Judge Dismisses Drake’s Lawsuit Over Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Not Like Us’

Music|Judge Dismisses Drake’s Lawsuit Over Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Not Like Us’

Drake’s court battle with his own record label for releasing a diss track by Kendrick Lamar that accused him of pedophilia has met a premature end.

A federal judge in New York on Thursday dismissed the defamation and harassment lawsuit brought by Drake, the Canadian superstar born Aubrey Drake Graham, in January, calling “Not Like Us” the “metaphorical killing blow” in “perhaps the most infamous rap battle in the genre’s history,” while ruling that its lyrics constituted “nonactionable opinion,” meaning it could not be found to be defamatory.

“The issue in this case is whether ‘Not Like Us’ can reasonably be understood to convey as a factual matter that Drake is a pedophile or that he has engaged in sexual relations with minors,” the judge, Jeannette A. Vargas, wrote. “In light of the overall context in which the statements in the Recording were made, the Court holds that it cannot.”

Initially released in May 2024, “Not Like Us” became the defining and deciding song in a rapid flurry of back-and-forth attacks by the rappers, who released eight tracks targeting one another with what the court called “increasingly heated rhetoric, loaded accusations and violent imagery.”

Drake’s suit accused Universal Music Group, or UMG, the record company behind both rappers, of valuing “corporate greed over the safety and well-being of its artists,” arguing that the track was “intended to convey the specific, unmistakable and false factual allegation that Drake is a criminal pedophile, and to suggest that the public should resort to vigilante justice in response.”

It was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by Michael J. Gottlieb, a partner at the firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher, who had previously represented the owner of the Washington pizzeria targeted by the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theorists and the election workers falsely accused by Rudolph W. Giuliani of aiding a false plot to steal the 2020 presidential election.

The lawsuit cited the fact that the cover art for “Not Like Us” featured a photo of Drake’s Toronto mansion dotted with markers meant to represent the presence of registered sex offenders, and invoked a shooting at the residence days after the song’s release that injured a security guard, calling it “the 2024 equivalent of ‘Pizzagate.’” It also argued that UMG had been incentivized to devalue Drake’s brand because his contract would soon be up for renegotiation.

Representatives for Drake did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

After the suit was filed, UMG countered that Drake “lost a rap battle that he provoked and in which he willingly participated” and then “sued his own record label in a misguided attempt to salve his wounds.”

In a statement on Thursday, the label said, “From the outset, this suit was an affront to all artists and their creative expression and never should have seen the light of day. We’re pleased with the court’s dismissal and look forward to continuing our work successfully promoting Drake’s music and investing in his career.”

In Judge Vargas’s ruling, which is laden with explicit and specific rap lyrics from the beef, she decided that the song’s context as part of the disagreement was crucial: “The average listener is not under the impression that a diss track is the product of a thoughtful or disinterested investigation, conveying to the public fact-checked verifiable content,” she wrote.

The judge noted that in earlier songs, Drake — in addition to implying that Lamar had physically abused his partner and was not the biological father of one of his children — had “challenged Lamar to make the pedophilia accusations at issue.”

“The similarity in the wording suggests strongly that this line is a direct callback to Drake’s lyrics in the prior song,” the judge wrote. “The songs released during this rap battle are in dialogue with one another.” A reasonable listener, she added, “would conclude that Lamar is rapping hyperbolic vituperations.”

Both rappers have seen commercial success since their war of words. Lamar released the album “GNX,” which hit No. 1 and formed the basis for an international stadium tour with SZA, while Drake’s “Some Sexy Songs 4 U,” a collaborative project with the singer and producer PartyNextDoor, also debuted atop the Billboard chart. He has teased a follow-up album, titled “Iceman,” that is likely to be released in part by Drake’s longtime partner, Republic Records, a UMG subsidiary.