![\"Boston](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ae1133e344230ca069576cfd2b66a09a1e-drake-lawsuit.rsquare.w330.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\n Womp, womp, womp, womp, womp.
\n Photo: Cole Burston\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n
A federal judge dismissed Drake\u2019s defamation-and-harassment lawsuit against his longtime label, Universal Music Group, over Kendrick Lamar\u2019s diss track \u201cNot Like Us\u201d on October 9. Drake filed the complaint back in January, arguing that his reputation was harmed because listeners would genuinely believe that he was a \u201ccertified pedophile.\u201d But in the context of a multi-track feud<\/a> in which Drake was also leveling incendiary language at Lamar, his case fell flat to judge Jeannette Vargas. \u201cAlthough the accusation that plaintiff is a pedophile is certainly a serious one, the broader context of a heated rap battle, with incendiary language and offensive accusations hurled by both participants, would not incline the reasonable listener to believe that \u2018Not Like Us\u2019 imparts verifiable facts about plaintiff,\u201d Vargas wrote in an October 9 ruling, per Billboard<\/a>. Drake has vowed to strike a chord in appeals court, saying in a statement from reps that \u201cWe intend to appeal today\u2019s ruling, and we look forward to the Court of Appeals reviewing it.\u201d So it\u2019s still not OVO-ver?<\/p>\n \u201cFrom the outset, this suit was an affront to all artists and their creative expression and never should have seen the light of day,\u201d a spokesperson for UMG states. \u201cWe\u2019re pleased with the court\u2019s dismissal and look forward to continuing our work successfully promoting Drake\u2019s music and investing in his career.\u201d Drake and Lamar are represented by different labels, both under the UMG umbrella. In his suit, Drake had accused UMG of making secret payments and offering reduced licensing rates to third parties to promote \u201cNot Like Us\u201d as part of an attempt to harm Drake\u2019s music and brand during contract negotiations; UMG denied the allegations. Victory lap at the Pop Out<\/a>?<\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Womp, womp, womp, womp, womp. Photo: Cole Burston\/Getty Images A federal judge dismissed Drake\u2019s defamation-and-harassment lawsuit against his…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":290927,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[149202,149201,149203,4662,171,31347,975,50,101147,338,149204,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-290926","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-case-dismissed","9":"tag-certified-lawyer-boy","10":"tag-dismissals","11":"tag-drake","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-kendrick-lamar","14":"tag-music","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-not-like-us","17":"tag-the-law","18":"tag-umg","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115347751716820630","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}