{"id":4027,"date":"2025-02-04T18:53:16","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T18:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/can-kendrick-play-not-like-us-at-super-bowl-amid-drake-lawsuit\/"},"modified":"2025-02-04T18:53:16","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T18:53:16","slug":"can-kendrick-play-not-like-us-at-super-bowl-amid-drake-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/can-kendrick-play-not-like-us-at-super-bowl-amid-drake-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Kendrick Play ‘Not Like Us’ At Super Bowl Amid Drake Lawsuit?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tWill Drake<\/a>\u2019s pending defamation lawsuit stop Kendrick Lamar<\/a> from performing \u201cNot Like Us\u201d during his Super Bowl halftime performance? Legal experts say it might \u2014 but that it really shouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\n\tUnder normal circumstances, it\u2019s silly to even ask the question. Obviously<\/em> a Super Bowl halftime performer will play their chart-topping banger \u2014 a track that just swept record and song of the year at the Grammys and was arguably music\u2019s most significant song of the past year.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut these are very much not normal circumstances. Last month, Drake filed a lawsuit over \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d accusing Universal Music Group of defaming him by boosting the scathing diss track. The case, which doesn\u2019t name Lamar as a defendant, claims UMG spread the song\u2019s \u201cmalicious narrative\u201d \u2014 namely, that Drake is a pedophile \u2014 despite knowing it was false.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat pending legal action makes it fair to wonder: When Lamar steps onto the world\u2019s biggest stage on Sunday night (Feb. 9), will he face pressure to avoid the whole mess by just skipping \u201cNot Like Us\u201d entirely?<\/p>\n

\n\tHe shouldn\u2019t, legal experts say, and for a pretty simple reason: Drake\u2019s lawsuit against UMG is a legal loser. \u201cI don\u2019t think the case is strong at all,\u201d says Samantha Barbas<\/strong>, a legal historian and an expert in defamation law at the University of Iowa\u2019s College of Law.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Drake to eventually win the case over \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d he\u2019ll need to show that Lamar\u2019s claims about him are provably false<\/em> assertions \u2014 meaning the average person would hear them and assume Kendrick was stating actual facts. Barbas says that\u2019ll be tough for Drake to do about a diss track, where fans expect bombast and \u201crhetorical hyperbole\u201d more so than objective reality.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn the context of a rap battle, the average listener is going to know that the allegations aren\u2019t to be taken seriously,\u201d she says. \u201cTaunts and wild exaggerations are par for the course.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother challenge for Drake is that he\u2019s a public figure. Under key First Amendment rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court, a public figure like Drake must show that UMG either knew<\/em> the lyrics were false or that the company acted with reckless disregard for the truth \u2014 a legal standard that\u2019s intentionally difficult to meet so that rich and famous people don\u2019t abuse libel lawsuits to squelch free speech.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cA high-profile public figure like Drake immediately enters the case with a high burden of proof,\u201d says Roy Gutterman<\/strong>, the director of the Newhouse School\u2019s Tully Center for Free Speech at Syracuse University.<\/p>\n

\n\tUMG\u2019s attorneys will also likely point to the fact that Drake himself made harmful allegations against Kendrick earlier in the same exchange of diss tracks, including that Lamar had abused his fianc\u00e9e and that one of his children was fathered by another man. Were those defamatory statements of fact, or merely the exercise of artistic license within the conventions of a specific genre of music?<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFactoring in the context here \u2014 music and art within an ongoing dispute between rival musicians \u2014 he has an even tougher case,\u201d Gutterman says.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo if Drake\u2019s case is likely to eventually be dismissed, then there\u2019s no reason for Kendrick to hold back on Sunday, right? <\/p>\n

\n\tNot exactly.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor starters, Federal Communications Commission rules prohibit the airing of \u201cobscene, indecent, or profane content\u201d on broadcast television during primetime hours. To avoid those rules, Super Bowl halftime performers typically avoid curse words or overtly sexual material \u2014 something that would probably already preclude the \u201cpedophile\u201d line and other lyrics in \u201cNot Like Us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCorporate legal departments are also famously risk averse, and often prefer to play it safe rather than potentially face expensive litigation, even if they\u2019d ultimately win. That could lead any of the big companies involved here to put pressure on Kendrick to skip \u201cNot Like Us.\u201d His label, UMG, has vowed to fight back against Drake\u2019s \u201cfrivolous\u201d lawsuit, but might not want to add complications mid-litigation; the game\u2019s broadcaster, Fox, or the NFL itself might worry about getting added to the suit as defendants.<\/p>\n

\n\tGutterman said it would be \u201ca significant stretch of liability law\u201d for Drake to successfully sue Fox or the NFL simply because Kendrick played \u201cNot Like Us\u201d at the halftime show. But in practice, that might not be how their in-house attorneys are thinking about it.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe threat of litigation can have a chilling effect on speech,\u201d Barbas says. \u201cThe safe thing to do is not to publish or broadcast.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tReps for Lamar did not return a request for comment on whether he\u2019ll perform the song. The British tabloid newspaper The Sun<\/em>, citing anonymous sources, reported last week that Kendrick has faced pressure to skip the track but plans to perform it anyway and \u201cwon\u2019t be silenced.\u201d But that report could not be confirmed by Billboard <\/em>and was not widely re-reported by other outlets.<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked whether they have a position on whether Lamar plays the song, reps for UMG, Fox, the NFL and Roc Nation (Jay-Z\u2019s company that produces the halftime show) all either declined to comment or did not return requests for comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen the show kicks off on Sunday night, the most likely outcome is probably somewhere down the middle: That Kendrick plays the song\u2019s already-iconic instrumental hook and perhaps some of the lyrics, but skips any of the portions that are directly at play in Drake\u2019s lawsuit. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be surprising,\u201d Barbas says, \u201cif the challenged lyrics are changed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Will Drake\u2019s pending defamation lawsuit stop Kendrick Lamar from performing \u201cNot Like Us\u201d during his Super Bowl halftime performance? Legal experts say it might \u2014 but that it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4535,441,402,303,1701,2046],"class_list":["post-4027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-bowl","tag-drake","tag-kendrick","tag-lawsuit","tag-play","tag-super"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}