Why Was Drake’s UMG Defamation Lawsuit Dismissed?

Drake’s UMG defamation lawsuit was dismissed on October 9, 2025, when U.S. District Judge Jeannette A. Vargas ruled that the lyrics of Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” were nonactionable opinion protected by the First Amendment, not statements of fact that can support a defamation claim. The 38-page opinion granted UMG’s motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) and threw out all three of Drake’s claims.¹ Drake has appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

What Drake Sued Over

Drake filed suit in the Southern District of New York on January 15, 2025, bringing three claims against UMG: defamation, harassment in the second degree, and violation of Section 349 of the New York General Business Law.¹ The complaint identified three pieces of “Defamatory Material”: the song “Not Like Us,” its cover art, and its music video.

The song, released by Lamar on May 4, 2024, names Drake directly and includes lines such as “Say, Drake, I hear you like ’em young,” “Certified Lover Boy? Certified pedophiles,” and a call for his name to “be registered and placed on neighborhood watch.”² The cover art showed an aerial image of Drake’s Toronto mansion styled to resemble a sex offender registry map.³

Drake argued the material falsely accused him of being a “criminal pedophile” and a “predator,” and that the accusations were “unequivocally false,” noting he had never been charged with or convicted of any crimes involving minors.⁴ He also tied UMG’s promotion of the track to security incidents at his Toronto residence in May 2024, including a shooting that wounded a security guard.⁵ An amended complaint filed April 16, 2025, added allegations that Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show performance and the song’s Grammy wins broadened the reach of the defamation.⁶

Why the Court Ruled the Lyrics Were Opinion, Not Fact

To decide whether the lyrics could be defamatory, Judge Vargas applied the three-factor test from Brian v. Richardson. It asks whether the language has a precise, readily understood meaning; whether it can be proven true or false; and whether the full context signals to the audience that the content is opinion.

She conceded the first two factors ran in Drake’s favor. Accusations of pedophilia have a precise meaning and are capable of being proven true or false. But the third factor, she wrote, was dispositive.¹

The opinion described rap diss tracks as a forum comparable to social media platforms, one that “encourage[s] a freewheeling, anything-goes writing style” and that a reasonable listener would not treat as the product of “thoughtful or disinterested investigation” or “fact-checked verifiable content.”³ The track itself, Judge Vargas wrote, was “replete with profanity, trash-talking, threats of violence, and figurative and hyperbolic language.” In the context of an acrimonious public feud, she reasoned, an audience anticipates “epithets, fiery rhetoric or hyperbole rather than factual assertions.”⁷

The “Taylor Made Freestyle” Callback

The court refused to read “Not Like Us” in isolation. Judge Vargas held that the tracks the two artists released during their 16-day exchange in spring 2024 were in dialogue with one another and had to be read together.

That framing mattered because of what Drake himself had said. In “Taylor Made Freestyle,” Drake used AI-generated voices of Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg and, at one point, urged Lamar to “Talk about him likin’ young girls.”¹ The court called Lamar’s pedophilia lyrics a “direct callback” to that invitation. A listener who understood the exchange would recognize the accusations as battle rhetoric responding to a challenge, not a factual charge.

Cover Art and the Republication Argument

Judge Vargas also addressed the pieces of Drake’s case that went beyond the lyrics themselves.

On the cover art, the court ruled the sex-offender-registry-style image was “obviously exaggerated and doctored” and that “no reasonable person” would interpret it as an actual law enforcement designation.³

Drake had also argued that “Not Like Us” should be treated as a standalone work given its massive popularity, and that UMG’s continued promotion, including the Grammy nominations and the Super Bowl performance, converted the song from opinion into a factual claim by the label. The court called the first argument “logically incoherent,” ruling that the constitutional status of speech as protected opinion does not shift based on later commercial success. On the second, Judge Vargas held that if the song was nonactionable opinion at release, republication did not turn it into fact.¹

The Precedents the Court Relied On

The opinion leaned on a line of cases holding that accusations exchanged during heated public feuds are treated as opinion.

