Who is Lucian Grainge? All about Universal Music Group CEO in the wake of Drake accusing company of favoring Kendrick Lamar

Months after Drake's beef with Kendrick Lamar, the former had taken legal action against Universal Music Group as well as Spotify. The Canadian rapper has accused the companies of causing inflation of the popularity of Kendrick's Not Like Us, through artificial means.

On Monday, November 25, Drake's Frozen Moments LLC filed in the Manhattan court. As reported by Billboard, UMG undertook certain measures including bots and payola only to boost the popularity of the diss track that Lamar released. According to the petition, obtained by Variety,

"[UMG] engaged in conduct designed to artificially inflate the popularity of ‘Not Like Us’… including by licensing the song at drastically reduced rates to Spotify and using ‘bots’ to generate the false impression that the song was more popular than it was in reality."

Meanwhile, it is worth noting that 64-year-old Lucian Grainge is the CEO of Universal Music Group. Grainge has previously been mentioned in Drake's 2023 track Away From Home. The rapper rapped:

"Who the CEO of Universal? They mistaken, 'cause Google saying Lucian, but that just doesn't make sense. Who filling up the piggy bank? Who bringing home the bacon?"

The British record executive, born in February 1960, in London, has been serving as the chairman and CEO of UMG since 2010.

In his entire career, Grainge has worked with several A-listers like ABBA, Jay Z, Elton John, Katy Perry, Sam Smith, and Rihanna. In 1986, he first joined Universal Music when he planned to launch PolyGram Music Publishing UK. In 2020, the record executive got a star on Hollywood Walk of Fame and in 2018, he was inducted in the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Earlier this year, Lucian Grainge and UMG's references were made in lawsuits related to Sean "Diddy" Combs. The record executive as well as the company, however, denied any wrongdoing.

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Both Kendrick Lamar and Drake have spent their entire music career associated with Universal Music Group

Drake first signed a deal with Lil Wayne's Young Money Imprint, which was distributed by Republic Records. He then got directly signed to Universal Music Group. Meanwhile, K.Dot was first related to UMG through the TDE imprint, which was distributed by Interscope. He then became the owner of pgLang, which has been licensed through Interscope, as mentioned by Billboard.

Notably, the filing made in the Manhattan court isn't a lawsuit yet. It could, however, be described as a "pre-action" petition, the purpose of which is to gather enough information before filing a case under New York law.

As per a report by Billboard, parties named in such a petition might not be named in the actual lawsuit. It was further seen that most of the allegations had been directed towards UMG and not Spotify. Drake's lawyers further claimed that UMG had violated the RICO Act. They further accused the company of carrying out deceptive business practices.

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Amid Drake's allegations against Grainge and UMG have been introduced, Kanye West's statements about the CEO have further resurfaced. Ye previewed a remix of Like That, in which he seemingly called out the UMG CEO. He then said:

"Where's Lucian? Serve your master, n**ga," he rapped. "You caught a little bag for your masters, didn't ya?. Lifetime deal, I feel bad for n**gas."

On The Download Podcast, he also gave the context of the lines, when he appeared in April. Ye referred to Grainge as Drake's "rich baby daddy." He further claimed that Drake's music had seen so much commercialization, that listeners wouldn't relate to it that much.

As for the court filing, no further information has been made available yet.