A judge has tossed Drake’s lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG), filed against the label after it released Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy-winning track “Not Like Us.”
Drake contended that UMG spread defamatory claims that he was a pedophile, made secret payments, and offered reduced licensing rates to promote Lamar’s diss track.
But U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas dismissed Drake’s case on Thursday, saying that Lamar’s track is “nonactionable opinion” and not defamation.
Drake was signed to Republic Records and Lamar was with Interscope Records. But both are under the UMG umbrella. So, Drake was more-or-less suing his own label.
Drake maintained that Lamar presented his accusations as stated fact that Drake was a pedophile. But the judge insisted that since Lamar’s tune was dropped during his battle with Drake, it can’t be assumed to be presented as fact, but, instead, presented as hyperbole.
“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,” Judge Vargas wrote.
Drake insisted that Lamar’s lyrics stated straight out that he is a pedo.
“It is not at all clear that this is a natural reading of this lyric,” the judge added. “Even if this line was susceptible to such an interpretation standing alone, however, no reasonable listener could understand it in this way given the overall context. Indeed, during this rap battle, Drake and Lamar each used similar hyperbolic threatening language.”
Drake was stung early in their feud when Lamar disagreed that Drake was in the same league and he was far better than Drake. The two traded barbs, but Drake ended up the worse for the feud when fans felt that Lamar won the diss battle between the two with the release of “Not Like Us.”
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