{"id":8059,"date":"2025-10-09T21:05:37","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T21:05:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/drake-lawsuit-over-kendrick-lamars-not-like-us-dismissed-by-judge\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T07:31:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T07:31:08","slug":"drake-lawsuit-over-kendrick-lamars-not-like-us-dismissed-by-judge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/drake-lawsuit-over-kendrick-lamars-not-like-us-dismissed-by-judge\/","title":{"rendered":"Drake Lawsuit Over Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Not Like Us’ Dismissed by Judge"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Drake Lawsuit Over Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Not Like Us’ Dismissed by Judge – A federal judge on Thursday (Oct. 9) dismissed Drake\u2019s defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group over Kendrick Lamar\u2019s \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d ruling that a \u201cwar of words\u201d during a \u201cheated rap battle\u201d did not violate the law and that some of the case was \u201clogically incoherent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drake\u2019s case, filed earlier this year, claimed that UMG defamed him by releasing Lamar\u2019s scathing diss track, which tarred his arch-rival as a \u201ccertified pedophile.\u201d He believed that millions of people took that lyric literally, severely harming his reputation.<\/p>\n

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But just ten months later, Judge Jeannette Vargas granted UMG\u2019s motion to dismiss the case at the outset \u2013 ruling that Kendrick\u2019s insulting lyrics were the kind of \u201chyperbole\u201d that cannot be defamatory because listeners would not think they were statements of fact.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe artists\u2019 seven-track rap battle was a \u2018war of words\u2019 that was the subject of substantial media scrutiny and online discourse,\u201d the judge wrote. \u201cAlthough the accusation that plaintiff is a pedophile is certainly a serious one, the broader context of a heated rap battle, with incendiary language and offensive accusations hurled by both participants, would not incline the reasonable listener to believe that \u2018Not Like Us\u2019 imparts verifiable facts about plaintiff.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ruling marks an abrupt end to a legal battle that stunned the music industry. Few expected a rapper to respond to a diss track with a lawsuit \u2013 a move that drew ridicule in the hip hop world and condemnation from legal scholars. Fewer still expected him to file it against UMG, his longtime record label and the biggest music company in the world.<\/p>\n

Drake\u2019s attorneys can appeal the ruling to a federal appeals court. His attorneys did not immediately return a request for comment.<\/p>\n

In a statement to Billboard<\/em>, a spokesman for UMG said: \u201cFrom the outset, this suit was an affront to all artists and their creative expression and never should have seen the light of day.\u00a0 We\u2019re pleased with the court\u2019s dismissal and look forward to continuing our work successfully promoting\u00a0Drake\u2019s music and investing in his career.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lamar released \u201cNot Like Us\u201d last May amid a war-of-words with Drake that saw the two UMG stars release a series of bruising diss tracks. The song, a knockout punch that blasted Drake as a \u201ccertified pedophile\u201d over an infectious beat, became a chart-topping hit in its own right and won five Grammy Awards, including record and song of the year.<\/p>\n

In January, Drake took the unusual step of taking UMG to court, claiming his own label had defamed him by boosting the track\u2019s popularity, including through the use of bots and other nefarious marketing tactics. The lawsuit, which didn\u2019t name Lamar himself as a defendant, alleges that UMG \u201cwaged a campaign\u201d against its own artist to spread a \u201cmalicious narrative\u201d about pedophilia that it knew to be false.<\/p>\n

UMG argued those allegations were clearly meritless \u2013 that \u201chyperbolic insults\u201d and \u201cvitriolic allegations\u201d are par for the course in diss tracks and cannot form the basis for a libel lawsuit. The company pointedly noted that Drake himself was happy to make such attacks, including accusing Lamar of domestic abuse, until he lost the battle.<\/p>\n

The dispute got even nastier in February, when Lamar made \u201cNot Like Us\u201d the centerpiece of his Super Bowl halftime show. After speculation about whether he\u2019d play the track at all, Kendrick used the show to mock his rival, looking directly into camera as he rapped \u201cSay, Drake, I hear you like \u2019em young.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her decision on Thursday, Judge Vargas sided entirely with UMG, ruling normal listeners would not expect \u201caccurate factual reporting\u201d from a diss track \u201creplete with profanity, trash-talking, threats of violence, and figurative and hyperbolic language.\u201d<\/p>\n

She pointed out that Drake himself had engaged in similar language, quoting from a line in \u201cFamily Matters\u201d in which the star was \u201cheavily implying that Lamar is a domestic abuser\u201d and another in which Drake says he heard that \u201cone of Lamar\u2019s sons may not be biologically his.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe recording was published as part of a heated public feud, in which both participants exchanged progressively caustic, inflammatory insults and accusations,\u201d Judge Vargas wrote. \u201cThis is precisely the type of context in which an audience may anticipate the use of epithets, fiery rhetoric or hyperbole rather than factual assertions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge also rejected Drake\u2019s arguments about the popularity of \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d saying she could not make that kind of \u201cretroactive analysis\u201d of artistic expression. She wrote that when Kendrick wrote his song, he \u201ccould not have been aware\u201d that it would later break streaming records, win Grammys, or be the centerpiece of a Super Bowl halftime show.<\/p>\n

\u201cYet plaintiff would have the court divorce the recording from the context in which it was created because of these subsequent events,\u201d Judge Vargas wrote. \u201cWhether publications constitute actionable fact or protected opinion cannot vary based upon the popularity they achieve. Constitutional guarantees do not rest on such a flimsy foundation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge was equally unimpressed with the Drake\u2019s claim that the song became defamatory because UMG repeatedly republished it and drove its success: \u201cThis argument is logically incoherent,\u201d the judge wrote. \u201cIf the recording was nonactionable opinion at the time it was initially produced, then its
\nrepublication would not expose UMG to liability.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Billboard<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Drake Lawsuit Over Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Not Like Us’ Dismissed by Judge – A federal judge on Thursday (Oct. 9) dismissed Drake\u2019s defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2059,441,423,402,4327,303],"class_list":["post-8059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-dismissed","tag-drake","tag-judge","tag-kendrick","tag-lamars","tag-lawsuit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8059","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=8059"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8093,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8059\/revisions\/8093"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}