages — through his pal Akademiks.
“This is a fake DM,” wrote Akademiks on the former Twitter. “Drake called buddy a rat… he got mad and made up some fake DM to try to make the blogs and go viral. End of story.”
Drake filed two pre-action legal petitions against UMG in November with allegations the company used bots and payola schemes to artificially inflate the popularity of Kendrick Lamar’s hit Drake diss track, “Not Like Us.” He also accused UMG, the parent company of both his label Republic Records and Kendrick Lamar’s label of Interscope, of defamation for allowing the release of a track that calls him a pedophile.
A court hearing originally set for December 20 to determine whether Drake is allowed to depose employees from UMG and iHeartMedia over his claims, has been delayed until January 13. On January 16, a second hearing is scheduled to take place relating to Drake’s other filing against UMG and Spotify.