Drake Lawsuit Against UMG: Dismissal and Second Circuit Appeal

Drake’s lawsuit against UMG, filed in January 2025 over Kendrick Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us,” was dismissed by a federal judge in October 2025 on the ground that the song’s lyrics and imagery are protected opinion rather than statements of fact. Drake appealed, and as of mid-2026 the case is pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, with a ruling anticipated in 2027.¹

What Drake Sued Over

Aubrey “Drake” Graham filed his defamation complaint on January 15, 2025, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The case was assigned to Judge Jeannette A. Vargas.²

The complaint identified three pieces of “Defamatory Material” from the release of “Not Like Us”: the lyrics, the album artwork, and the music video. Drake argued that together they branded him a “certified pedophile” and a “predator” and suggested he should be “placed on neighborhood watch.”³

Specific lyrics cited included “Say, Drake, I hear you like ’em young / You better not ever go to cell block one,” “Certified Lover Boy? Certified pedophiles,” and “Tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A-Minor.”⁴ The album artwork showed an aerial photo of Drake’s Toronto home covered in icons used by law enforcement apps to mark the residences of registered sex offenders. The music video, according to the complaint, included imagery associated with sex trafficking and paired visuals of hopscotch with the “A-Minor” lyric.³

Drake asserted the accusations were “unequivocally false,” noting he has never been charged with or convicted of any crime. He also claimed the song’s promotion led to physical attacks on his Toronto residence in May 2024.³ In April 2025, he amended the complaint to add Lamar’s performance of “Not Like Us” at the 2025 Super Bowl Halftime Show as an additional act of defamation.⁵

Why the Label and Not Kendrick Lamar

Drake did not sue Kendrick Lamar. He sued only UMG Recordings, framing the case around the label’s decision to publish and aggressively promote material it allegedly knew to be false.⁶ According to the complaint, UMG “waged an unrelenting campaign” to spread the material for corporate profit — to monetize the controversy, maximize Lamar’s sales, and devalue Drake’s brand during contract negotiations. He also alleged UMG “whitelisted” the song to remove copyright restrictions and offered covert financial incentives to third parties to inflate streaming and radio numbers.³

One early piece of the case fell away quickly. After UMG issued a Rule 11 letter warning that Drake’s bot-inflation allegation was “directly refuted by the source Drake relied on,” Drake agreed to withdraw the bot claim before filing his amended complaint.⁷

How Judge Vargas Dismissed the Case

On October 9, 2025, Judge Vargas granted UMG’s motion to dismiss in its entirety.⁴ She ruled that the lyrics and imagery in “Not Like Us” constitute “nonactionable opinion” protected by the First Amendment and the New York Constitution, and that no reasonable listener would interpret them as factual claims about Drake.

Applying a three-factor test drawn from New York defamation law, Vargas acknowledged that accusations of pedophilia have a “precise meaning” and are “capable of being proven true or false.” But she concluded the broader context overwhelmed any factual reading.⁴

On the medium, she found that a rap diss track is not a forum where listeners expect “thoughtful or disinterested investigation” or “fact-checked verifiable content,” comparing the format to internet comment sections and social media platforms that encourage a “freewheeling, anything-goes writing style.”⁴

On context, the judge emphasized that the song came out during a “heated public feud” in which both artists traded “progressive, caustic, inflammatory insults and accusations,” a setting in which audiences expect “epithets, fiery rhetoric or hyperbole.” She pointed out that Drake himself, in “Taylor Made Freestyle,” had used AI-generated voices of Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg to explicitly dare Lamar to accuse him of “likin’ young girls” — a “direct callback” that further signaled the rhetorical nature of the exchange.⁴

She called the album artwork “obviously exaggerated and doctored,” writing that no “reasonable person would view the Image and believe that in fact law enforcement had designated thirteen residents in Drake’s home as sex offenders.”⁸

Vargas also rejected Drake’s argument that the song should be assessed as a “singular entity” apart from the broader battle, and she dismissed the idea that the song’s commercial success changed its legal status. “Whether publications constitute actionable fact or protected opinion cannot vary based upon the popularity they achieve,” she wrote.⁴ She called Drake’s republication theory — that UMG’s continued promotion created new liability — “logically incoherent,” reasoning that “republication cannot transform Lamar’s statement of opinion into UMG’s statement of fact.”⁶

The Appeal to the Second Circuit

Drake filed a notice of appeal on October 29, 2025, and submitted his opening brief to the Second Circuit on January 21, 2026. His legal team is led by Michael J. Gottlieb of Willkie Farr & Gallagher.⁹

