October 11, 2025
Choose Vargas guidelines that Lamar’s lyrics had been inventive expression, not factual claims, in considered one of hip-hop’s most publicized feuds.
A federal decide in New York has dismissed Drake’s defamation lawsuit towards Common Music Group (UMG), ruling that the claims tied to Kendrick Lamar’s 2024 diss monitor “Not Like Us” had been protected as opinion reasonably than reality. In her choice, Choose Jeannette Vargas decided that the statements Drake alleged had been defamatory amounted to “nonactionable opinion,” successfully ending the high-profile case.
“A rap diss monitor wouldn’t create extra of an expectation within the common listener that the lyrics state sober details as an alternative of opinion,” Vargas wrote, describing the tune as filled with “profanity, trash-talking, threats of violence, and figurative and hyperbolic language.”
As reported by ABC Information, Drake sued UMG for defamation and harassment, accusing the label of knowingly publishing and selling Lamar’s Grammy-winning hit regardless of its insinuations that he engaged in sexual relationships with minors. The decide famous that the case “arises from maybe essentially the most notorious rap battle within the style’s historical past,” referring to the 2024 back-and-forth that noticed each rappers buying and selling barbed lyrics throughout a number of tracks.
“Not Like Us,” which Lamar carried out on the 2025 Tremendous Bowl, went on to brush the Grammy Awards, incomes 5 trophies, together with Music and Report of the Yr.
In an announcement following the ruling, UMG stated the lawsuit “was an affront to all artists and their artistic expression and by no means ought to have seen the sunshine of day.”
The label added that it seemed ahead to “persevering with our work efficiently selling Drake’s music and investing in his profession.”
Drake’s authorized staff, nevertheless, stated they plan to enchantment. “This lawsuit reveals the human and enterprise penalties to UMG’s elevation of earnings over the protection and well-being of its artists,” they stated in an announcement.
UMG’s earlier response to the case accused Drake of hypocrisy: “He deliberately and efficiently used UMG to distribute his music and poetry to interact in conventionally outrageous, back-and-forth rap battles… He now seeks to weaponize the authorized course of to silence an artist’s artistic expression.”
Choose Vargas finally concluded that the accusations inside Lamar’s tune — together with calling Drake a pedophile — wouldn’t be interpreted as literal reality. “The broader context of a heated rap battle… wouldn’t incline the affordable listener to consider that ‘Not Like Us’ imparts verifiable details,” Vargas wrote.
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