Steinhilber v. Alphonse, a New York Court of Appeals case, established that statements made in heated disputes where the audience anticipates “fiery rhetoric or hyperbole” are not actionable.¹
Torain v. Liu, a Second Circuit case, dismissed defamation claims where rival radio DJs traded accusations of being a “pedophile” and “child predator” during a public feud, treating those exact terms as nonactionable opinion.¹
Rapaport v. Barstool Sports, another Second Circuit decision, affirmed dismissal of defamation claims arising from insults delivered during a “hostile, vulgar and hyperbolic feud,” holding no reasonable reader would interpret them as objective fact.⁸

A UMG spokesperson called the suit “an affront to all artists and their creative expression” that “never should have seen the light of day.”⁷

The Appeal Before the Second Circuit

Drake filed a notice of appeal on November 12, 2025, and submitted his opening brief on January 21, 2026.⁹ His central arguments push back on the reasoning Judge Vargas used to dismiss the case:

He contends the district court created an “unprecedented and overbroad categorical rule” that statements in rap diss tracks can never be treated as fact.⁹
He argues the court improperly relied on “Taylor Made Freestyle,” which was not referenced in his complaint, to draw an “unreasonable inference” that listeners would view “Not Like Us” as a callback.¹⁰
He claims the court should have converted UMG’s motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment, which would have allowed him to present evidence from discovery.¹⁰
He argues the song reached mainstream audiences at the Super Bowl, the Grammys, and the Democratic National Convention who lacked the context of the original feud and would not read the lyrics as battle rhetoric.¹¹

UMG’s 83-page response brief, filed March 27, 2026, called the appeal “astoundingly hypocritical” and argued Drake had participated in the same kind of provocative lyrical exchange. UMG maintained the district court correctly recognized diss tracks as artistic expression built on “exaggeration, insult, and wordplay.”¹¹

Two amicus briefs supporting UMG were filed on April 3, 2026. The Floyd Abrams Institute for Freedom of Expression and University of Florida law professor Lyrissa Lidsky, represented by Yale Law School’s Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic, offered an alternative ground for affirming: because Drake explicitly invited Lamar to make the pedophilia accusations, the doctrine of consent should bar him from suing over the response. The brief drew an analogy to a boxer who challenges the world champion and then sues for battery after being knocked out.¹² A separate brief from thirteen legal scholars and social scientists, prepared by the UCI Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology Clinic, argued that treating rap lyrics as factual statements risks introducing racial bias into legal proceedings, citing empirical research on the disproportionate harm to Black communities.¹³

Drake’s legal team called the consent argument an “imaginative” affirmative defense that UMG never formally raised in the litigation.¹⁰ The appeal remains pending. A separate motion to certify a question of state law to the New York Court of Appeals, filed alongside Drake’s opening brief, was referred to the merits panel in January 2026, and no oral argument had been scheduled as of the docket’s last update on June 19, 2026.¹⁴

1
U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York. Graham v. UMG Recordings Inc., No. 25-CV-0399 (JAV)
2
Genius. Kendrick Lamar – Not Like Us Lyrics
3
First Amendment Watch. Judge Tosses Out Drake’s Defamation Lawsuit Against Label Over Kendrick Lamar’s Not Like Us
4
Courthouse News. Drake UMG Defamation Complaint
5
PBS. Drake’s Defamation Suit Against Label Over Kendrick Lamar’s Not Like Us Tossed by Judge
6
Hollywood Reporter. Drake Files Amended Complaint UMG Lawsuit
7
Billboard. Drake Lawsuit Kendrick Lamar Not Like Us Dismissed Judge
8
Courthouse News. Barstool Sports Tasteless Effort to Lampoon Did Not Defame Michael Rapaport Appeals Court Affirms
9
Rolling Stone. Drake Kendrick Lamar Not Like Us Appeals Defamation Case
10
Music Business Worldwide. Drake Pushes Back on UMG at Appeals Court
11
Rap Industry. Drake vs UMG What Happens When You Sue the Label That Still Controls Your Career
12
Yale Law School. MFIA Clinic’s Brief Drake Defamation Appeal Draws Widespread Media Attention
13
UCI Law IPAT Clinic. IPAT Clinic Files Amicus Curiae Brief on Behalf of Social Scientists and Legal Scholars in Drake v. UMG Appeal
14
CourtListener. Graham v. UMG Recordings Inc., No. 25-2758