DRAKE DOES NOT OWN THE BULK OF HIS OWN CATALOG

Universal Music Group, not Drake, owns the master recordings behind most of his defining catalog. The albums that built him, from 2009's So Far Gone through 2018's Scorpion, were sold to UMG as part of a Young Money Entertainment deal in 2020. Only his output since 2021 sits under different terms, inside a separate worldwide partnership Drake signed with Universal in 2022. He has never disputed either arrangement in public. His own lawsuit against the label forced the label's chief executive to spell out exactly what Universal owns, under oath, in 2025.

Lil Wayne Sold Drake's Masters in 2020

In June 2020, Lil Wayne sold the Young Money Entertainment catalog to Universal Music Group for a figure reported at more than $100 million. The deal covered Drake's albums from So Far Gone through Scorpion and Nicki Minaj's Young Money-era work, all of it recorded under the Cash Money/Young Money arrangement Drake signed as a teenager in 2009. Wayne had spent years fighting Cash Money's Bryan "Birdman" Williams over money owed him, settling a lawsuit for more than $10 million in 2015, and the 2020 restructuring moved Young Money fully to Wayne and then, through this sale, its catalog to Universal. Drake was not the seller. He was the asset.

That distinction matters for a 16-year catalog that includes Take Care, Nothing Was the Same and Views, the three albums that did the most to make Drake the most streamed solo artist in history. All three are now Universal's property outright, not his.

A Separate Deal Covers Everything After Scorpion

Universal signed Drake to a new, separate agreement in May 2022, which UMG chairman Lucian Grainge described on an earnings call as a long-term worldwide partnership spanning recordings, publishing, merchandise and visual projects. Industry reporting at the time, including Variety, placed the deal's value near $400 million, calling it one of the largest agreements in the label's history. That contract, not the 2020 Young Money sale, is what governs everything Drake has released since Certified Lover Boy, distributed through Republic and his own OVO Sound imprint, the same infrastructure Finally Offline priced out when it broke down what the Iceman rollout actually cost. It is also the deal Drake's later lawsuit revealed was tied to his original 2009 contract, which came up for renegotiation in 2025.

He Sued the Label That Owns His Masters

In January 2025, Drake filed a defamation suit against Universal in federal court in New York, arguing the label knowingly published and promoted Kendrick Lamar's "Not Like Us" despite lyrics accusing him of pedophilia. Universal is the parent label for both artists, releasing Drake through Republic and Lamar's diss track through Interscope. Drake's complaint went further than the song itself: it alleged UMG was financially incentivized to devalue his music and public standing specifically because his 2009 contract was heading into renegotiation that same year. Finally Offline tracked the fallout of that diss cycle in real time, down to Playboi Carti's one-bar response months later.

"The Purchase and Ownership of the Bulk of His... Catalogue"

UMG's own chief executive answered the ownership question under oath. In a sworn declaration filed during the lawsuit, Sir Lucian Grainge stated Universal had invested "hundreds of millions of dollars in Drake, including longstanding and critical financial support for his recording career, the purchase and ownership of the bulk of his recording catalogue, and the purchase of his music publishing rights." He called the underlying claims in Drake's suit "farcical" and "ridiculous," and said he had never heard "Not Like Us," seen its artwork or watched its video until after Interscope released it. It is the most direct public confirmation on record of how much of his own music Drake does not control, delivered by the one person with the standing to say so.

October 9, 2025. The Case Was Tossed.

US District Judge Jeannette Vargas dismissed Drake's lawsuit, ruling that "Not Like Us" amounted to protected opinion rather than actionable defamation. "A reasonable listener could not have concluded that 'Not Like Us' was conveying objective facts about Drake," she wrote, rejecting his defamation, harassment and deceptive business practices claims in full. Drake's team filed an appeal in January 2026, arguing the district court had "created a dangerous categorical rule" that rap diss tracks can never be defamatory. Both sides have since filed briefs at the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit; as of this writing, no argument date has been scheduled and the case remains open.

The Lawsuit Never Slowed the Release Pace

None of the legal noise slowed Drake's release pace. Three months after filing the original complaint, he dropped three albums at midnight in a single May 2026 rollout, a 43-track push that Finally Offline noted came with an unusual YouTube redirect strategy built around driving numbers to the platform Universal does not fully control. Streaming royalties remain small on a per-play basis, about $0.003 per stream on Spotify, which is exactly why volume, not any single release, is the leverage an artist mid-renegotiation has left to work with. Off the music ledger, Drake's Nike-partnered NOCTA label, which closed out the 2026 World Cup final as on-pitch apparel, sits entirely outside UMG's ownership. It is the one part of his commercial output nobody at Universal can claim in a sworn declaration.

Two facts settle where things actually stand. Universal owns the recordings behind Drake's most streamed decade, bought for nine figures from Lil Wayne in 2020, not from Drake. And the artist who built that catalog is the same one whose own lawsuit made his label's chief executive confirm it in writing.

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