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A U.S. federal judge has dismissed Drake\u2019s defamation lawsuit<\/a> <\/strong>against Universal Music Group <\/strong>(UMG) over Kendrick Lamar\u2019s<\/strong> diss track \u201cNot Like Us.\u201d<\/strong> The judge ruled that the song\u2019s lyrics are opinions made during a rap battle, not factual statements that can be considered defamation.<\/p>\n District Judge Jeannette Vargas threw out Drake\u2019s case on Thursday, calling Lamar\u2019s \u201cNot Like Us\u201d<\/a> a \u201cnon-actionable opinion.\u201d She said the song\u2019s context matters because it was part of an ongoing rap feud. \u201cEven apparent statements of fact may assume the character of statements of opinion. When made in public debate, heated labor dispute, or other circumstances in which an audience may anticipate the use of epithets, fiery rhetoric or hyperbole,\u201d the judge wrote.<\/p>\n Drake sued UMG in January, claiming his own label defamed him by distributing and promoting Lamar\u2019s track. He accused the company of fueling the spread of damaging claims through major events like Lamar\u2019s Super Bowl performance. Even including the 2025 Grammy Awards, where \u201cNot Like Us\u201d won five awards.<\/p>\n Judge Vargas said that listeners understand rap battles as spaces for exaggerated and provocative lyrics. She wrote, \u201cAlthough 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 \u2018Not Like Us\u2019 imparts verifiable facts about Plaintiff.\u201d<\/p>\n Her decision backed UMG\u2019s defense that the song was an artistic expression, not a factual attack.<\/p>\n A UMG spokesperson told Variety<\/a>, \u201cFrom the outset, this suit was an affront to all artists and their creative expression and never should have seen the light of day. We\u2019re pleased with the court\u2019s dismissal and look forward to continuing our work successfully promoting Drake\u2019s music and investing in his career.\u201d Drake\u2019s representatives said they plan to appeal.<\/p>\n Originally reported by Devanshi Basu on Mandatory<\/a>.<\/p>\n The post Drake\u2019s Lawsuit Against Kendrick Lamar\u2019s \u2018Not Like Us\u2019 Dismissed by Judge<\/a> appeared first on Reality Tea<\/a>.<\/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 U.S. federal judge has dismissed Drake\u2019s defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG) over Kendrick Lamar\u2019s diss track \u201cNot Like Us.\u201d The judge ruled that the song\u2019s lyrics are opinions made during a rap battle, not factual statements that can be considered defamation. Judge dismisses Drake\u2019s lawsuit against Kendrick Lamar\u2019s track \u2018Not Like Us\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2081404,"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":[321648,391326,391024,37703,356035,46171],"class_list":["post-2081403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-defamation-lawsuit","tag-factual-statements","tag-jeannette-vargas","tag-kendrick-lamar","tag-rap-battle","tag-universal-music-group"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Drakes-Lawsuit-Against-Kendrick-Lamars-\u2018Not-Like-Us-Dismissed-by.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2081403","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=2081403"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2081403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2081405,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2081403\/revisions\/2081405"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2081404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2081403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2081403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2081403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Judge dismisses Drake\u2019s lawsuit against Kendrick Lamar\u2019s track \u2018Not Like Us\u2019<\/h2>\n