Drake thinks the lower court has created an “unprecedented” rule that rap diss tracks can never be actionable with their dismissal of his lawsuit.
The Canadian rapper has officially moved to appeal the dismissal of his lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG) tied to Kendrick Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us.”
He originally sued UMG last year, alleging the company defamed him by distributing Lamar’s viral diss track, which branded him a “certified pedophile.” However, a federal judge ruled in October that listeners wouldn’t interpret jabs exchanged in a rap feud as literal, factual claims.
Rolling Stone reports that in his long-anticipated appeal filed Wednesday, Drake’s legal team argues the opposite is true: That audiences absolutely took the lyrics at face value.
“Millions of people understood [Not Like Us] to convey factual information, causing countless individuals around the globe to believe that Drake was a pedophile.”
According to the rapper’s attorneys, dismissing the case in spite of that public reaction amounted to the court establishing an “unprecedented” and “dangerous” legal doctrine, one that suggests statements in rap songs can never be defamatory.
“It is hard to imagine a statement more damaging to one’s reputation and safety than being labeled a ‘certified pedophile,’ which elicits intense vitriol, and can spur violent retaliation,” Drake’s attorney Michael J. Gottlieb writes in the appeal, obtained by Billboard. “The court’s rule brushes aside the risk of concrete reputational harms that can and here, did spill over into violence.”
This appeal serves as the latest turn in a legal saga that caught much of the music world off guard. Very few anticipated that a rap beef would escalate into a lawsuit, leading to some corners of hip-hop culture taunting Drake for taking it there.
Lamar dropped “Not Like Us” in May 2024 as the final blow in a fierce back-and-forth between the two artists. Beyond being viewed as Lamar’s lyrical knockout, the song also dominated the charts. It went on to win five Grammy Awards, including record and song of the year, and became a centerpiece of Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime performance.
By January, Drake answered not with another track, but with legal action, claiming UMG had defamed him by aggressively amplifying the song’s reach, allegedly through bots and other questionable promotional tactics. While Lamar himself was not named in the suit, Drake accused UMG of having “waged a campaign” against its own star to spread a “malicious narrative.”
That case was thrown out in October by Judge Jeannette Vargas, who determined that Lamar’s lyrics amounted to “hyperbolic” opinion rather than actionable defamation, since a reasonable listener wouldn’t view them as “sober” factual claims capable of being proven true or false.
“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.”
In the newly filed appeal, Drake’s lawyers sharply criticize that decision, calling it “indefensible” and arguing it overlooked evidence that fans perceived the song as a “factual indictment of Drake.” They say the ruling instead created a “dangerous” new rule shielding rappers from defamation lawsuits altogether.
“If rap diss tracks cannot contain statements of fact, then they are inoculated from any liability for defamation no matter how direct and damaging the defamatory statements they contain,” his lawyers say. “This case illustrates that.”
UMG’s attorneys are expected to submit a response in the coming weeks. A company spokesperson declined to comment on Thursday.
When UMG does respond, it will likely maintain that Judge Vargas simply followed established principles surrounding defamation and free expression — principles that legal experts told Billboard generally protect artistic works like music, while still allowing consequences for outright falsehoods. The label is also expected to reference legal scholars who warned the case could have a “chilling effect” on hip-hop and encourage prosecutors to continue using rap lyrics as criminal evidence.
Drake’s legal team addressed that issue head-on in Wednesday’s filing, pointing out that “rap lyrics are regularly used as evidence in criminal cases” to bolster their argument that listeners could have reasonably taken Lamar’s lyrics seriously.
“If rap lyrics can be understood to contain statements of fact in the criminal context, then it must follow that reasonable listeners could understand them similarly for purposes of defamation,” Drake’s attorneys wrote.
