A federal judge on Thursday (Oct. 9) dismissed Drake’s defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group over Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” ruling that a “war of words” during a “heated rap battle” did not violate the law.
Drake’s case, filed earlier this year, claimed that UMG defamed him by releasing Lamar’s scathing diss track, which tarred his arch-rival as a “certified pedophile.” He believed that millions of people took that lyric literally, severely harming his reputation.
But just ten months later, Judge Jeannette Vargas granted UMG’s motion to dismiss the case at the outset – ruling that Kendrick’s insulting lyrics were the kind of “hyperbole” that cannot be defamatory because listeners would not think they were statements of fact.
“The artists’ seven-track rap battle was a ‘war of words’ that was the subject of substantial media scrutiny and online discourse,” the judge wrote. “Although 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 ‘Not Like Us’ imparts verifiable facts about plaintiff.”
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 – 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.
Drake’s attorneys can appeal the ruling to a federal appeals court. His attorneys did not immediately return a request for comment. A spokesman for UMG also did not immediately return a request for comment.
Lamar released “Not Like Us” 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 “certified pedophile” 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.
In January, Drake took the unusual step of taking UMG to court, claiming his own label had defamed him by boosting the track’s popularity, including through the use of bots and other nefarious marketing tactics. The lawsuit, which didn’t name Lamar himself as a defendant, alleges that UMG “waged a campaign” against its own artist to spread a “malicious narrative” about pedophilia that it knew to be false.
UMG argued those allegations were clearly meritless – that “hyperbolic insults” and “vitriolic allegations” 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.
The dispute got even nastier in February, when Lamar made “Not Like Us” the centerpiece of his Super Bowl halftime show. After speculation about whether he’d play the track at all, Kendrick used the show to mock his rival, looking directly into camera as he rapped “Say, Drake, I hear you like ’em young.”
This is a developing news story and will be updated with more details as they become available.
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