Drake’s “Not Like Us” Defamation Lawsuit Dismissed

Drake has now legally been declared the loser in history’s most famous rap beef. A federal judge dismissed Drake’s lawsuit against his own record label, Universal Music Group, in which he characterized UMG’s promotion of Kendrick Lamar’s Drake diss track “Not Like Us” as defamatory, TMZ reports.

Last year, Kendrick Lamar went on a scorched-earth offensive against Drake, his peer and former collaborator. After Kendrick jumped on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That” to take issue with being grouped in with Drake and J. Cole as part of a so-called “Big Three,” Drake responded with a pair of Kendrick diss tracks, “Push Ups” and “Taylor Made Freestyle,” which featured an AI impersonation of Kendrick’s West Coast forebears 2Pac and Snoop Dogg. Kendrick then unleashed a flurry of diss tracks in quick succession including “Euphoria,” “6:16 In LA,” and “Meet The Grahams.” The latter arrived on a Friday night, mere minutes after “Family Matters,” Drake’s attempt to take the upper hand in the beef.

Kendrick followed that exchange the next afternoon with “Not Like Us,” the knockout blow. The Mustard-produced banger became the most popular diss track in rap history, topping the Hot 100, becoming an omnipresent force in pop culture, and even winning Record and Song Of The Year at the Grammys. It allowed Kendrick to supplant Drake as the dominant rapper in the zeitgeist, rocketing him to Super Bowl Halftime Show-grade popularity.

In response, Drake sued UMG this past January, arguing that the company had knowingly distributed and promoted false claims about him. His lawyers made the case that millions of people believe Drake is literally a “certified pedophile” because Kendrick described him as such on the song. UMG filed to dismiss the suit in March, arguing that Drake “lost a rap battle that he provoked and in which he willingly participated.”

Now, that’s exactly what has happened. United States District Judge Jeannette A. Vargas has thrown out the case, arguing that “the allegedly defamatory statements in ‘Not Like Us’ are nonactionable opinion” and “even accusations of criminal behavior are not actionable if, understood in context, they are opinion rather than fact.” Notably, she really does render an official decision in the rap battle: “The penultimate song of this feud, ‘Not Like Us’ by Kendrick Lamar, dealt the metaphorical killing blow.” Check out the legal document here.