Drake’s Arguments

On appeal, Drake argues that Judge Vargas established a “dangerous categorical rule” that statements made in rap diss tracks can never be actionable defamation, however damaging. He contends the lower court used a “rap aficionado” standard rather than the perspective of an ordinary “reasonable listener,” who would not necessarily know the conventions of the genre and would take “certified pedophile” as a factual accusation. He maintains that as a public figure, he has met the standard for defamation by showing UMG acted with “knowledge of falsity or a reckless disregard of the truth.”¹⁰

He also renewed his republication argument, pointing to Lamar’s Super Bowl Halftime Show performance and arguing it reached new audiences — football fans, not hip-hop listeners — who lacked the context of the original battle. He contends the dismissal was “premature” because it denied him discovery and a jury.¹¹

UMG’s Response

UMG filed its response brief on March 27, 2026, urging the Second Circuit to uphold the dismissal.¹² The label argued that Drake was trying to “strip words from their context” and that accepting his interpretation would “critically undermine a highly creative art form built on exaggeration, insult, and wordplay.”¹³

UMG called Drake’s position “astoundingly hypocritical,” pointing out that in November 2022 he had signed a petition criticizing the use of rap lyrics as evidence in criminal proceedings, and now was asking a court to treat rap lyrics as factual statements in a civil case. The label also called the republication theory “meritless,” arguing that a song that logged 96 million streams in its first week could not plausibly have reached a “new audience” at the Super Bowl.⁷

Amicus Briefs and the Consent Theory

In early April 2026, two amicus briefs were filed in support of UMG. One from the Floyd Abrams Institute for Freedom of Expression at Yale Law School and Professor Lyrissa Lidsky of the University of Florida introduced a fresh theory: that Drake had “consented” to the statements by explicitly goading Lamar into making the pedophilia accusations, and that under New York law, consent is an absolute defense to defamation.¹⁴ A second brief was filed by a group of social scientists and legal scholars.¹⁵ No amicus briefs were filed in support of Drake.

Drake’s team filed a reply brief on April 17, 2026, arguing that the district court committed “reversible error” by relying on materials outside the pleadings and making adverse factual findings that should have been left to a jury. His attorneys dismissed the consent theory as “imaginative” and “fearmongering.”¹¹

When to Expect a Ruling

Briefing before the Second Circuit is complete. Oral arguments are expected in the coming months, though no date had been set as of mid-2026.¹⁵ A decision is anticipated in 2027.¹

Other Litigation in the Same Orbit

Two other lawsuits touch on the streaming-inflation questions raised by Drake’s case, but neither is part of the defamation action. In November 2025, rapper RBX (Eric Dwayne Collins) sued Spotify in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleging the platform knowingly permits bots to generate billions of fraudulent streams. That complaint cited data purporting to show anomalous streaming patterns on Drake’s catalog. Drake is not a defendant.¹⁶ A separate proposed class action filed in Virginia on December 31, 2025, does name Drake alongside streamer Adin Ross and the online gambling platform Stake.us, alleging that proceeds from the platform were used to create fraudulent streams of Drake’s music. The plaintiffs sought at least $5 million in damages. None of those allegations have been proven in court.¹⁷

1
XXL Magazine. Universal Music Group Kendrick Lamar Drake Appeal Lawsuit
2
CourtListener. Graham v. UMG Recordings, Inc., Docket No. 1:25-cv-00399
3
Courthouse News Service. Drake v. UMG Defamation Complaint
4
U.S. District Court, S.D.N.Y. Graham v. UMG Recordings, Inc., No. 25-CV-0399
5
Billboard. Drake Legal Actions Against Kendrick Lamar Not Like Us Timeline
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Billboard. Drake Lawsuit Over Kendrick Lamar Not Like Us Dismissed by Judge
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Music Business Worldwide. UMG Fires Back at Drake Appeal Over Not Like Us Lawsuit Dismissal
8
Spectrum News. Drake Defamation Lawsuit Over Kendrick Lamar Tossed Out
9
People. Drake Appeals Dismissal of Not Like Us Defamation Lawsuit Against UMG
10
Digital Music News. Drake Not Like Us Lawsuit Appeal
11
Music Business Worldwide. Drake Pushes Back on UMG at Appeals Court
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Yahoo Entertainment. UMG Responds to Drake Appeal
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Billboard. UMG Responds to Drake Appeal Over Kendrick Lamar Not Like Us
14
Music Business Worldwide. Amicus Brief, Floyd Abrams Institute for Freedom of Expression
15
CourtListener. Graham v. UMG Recordings, Inc., Docket No. 25-2758
16
CBS News. Judge Dismisses Drake Lawsuit Against Universal Over Kendrick Lamar Diss Track
17
CBC. Drake Class Action Lawsuit Over Illegal Gambling Company