Welp! After months of legal back-and-forth, Universal Music Group has emerged victorious in Drake’s defamation lawsuit.
The Hollywood Reporter reports that U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas ruled Thursday that the lyrics of Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” are expressions of opinion rather than statements of fact.
“A reasonable listener could not have concluded that ‘Not Like Us’ was conveying objective facts about Drake,” she ruled.
As previously reported, Complaint Papi’s legal battle grew to encompass more than UMG’s alleged defamation.
Most recently, his team demanded internal documents tied to allegations of domestic violence against Lamar and probing the nature of Dave Free’s relationship with Lamar’s children.
In those filings, Drake’s lawyers sought “All Documents and Communications … relating to allegations of domestic violence … committed by Kendrick Lamar.” They also requested materials on “David Isaac Friley (a/k/a Dave Free) and his relationship with Kendrick Lamar and Kendrick Lamar’s children.”
The requests mirrored lyrics from Lamar’s The Heart Part 6, in which Drake floated suggestions that one of Lamar’s children might not be biologically his, but fathered by Dave Free instead.
Drake also accused UMG of orchestrating a “financial conspiracy” by promoting Lamar’s music at the expense of his brand, making secret payments, and reducing licensing offers to third parties to suppress Drake’s value during contract talks. His team also demanded UMG produce redacted versions of Lamar’s record contract (claiming it was unfairly censored), and documentation involving prior label censorship (citing Pusha T’s “Story of Adidon”) as precedent.
But in her ruling, Judge Vargas refused to treat rap-battle lyrics as binding statements of fact.
The Hollywood Reporter notes that Vargas emphasized that diss tracks by nature use hyperbolic, provocative language:
“The average listener is not under the impression that a diss track is the product of a thoughtful or disinterested investigation,” she wrote. She added that the “rhetorical style, tone, and context, full of profanity and rhetorical flourish, clearly mark the song as expressive opinion rather than factual assertion.”
Bloop!
Drake Filed His Defamation Suit In January
As previously reported, Drake initially filed his lawsuit against UMG in January 2025, accusing the music giant of knowingly defaming him. His complaint centered on Kendrick Lamar’s hit diss track, “Not Like Us,” which famously referred to Drake as a “child predator.” Drake alleged that UMG not only distributed this song but also promoted it through “illegal means.”
UMG, for its part, vehemently denied the claims, asserting that the notion they would “seek to harm the reputation of any artist —let alone Drake—is illogical.”
“Plaintiff, one of the most successful recording artists of all time, lost a rap battle that he provoked and in which he willingly participated,” UMG’s lawyers wrote in a filing asking for a dismissal. “Instead of accepting the loss like the unbothered rap artist he often claims to be, he has sued his own record label in a misguided attempt to salve his wounds.”
The defamation suit came after Drake alleged in November 2024 that UMG and Spotify deployed bots to “artificially inflate” the success of Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” violating the RICO Act.
What do YOU think about Drake losing his UMG defamation suit?
