Wednesday, it was reported that Drake filed a lawsuit against Universal Music Group for defamation and harassment surrounding the release of Kendrick Lamar’s diss track about him, “Not Like Us.” Both Drake and Kendrick have been putting out music with UMG and its subsidiaries for over a decade, but Drake’s contract expires this year. “Not Like Us” explicitly accuses Drake of being a pedophile, and his lawsuit argues that UMG released and pushed Kendrick’s song as a means of “devaluing Drake’s music and brand,” so that the company has a better chance at lowballing him when it’s time to renew his contract.

Neither Kendrick Lamar nor Spotify are named in the lawsuit, so Drake really is trying to frame this as an inside job. UMG has now issued a response to the suit denying his claims. Via Variety, the statement reads:

Not only are these claims untrue, but the notion that we would seek to harm the reputation of any artist — let alone Drake — is illogical. We have invested massively in his music and our employees around the world have worked tirelessly for many years to help him achieve historic commercial and personal financial success.

Throughout his career, Drake has intentionally and successfully used UMG to distribute his music and poetry to engage in conventionally outrageous back-and-forth ‘rap battles’ to express his feelings about other artists. He now seeks to weaponize the legal process to silence an artist’s creative expression and to seek damages from UMG for distributing that artist’s music.

We have not and do not engage in defamation — against any individual. At the same time, we will vigorously defend this litigation to protect our people and our reputation, as well as any artist who might directly or indirectly become a frivolous litigation target for having done nothing more that write a song.

As many have pointed out, Drake also released diss tracks with false information about Kendrick during the beef — a subject that will probably come up in court if this case gets that far.