April 1, 2025

Drake vs. UMG: Whoever Wins, Drake Loses

By Emily Poler
Not infrequently, I talk angry clients fired up to file defamation lawsuits out of going to court. I have a lot of reasons, but chief among them is that filing a defamation lawsuit, especially when the client is a public figure, will bring more attention to the potentially defamatory statements. Way more. 

Why? For a statement to be defamatory, it has to be, among other things, false. It’s really hard (if not impossible) to prove something is false without repeatedly restating the defamatory statement. A lawsuit also allows the defendant to rebut claims that a statement is false by coming forward with proof that the statement is true, which also means constantly repeating the defamatory statement. In litigation, all this is likely to be a matter of public record, so if the plaintiff is a public figure, the defamatory statement will be repeated in the media a LOT. Which is usually the opposite of what the celebrity plaintiff wants.

All of which brings me to Drake’s defamation lawsuit against his record label, Universal Music Group (UMG), which seems like a prime example of a case where the plaintiff, a very famous Canadian rapper (you probably know that, but still), might end up doing himself more harm than good. 

This case grew out of the highly public beef last year between Kendrick Lamar (an equally famous, Pulitzer Prize-winning American rapper) and Drake; for those of you who do not live with a teenager who was very eager to fill me in on the increasingly nasty verbal attacks the two artists slung at each other, here’s a brief run down. 

(And yes, I do feel somewhat ridiculous to write the following in a semi-academic tone, but this is a legal blog, so here we are.) 

Kendrick Lamar (“Kendrick”) and Aubrey Drake Graham (“Drake”) are both successful musicians. During 2024 each released several diss tracks, or rap songs with insults directed at the other. In a track called Taylor Made Freestyle, Drake (using an AI-generated voice meant to sound like the late rapper Tupac Shakur, but that’s a story for another day) challenged Kendrick to “talk about [Drake] likin’ young girls.” 

After additional tracks back and forth in which Drake accused Kendrick of cheating on and physically abusing his fiancée, Kendrick responded with “Not Like Us,” which became one of the biggest songs of the year. To the millions of fans who followed the beef, Kendrick had thoroughly eviscerated and humiliated Drake. 

In “Not Like Us” Kendrick raps, among other things “Drake, I hear you like ‘em young,” “tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A minor,” “Certified lover boy? Certified pedophile,” and “your homeboy needs subpoena, that predator move in flocks. That name gotta be registered and placed on neighborhood watch.”

Drake was none too pleased about this and, in early January, he filed a lawsuit claiming that “Not Like Us” and an accompanying music video and other materials are defamatory because he is not a pedophile, has not had sex with a minor and, in fact, has never been charged with “any criminal acts whatsoever.” 

[NB: While Drake has never been charged with any crime, there are a lot of rumors about him having friendships with younger, female celebrities — some of whom were under 18 when the relationships started]. 

Notably, Drake brought his case against UMG, his own record label, which also owns the label that releases Kendrick’s music. Also notably, Drake did not sue Kendrick himself, presumably out of concern that he could subsequently face a counterclaim from Kendrick over Drake’s accusations that Kendrick cheated on and abused his fiancée.

Which brings us to UMG’s motion to dismiss, which it filed on March 17, 2025, and is based on two key arguments.

First, UMG argues that Kendrick’s statements in “Not Like Us” constitute “nonactionable opinion” because an average person hearing the accusations in a rap wouldn’t view them as literally true or false but would consider them hyperbolic statements made in the course of a heated exchange. In determining whether a statement can serve as the basis for a claim of defamation, courts have to look at the context in which they were made, and courts regularly find that statements such as Kendrick’s are not actionable. 

Answering this particular argument will require the court to dive deeply into what was said in “Not Like Us,” along with the full context of the Kendrick-Drake beef — more deeply than is usual at the motion to dismiss stage. (Generally, on a motion to dismiss, courts only consider what’s actually in the complaint and the complaint here focuses on the specific statements without focusing on the larger context.) A deeper dive is not uncommon in defamation cases where there are serious First Amendment concerns that might chill free speech.

UMG next argues that Drake has not alleged that UMG acted with “actual malice.” In the context of a defamation case against a public figure, this means that, in his complaint, Drake has to point to evidence that UMG knew or believed at the time it released “Not Like Us” that the statements about Drake being a pedophile were false. This standard isn’t met where the party publishing the statement (UMG) believes that the statements are outrageous and/or not intended to convey facts. I think it’s likely that UMG’s release of “Not Like Us” is going to fall into this basket. Failing to dismiss the claim could lead to a world in which record labels would have to vet every diss track (plus a lot of other songs) to make sure they’re not defamatory — not a great (or realistic) outcome.

In any event, I’m curious to see how Drake responds to the motion to dismiss. My guess is that his lawyers will argue that the court shouldn’t look at all of the context around the supposedly defamatory lines in “Not Like Us” because it’s inappropriate at this stage of the litigation, and thus should reject UMG’s argument. 

Stepping back from the legal points for a moment, what is Drake hoping to get from this lawsuit? His image took a pretty big hit as a result of the beef, but with the public’s mosquito-like attention span, by the time he filed the world had moved onto other things and in February Drake himself had a Billboard number one collaborative album with fellow Canadian superstar PartyNextDoor. Why keep his embarrassment at the hands of Kendrick in the public eye?

Whatever Drake is thinking, if I had to guess, this case is going to be dismissed or partially dismissed.