UMG Fires Back at Drake’s Lawsuit Over Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Not Like Us’: An ‘Attempt to Save Face’

Universal Music Group has filed a scathing first court response to Drake’s defamation lawsuit over Kendrick Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us,” blasting the case as “no more than Drake’s attempt to save face” after losing a rap beef.

In a motion filed Monday seeking to dismiss the lawsuit, attorneys for the music giant argued that Drake’s allegations against the company were clearly “meritless” – and that he had gone to court simply because he had been publicly embarrassed.

“Plaintiff, one of the most successful recording artists of all time, lost a rap battle that he provoked and in which he willingly participated,” UMG’s lawyers write. “Instead of accepting the loss like the unbothered rap artist he often claims to be, he has sued his own record label in a misguided attempt to salve his wounds.”

In the filing, UMG pointedly noted that Drake himself had leveled his own “hyperbolic insults” and “vitriolic allegations” during the same exchange of stinging rap tracks, including accusing Lamar of domestic abuse and questioning whether the rival had really fathered his son.

“Drake has been pleased to use UMG’s platform to promote tracks leveling similarly incendiary attacks at Lamar,” the company’s attorneys write. “But now, after losing the rap battle, Drake claims that ‘Not Like Us’ is defamatory. It is not.”

Lamar released “Not Like Us” last May amid a high-profile beef with Drake that saw the two stars release a series of bruising diss tracks. The song, a knock-out punch that blasted Drake as a “certified pedophile” over an infectious beat, eventually became a chart-topping hit in its own right and was the centerpiece of Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show.

In January, Drake took the unusual step of suing UMG over the song, claiming the label had defamed him by boosting the track’s popularity. The lawsuit, which doesn’t name Lamar himself as a defendant, alleges that UMG “waged a campaign” against its own artist to spread a “malicious narrative” about pedophilia that it knew to be false.

But in Monday’s response, UMG says the lyrics to Lamar’s song are clearly the kind of free speech that are shielded from defamation lawsuits by the First Amendment. The song contains over-the-top insults, the company argued, but so do all such tracks, including those by Drake.

“Diss tracks are a popular and celebrated artform centered around outrageous insults, and they would be severely chilled if Drake’s suit were permitted to proceed,” the company wrote. “Hyperbolic and metaphorical language is par for the course in diss tracks — indeed, Drake’s own diss tracks employed imagery at least as violent.”

In technical terms, UMG is arguing that Lamar’s lyrics are either “rhetorical hyperbole” or opinion – the kind of statements that might sound bad but cannot actually be proven false. Since defamation only covers false assertions of fact, statements of hyperbole and opinion can’t form the basis for such lawsuits.

To make that point, UMG cites Drake’s own public support for a 2022 petition criticizing prosecutors for using rap lyrics as evidence in criminal cases. That letter, also signed by Megan Thee Stallion, 21 Savage and many other stars, criticized prosecutors for treating lyrics as literal statements of fact.

“As Drake recognized, when it comes to rap, ‘the final work is a product of the artist’s vision and imagination’,” UMG’s lawyers write. “Drake was right then and is wrong now. The complaint’s unjustified claims against UMG are no more than Drake’s attempt to save face for his unsuccessful rap battle with Lamar. The court should grant UMG’s motion and dismiss the complaint with prejudice.”

A spokesperson for Drake did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday. The star’s attorneys will file a court response to UMG’s motion in the weeks ahead.