Judge dismisses Drake’s defamation suit against label over Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Not Like Us’

A defamation lawsuit filed by Drake against Universal Music Group was dismissed by a federal judge, who ruled that the lyrics of Kendrick Lamar’s track “Not Like Us” were opinions.

Judge Janet A. Vargas said in her written opinion Thursday that the feud between hip-hop’s two biggest stars began in the spring of 2024, with the pair trading a series of acerbic tracks that culminated in Lamar delivering a “metaphorical killing blow” with his megahit.

While the track’s lyrics clearly brand Drake as a pedophile, Ms. Vargas said, a reasonable listener could not conclude that “Not Like Us” was stating objective facts about the Canadian superstar.

“Although the allegations that Plaintiff is a pedophile are certainly a serious matter, the broader context of a heated rap battle, with inflammatory language and offensive allegations made by both participants, would not lead a reasonable listener to believe that ‘Not Like Us’ provides verifiable facts about Plaintiff,” Ms. Vargas wrote.

Following the verdict, Drake’s legal team said in a statement: “We intend to appeal today’s decision, and we expect the appeals court to review it.” “Not Like Us” – which Vargas described as having a “catchy rhythm and propulsive bassline” – was one of 2024’s biggest songs.

It won Record of the Year and Song of the Year at the Grammys and helped make this year’s Super Bowl halftime show the most-watched show ever, as fans speculated whether Lamar would actually perform it. (They did, but with changed lyrics.) The track, which calls out Canadian-born Drake by name, attacks him as a “colonizer” of rap culture, while also making insinuations about his sex life, including, “I like you them young” – implications that Drake rejects.

Filed in January, the lawsuit – which does not name Lamar – alleged that Universal Music Group knowingly published and promoted the track despite knowing it contained false and defamatory allegations against Drake and suggested that listeners should resort to vigilante justice. The lawsuit said the track tarnished their reputation and diminished the value of their brand.

UMG, the original record label of both artists, denied the allegations.

“From the beginning, this suit was an insult to all artists and their creative expression and should never have been released,” it said in a statement. “We are pleased with the court’s dismissal and look forward to successfully continuing our work to promote Drake’s music and invest in his career.”

In the lawsuit, Drake also blamed the tune for the attempted break-in at his Toronto home and the shooting death of a security guard.

The song’s cover art depicted the mansion in an aerial photo, which Vargas described as “an overlay of over a dozen sex offender markers” – which, she said, “were clearly exaggerated and doctored.” He wrote, “No reasonable person looking at the image would believe that law enforcement actually designated thirteen residents of the Drake home as sex offenders.”

Recounting “perhaps the most infamous rap battle in the history of the genre”, Ms Vargas said that before “Not Like Us”, Drake had mocked Lamar’s height and shoe size and questioned his success in an April 2024 track called “Push Ups”, while Lamar had insulted Drake’s fashion sense in “Euphoria” the same month.

From there, Vargas wrote, the insults escalated, becoming “vicious, personal.” The judge said he considered the forum in which the insult occurred and concluded that the average listener would not think it “is the product of a thoughtful or dispassionate investigation that conveys to the public fact-checked verifiable material.”

Ms. Vargas wrote that “Not Like Us” was “filled with profanity, trash-talk, threats of violence, and figurative and hyperbolic language, all of which are indicative of opinion.”

A discerning listener, he added, “would conclude that Lamar is making hyperbolic condemnations.”