{"id":8352,"date":"2025-10-29T16:28:54","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T16:28:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/drake-files-appeal-in-lawsuit-over-kendrick-lamars-not-like-us\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T16:28:54","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T16:28:54","slug":"drake-files-appeal-in-lawsuit-over-kendrick-lamars-not-like-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/drake-files-appeal-in-lawsuit-over-kendrick-lamars-not-like-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Drake Files Appeal In Lawsuit Over Kendrick Lamar\u2019s \u2018Not Like Us\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tIt ain\u2019t over yet: Drake<\/a> has formally launched his appeal of a court ruling that dismissed his defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG) over Kendrick Lamar<\/a>\u2019s diss track \u201cNot Like Us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe move on Wednesday is the first step aimed at reversing that ruling, in which a federal judge ruled earlier this month that Drake could not sue over Kendrick\u2019s lyrics that called him a \u201ccertified pedophile.\u201d The star\u2019s lawyers, who say millions of fans took that claim literally, had already vowed to appeal the decision.<\/p>\n

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\n\tIt could take well over a year for the appeals court to rule on Drake\u2019s case, prolonging a messy legal drama that has captivated the music industry and, at times, drawn ridicule in the hip-hop world. If the appeals court sides with Drake, it could mean years more litigation after that.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn his new court filing, Drake formally stated his intention to appeal, but did not include any detailed arguments on how he will do so. Such arguments are made in later briefs at the appeals court, where lawyers for both sides will eventually make their case.<\/p>\n

\n\tA rep for Drake told Billboard<\/em> on Wednesday: \u201cThis confirms our intent to appeal, and we look forward to the Court of Appeals reviewing that filing in the coming weeks.\u201d A spokesman for UMG did not immediately return a request for comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tLamar released \u201cNot Like Us\u201d in May 2024 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

\n\tIn January, Drake took UMG to court over the song, claiming his own label had defamed him by boosting its popularity. The lawsuit, which didn\u2019t name Lamar himself as a defendant, alleged 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

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\n\tThose claims stunned the music industry. Few expected a rapper to respond to a diss track with a lawsuit \u2014 a move that drew hackles 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

\n\tJust 10 months after Drake filed it, Judge Jeannette Vargas dismissed the case. She said Kendrick\u2019s insulting lyrics were the kind of \u201chyperbole\u201d that cannot be defamatory because listeners would not think they were statements of fact. She said fans didn\u2019t expect to hear \u201caccurate factual reporting\u201d from a a diss track \u201creplete with profanity, trash-talking, threats of violence, and figurative and hyperbolic language.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\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


\"Billboard
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It ain\u2019t over yet: Drake has formally launched his appeal of a court ruling that dismissed his defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG) over Kendrick Lamar\u2019s diss […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[366,441,297,402,4327,303],"class_list":["post-8352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-appeal","tag-drake","tag-files","tag-kendrick","tag-lamars","tag-lawsuit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8352","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=8352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}