The authorized fallout from probably the most vital rap rivalry of the last decade has reached a important turning level. On Friday, Common Music Group (UMG) filed a blistering response to the continuing enchantment of Drake‘s lawsuit towards the music company, arguing that the Canadian celebrity is trying to undermine the very basis of hip-hop as a result of he’s being a sore loser over shedding his high-profile beef with Kendrick Lamar.
The middle of the dispute facilities on Lamar’s 2024 international phenomenon, “Not Like Us,” which famously branded Drake a “licensed pedophile.” Whereas the track went on to dominate the charts and sweep the Grammy Awards, Drake responded with a defamation go well with towards his personal distributor, UMG, claiming the corporate promoted the monitor regardless of realizing its allegations have been false.
As beforehand reported, in October 2025, federal choose Jeannette Vargas dismissed Drake’s lawsuit, delivering a ruling that has since grow to be a flashpoint for authorized debate within the music business. Choose Vargas categorized the seven-track trade between the 2 artists as a “disagreement” and concluded {that a} followers and listeners wouldn’t interpret the unfavourable lyrics of a rap battle as verifiable factual claims.
In her ruling, the choose famous that whereas the accusations have been critical, the “broader context of a heated rap battle” inclined listeners to view the lyrics as hyperbolic insults somewhat than literal indictments. Nonetheless, Drake and his authorized workforce, led by Michael J. Gottlieb, weren’t able to let the matter relaxation, submitting an enchantment in January 2026 to revive the case.
Drake’s Lawsuit Enchantment Argues ‘Not Like Us’ Warranted Perception He Is A Pedophile
Within the enchantment, Drake’s attorneys argued that the decrease courtroom created an “unprecedented” and “harmful” precedent. They contend that if the ruling stands, it basically means that statements made inside rap songs can by no means be thought-about defamatory, no matter how damaging they’re to a person’s fame or security.
“Tens of millions of individuals understood [‘Not Like Us’] to convey factual data, inflicting numerous people across the globe to imagine that Drake was a pedophile,” the enchantment states.
“It’s arduous to think about a press release extra damaging to at least one’s fame and security than being labeled a ‘licensed pedophile,’ which elicits intense vitriol, and may spur violent retaliation,” his lawyer wrote. “The courtroom’s rule brushes apart the chance of concrete reputational harms that may and right here did spill over into violence.”
Drake’s workforce additionally identified a hypocrisy within the authorized system: if rap lyrics are commonly utilized by prosecutors as proof of factual intent in prison circumstances, they need to be handled with the identical weight in civil defamation circumstances.
Within the new temporary filed this week, UMG’s attorneys fired again, claiming that Drake’s lawsuit seeks to “strip phrases from their context” to fulfill a private vendetta. In response to Advanced, label argues that Drake’s view would destroy a “extremely inventive artwork type constructed on exaggeration, insult, and wordplay.”
UMG’s stance is that the rapper is trying to rewrite the principles of hip-hop as a result of the general public narrative didn’t swing in his favor. The corporate had beforehand referred to as the go well with an “affront to all artists and their inventive expression,” sustaining that the inventive license afforded to rappers have to be protected against litigious interference.
