I didn't real anyone's opinion on this but here's mine from an unbiased perspective and opinion. To make the first thing plainly clear, I do not like Drake as an artist and his actions from this is not what hip hop is about. But, with that said, Drake has never been hip hop in my eyes and his entire career is fraudulent in terms of the unsaid codes that true heads of the culture live. Because of that, he been given too many passes and excuses by casual fans of rap that most true heads of the culture wouldn't accept. A prime example which leads to this karma that Drake is currently receiving is the whole Meek Mill beef and how that was handled not to mentioned it is based on Meek Mill's allegation with solid proof of Drake using ghostwriters. What used to be frown upon by most respectable MCs was excused for Drake. How Drake manipulated the beef to his advantage to discredit and hurt Meek Mill's own career path had changed how to use rap beef. That's where a parent label like UMG took off using these same tactics that made Drake win his rap beefs or protect him from rap beef and it's now flipped where Drake is now the victim of his own creation. In other words, Drake had it coming.
All that being said, Drake from a LEGAL standpoint has a very strong case against UMG. It doesn't matter in reality, Shouts out to Math Hoffa, because a month and a half ago when Drake sent out a petition with the pending to pursue this lawsuit, Hoffa accurately assessed that this has everything to do with Drake's current contract at near expiration and UMG schemed to use the beef between Drake & Kendrick to devalue Drake's marketability so they'll have leverage when it comes to renewing or negotiating Drake's contract. Now, we all do not know the full behind the scenes, but Drake's current contract is massive, and UMG doesn't want to continue to pay what Drake been offering. In contrast, Kendrick would cost less. This leads to a contractual conflict of interests. I think UMG, played both sides, but misled Drake in the presumption that Push Ups and Family Matters would get the massive promo that'll cloud anything Kendrick would do. But UMG did the UNO reverse on Drake and here we are. Drake is just as guilty in putting out false slanderous allegations on Kendrick. But he's not suing Kendrick, but UMG over the contractual conflict of interests and how UMG taking it a step further to destroy Drake's bottom line. I mean, if he has the receipts of the bots to which we know for months that bots were used, that'll go against UMG. It wasn't a secret of UMG through Kendrick in taking off copyright restrictions for YouTubers. Yet those copyright restrictions weren't ever lifted for Drake, which possibly the reason why Drake started using his IG to temporarily drop material. We know for a fact that the false allegations of being a so-called Pd-File certified been promoted in all aspects of pop culture. As well as other supporting evidence made. What's wild to me, however, is Drake correlating the house shooting and the security getting shot with this lawsuit when many of us been under the assumption of it having to do with the Weeknd drama which was separate from the Kendrick beef. That said, with the timing of the NLU release and the shooting and the vandalization of one of his shops and so forth, it makes his argument of his concern of his safety and his family's safety valid.
I'm a J. Cole fan, so part of this is slightly biased when I say this. But at the end of it all, J. Cole been the smartest and most authentic overall of this. Even though many of you may view him backing out is being a cornball move and in normal hip-hop terms, it would have, J. Cole knew how this could devolve into some nonsense that his own evolution in seeking self-meditation and peace would fall apart. If this was on some tradition rap battle, bars and skills type of battle, it would have been all good. But the climate demanded it to be messy. Both Kendrick and Drake obliged. And people are looking at both rappers differently. And the industry machine paraded and profited in the destruction of images of two black men tearing each other apart. We all celebrated it as it being so-called "great" for hip hop, but in reality, it helped nothing at all in uplifting the culture. What Drake did with the lawsuit is wack but understandable when it comes to his bottom line. But what Kendrick did felt like a sellout move to me, because he stooped to Drake's level to get to Drake's level. It's like UMG, Interscope has their new nikka-puppet to tap dance for them to keep them rich.
