Drake had a horrible 2024 and an pretty bad early 2025 thanks to Kendrick Lamar, and today, he’s suffered one final indignity — albeit, a largely self-inflicted one. According to The Hollywood Reporter, a judge has thrown out Drake’s defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group for promoting Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” saying, “A reasonable listener could not have concluded that ‘Not Like Us’ was conveying objective facts about Drake.”
U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas ruled on the grounds that Kendrick’s rhymes calling Drake a “certified pedophile” came in the context of a rap battle, and as such were subject to the same rules of poetic license that should govern pretty much any rap song. “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 in her decision, clarifying, “Even statements that are offensive or insulting are not defamatory when a reasonable listener would understand them as opinion, parody, or artistic expression rather than fact.”
Drake filed his lawsuit against UMG in January, arguing that the label — the parent company for both Republic, to which Drake is signed, and Interscope, the home of Kendrick’s music — promoted “Not Like Us” in an effort to devalue Drake’s catalog to gain leverage over him in future contract negotiations. After Kendrick’s Super Bowl Halftime Show performance, Drake argued that his own fortunes had suffered as a result of UMG’s actions. Meanwhile, UMG filed its own motion to dismiss the suit in March after calling it “illogical” that it would willingly choose to undermine either artist, damaging its own bottom line either way.
Either way, Drake’s rep among rap fans has suffered as a result of his petulance; many of his own peers and contemporaries have weighed in on the suit as being the antithesis of hip-hop and called it the result of hurt feelings. Now that he’s taken this final “L,” perhaps he’ll have the integrity to do some self-reflection and figure out WHY so many rap fans called the battle in favor of the Compton rapper.
