{"id":8078,"date":"2025-10-10T21:11:43","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T21:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/why-drakes-lawsuit-over-kendrick-lamars-not-like-us-was-dismissed\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T07:28:33","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T07:28:33","slug":"why-drakes-lawsuit-over-kendrick-lamars-not-like-us-was-dismissed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/why-drakes-lawsuit-over-kendrick-lamars-not-like-us-was-dismissed\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Drake’s Lawsuit Over Kendrick Lamar’s \u201cNot Like Us\u201d Was Dismissed"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Why Drake’s Lawsuit Over Kendrick Lamar’s \u201cNot Like Us\u201d Was Dismissed – Why did a judge dismiss Drake\u2019s defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG) over Kendrick Lamar\u2019s \u201cNot Like Us\u201d? Because, legal experts say, it never made much sense.<\/p>\n

Drake\u2019s case claimed he was defamed by the diss track, arguing that millions of people believed Kendrick when the Compton MC called his rival a \u201ccertified pedophile.\u201d But in the wake of a judge\u2019s ruling dismissing the case at the earliest stage, legal experts tell Billboard<\/em> that Drake\u2019s case was doomed from the start.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHolding a rapper or their producer liable for lyrics in a diss track seemed contrary to basic defamation law from the beginning,\u201d says Roy Gutterman<\/strong>, the director of the Newhouse School\u2019s Tully Center for Free Speech at Syracuse University.<\/p>\n

When Drake first filed his case, it prompted ridicule in world of hip-hop. The idea of hiring lawyers and going to court over a diss track felt antithetical to rap music, a genre rooted so heavily in authenticity, credibility and, at times, heated rivalries: \u201cWhat part of the game is that?\u201d asked A$AP Rocky in an interview last month. \u201cWhat type of shit is that?\u201d<\/p>\n

But more quietly, legal experts had long been arguing that such a lawsuit was also antithetical to the world of defamation law and constitutionally-protected free speech \u2014 where courts are willing to restrict outright lies, but give wide leeway to opinions and artistic expression.<\/p>\n

Way back in May 2024, as Kendrick and Drake exchanged ugly accusations in a series of scathing songs, legal commentators began to wonder if either rapper might have the audacity to take the fight to court: \u201cHas anyone ever filed a defamation lawsuit over a diss track before?\u201d joked Matt Ford<\/strong><\/a>, a legal reporter at the New Republic<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Months before such a case was actually filed, it felt downright unthinkable. No rapper would ever risk their reputation to file a libel case over an insulting lyric, right? But Billboard<\/em> decided to poll the experts anyway, asking how such a hypothetical case a might go. The answer was pretty clear-cut: It would be very hard to win a defamation case over a rap battle.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe public \u2026 has to believe that the speaker is being serious, and not just hurling insults in a diss fight,\u201d Dori Hanswirth<\/strong>, a veteran media law litigator at the firm Arnold & Porter, told Billboard<\/em> at the time. \u201cThe context of this song-by-song grudge match tends to support the idea that this is rhetorical, and a creative way to beef with a rival.\u201d<\/p>\n

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That legal landscape didn\u2019t scare off Drake\u2019s attorneys, who went ahead and filed such a case in January, accusing UMG (but not Kendrick himself) of defamation over \u201cNot Like Us.\u201d In later filings, they said many fans had, on the contrary, taken Lamar\u2019s lyric quite literally: \u201cMillions of people, all over the world, did understand the [song] as a factual assertion that plaintiff is a pedophile.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Drake battled in court, more lawyers voiced skepticism. In a brief filed May, a group of legal scholars said the case was legally \u201cfaulty\u201d and urged the judge to \u201cconsider rap music\u2019s history and artistic conventions.\u201d Diss tracks are not seen as \u201ca series of news reports,\u201d they said, but as \u201chyperbole, bluster, and demonstrations of disrespect\u201d that are \u201cdesigned to entertain and impress their audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Judge Jeannette Vargas<\/strong> finally ruled on the case on Thursday (Oct. 9), she followed precisely that line of logic that experts had been arguing from the start. The judge said that context was crucial \u2014 and that diss tracks were an artistic medium in which fans would expect \u201chyperbolic vituperations\u201d rather than \u201csober facts.\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

In reaching that conclusion, which Drake has vowed to appeal, the judge was hardly breaking new legal ground. Instead, she was just sticking to the legal consensus \u2014 one that the experts say they were predicting from the start.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe court recognized the nature of the artistic expression and the rap genre itself,\u201d Gutterman, the Syracuse professor, tells Billboard<\/em>. \u201cThe First Amendment provides lots of protection for statements of opinion as well as artistic expression.\u00a0This decision reflects that.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the history of Drake and Kendrick Lamar\u2019s feud, read through Billboard\u2019s timeline below.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Kendrick Lamar and Drake<\/span><\/p>\n

Taylor Hill\/WireImage; Prince Williams\/Wireimage<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why Drake’s Lawsuit Over Kendrick Lamar’s \u201cNot Like Us\u201d Was Dismissed – Why did a judge dismiss Drake\u2019s defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG) over Kendrick Lamar\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2059,401,402,4327,303],"class_list":["post-8078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-dismissed","tag-drakes","tag-kendrick","tag-lamars","tag-lawsuit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8078","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=8078"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8087,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8078\/revisions\/8087"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}