<\/p>\n
A US federal judge in New York on Thursday threw out a defamation case filed by Canadian rapper Drake against his own label Universal Music Group over Kendrick Lamar’s viral diss track.<\/p>\n
In 2024, the superstar rappers exchanged a litany of increasingly vitriolic songs, with Lamar delivering the major blow with his chart-topping “Not Like Us.”<\/p>\n
In his suit filed in January, Drake accused Universal — which is behind both artists — of betraying him in favor of profits by promoting the song, which features punchlines that accuse him of pedophilia.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit also cited the track’s promotion as causing a “physical threat to Drake’s safety” as well as a “bombardment of online harassment.”<\/p>\n
But Judge Jeannette Vargas said Lamar’s lyrics about the 38-year-old Canadian artist — born Aubrey Drake Graham — amounted to “nonactionable opinion.”<\/p>\n
“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,” Vargas wrote in her ruling.<\/p>\n
“In light of the overall context in which the statements in the recording were made, the Court holds that it cannot.”<\/p>\n
In a statement after the ruling, Universal Music Group called the suit “an affront to all artists and their creative expression and never should have seen the light of day.”<\/p>\n
“We’re pleased with the court\u2019s dismissal and look forward to continuing our work successfully promoting\u00a0Drake’s music and investing in his career.”<\/p>\n
Lamar, a Pulitzer Prize winner who is also 38, went on to perform the Grammy-winning “Not Like Us” as the headliner of the Super Bowl halftime show in February.<\/p>\n
He cut the profanity and the word “pedophile” but didn’t stop short of the money line, rapping “tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A-minoooooor” on live television in front of more than 130 million viewers.<\/p>\n
pel\/sst\/bjt<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A US federal judge in New York on Thursday threw out a defamation case filed by Canadian rapper Drake against his own label Universal Music Group over Kendrick Lamar’s viral diss track. In 2024, the superstar rappers exchanged a litany of increasingly vitriolic songs, with Lamar delivering the major blow with his chart-topping “Not Like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2080760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[380167,381812,25844,391024,37703,30360,46171],"class_list":["post-2080759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-defamation-case","tag-diss-tracks","tag-drake","tag-jeannette-vargas","tag-kendrick-lamar","tag-universal","tag-universal-music-group"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/US-judge-tosses-Drake-lawsuit-over-Lamar-diss-track.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2080759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2080759"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2080759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2080761,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2080759\/revisions\/2080761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2080760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2080759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2080759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2080759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}