Universal Music Slams Drake: Hypocrisy in the Lyric Battle with Lamar

Universal Music Group (UMG) has strongly responded to Drake's attempts to revive his failed defamation lawsuit against Kendrick Lamar, calling his arguments “astoundingly hypocritical”. In a new 83-page appellate brief obtained by Rolling Stone, UMG accuses the Canadian rapper, Aubrey Drake Graham, of presenting flawed and “nonsensical” arguments, attempting to “turn the law upside down”. The record label argues that U.S. District Judge Jeannette A. Vargas ruled correctly last October by concluding that Lamar's lyrics, which accused Drake of being a pedophile, were a “nonactionable opinion,” meaning not statements of fact.

UMG maintains that Drake felt free to use UMG's platform to attack Lamar in equally incendiary terms when it suited him, but now seeks a different standard for the “words he now dislikes” directed at him. The document argues that Drake attempts to “strip words from their context and deem them actionable defamation if anyone, anywhere, might treat them as factual.” This stance, according to UMG, would undermine a creative art form based on exaggeration, insult, and wordplay.

In her ruling dismissing Drake's lawsuit, Judge Vargas found that Lamar's lyrics were delivered as a “direct callback to Drake's lyrics” amid “a heated rap battle with incendiary language and offensive accusations hurled by both participants”. She determined that a reasonable listener would conclude that Lamar was “rapping hyperbolic vituperations,” not “verifiable facts”. Judge Vargas wrote that the issue in the case was whether “Not Like Us” could reasonably be understood to convey as a matter of fact that Drake is a pedophile or that he has engaged in sexual relations with minors. In light of the overall context in which the statements in the recording were made, the court held that it could not.

The nine-track rap battle, at the center of the legal war, began making headlines in April 2024. The situation exploded when Drake released “Family Matters” on May 3, 2024, accusing Lamar of domestic abuse and not being the father of one of his children. Lamar responded with the back-to-back releases of “Meet the Grahams” and “Not Like Us”, whose hook of “certified lover boy, certified pedophile” became an instant viral sensation.

UMG emphasizes that the nine songs were “in dialogue with one another”. It notes that Lamar's line, “Say, Drake, I hear you like ’em young”, was an obvious response to Drake's lyrics in “Taylor Made Freestyle”, which taunted Lamar to repeat rumors that Drake had dated someone underage. “Talk about him likin’ young girls”, Drake says in the track. UMG and its lawyers argue that, as much as Drake may dislike that context after the fact, it is fair game and critical to consider under New York law.

The record label also calls it “nonsensical” for Drake to argue that Lamar's lyrics could be defamatory because rap lyrics are sometimes admitted as evidence in criminal cases. UMG notes that that context, in which a jury is asked to make factual determinations under different legal standards, is distinct. In any event, the record label notes that Drake signed a petition in November 2022 criticizing prosecutors for treating artists’ creative expression as fact.

The court document states that Drake's stance is “astoundingly hypocritical”. It cites the November 2022 petition, which argued that “more than any other art form, rap lyrics are essentially being used as confessions in an attempt to criminalize Black creativity and artistry”, and that such use “is un-American and simply wrong”. The document suggests that Drake is now taking the opposite position to serve his interests.

In his 60-page appeal brief in January, Drake renewed his argument that Lamar's song stated, as a “precise” and “unambiguous matter of fact”, that Drake is a “certified pedophile”. He claimed that UMG marketed “Not Like Us” “relentlessly” in a way that misled consumers and caused him serious harm. He said that Lamar's lyrics are “capable of being proven true or false”, so his lawsuit should be tried by a jury.

Drake and his lawyers further claimed that the dismissal of his lawsuit could have far-reaching negative consequences by creating a “dangerous categorical rule” that would shield artists and labels from liability no matter how extreme or damaging their accusations might be. UMG responded on Friday by claiming that that argument “blatantly mischaracterizes” Judge Vargas’ ruling. The UMG filing says the decision “nowhere indicated that a diss track could never be defamatory; it simply recognized that the ‘average listener’ in this forum and the ‘common expectation’ for statements in this forum were significant”.

Drake originally sued UMG in January 2025, accusing the record label of promoting Lamar's hit song in a way that “intended to convey the specific, unmistakable, and false factual allegation that Drake is a criminal pedophile”. Notably, he sued only the record label he shares with Lamar, not Lamar himself. UMG responded with a pair of scathing motions to dismiss that ultimately prevailed. UMG’s lawyers wrote that “plaintiff, one of the most successful recording artists of all time, lost a rap battle that he provoked and in which he willingly participated”. “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”.

“Not Like Us” won Grammy Awards for Record and Song of the Year, becoming only the third hip-hop song to win Record of the Year, after Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” and Lizzo’s “About Damn Time”. Lamar also performed the song during the widely viewed 2025 Super Bowl halftime show.

Drake is expected to respond to UMG’s new appellate filing with a reply brief, due April 17.