Earlier today, Judge Vargas dismissed Drake’s defamation suit against his recording company of 20 years, UMG Recordings, Inc., stemming from “perhaps the most infamous rap battle in the genre’s history, the vitriolic war of words that erupted between superstar recording artists Aubrey Drake Graham (‘Drake’) and Kendrick Lamar Duckworth (‘Lamar’ or ‘Kendrick Lamar’) in the spring of 2024.” Drake alleged that UMG intentionally published and promoted Kendrick Lamar’s song “Not Like Us,” which accused Drake of being a pedophile, while knowing the accusations were false and defamatory.
The court held that “Not Like Us” was “nonactionable opinion” and therefore not defamatory. The deciding factor of the analysis was “the overall context in which the assertions were made”:
[T]he average listener is more likely to understand statements made on a news program or in a journalistic piece to be factual, while statements made in the opinion page of a newspaper or on an internet comment page are generally perceived as opinion. . . . The forum here is a music recording, in particular a rap “diss track,” with accompanying video and album art. Diss tracks are much more akin to forums like YouTube and X, which encourag[e] a freewheeling, anything-goes writing style, than journalistic reporting. The average listener is not under the impression that a diss track is the product of a thoughtful or disinterested investigation, conveying to the public fact-checked verifiable content. . . .
[T]he Recording was published as part of a heated public feud, in which both participants exchanged progressively caustic, inflammatory insults and accusations. This is precisely the type of context in which an audience may anticipate the use of “epithets, fiery rhetoric or hyperbole” rather than factual assertions. A rap diss track would not create . .. an expectation in the average listener that the lyrics state sober facts instead of opinion . . . .
The court also rejected Drake’s argument that “Not Like Us” should be assessed independent of the rap battle in which it arose, on the theory that the song become massively popular, even among listeners unfamiliar with its origins in artists’ broader feud. The Court explained that this “would render protection for artistic expression dependent upon an impermissible retroactive analysis” by basing the analysis for defamation on the subsequent success of the song (e.g., Grammy, Super Bowl Halftime Show) instead of the song as Kendrick Lamar wrote it: “Whether publications constitute actionable fact or protected opinion cannot vary based upon the popularity they achieve. Constitutional guarantees do not rest on such a flimsy foundation.”