Drake lost the rap battle, then lost in court. On December 4, a federal appeals court will decide whether he gets another round.
Kendrick Lamar's "Not Like Us" was the defining song of 2024's rap feud, and its lyrics accused Drake of being a pedophile. Drake did not sue Lamar. Instead, in January 2025 he sued Universal Music Group, the company that distributes both artists' music.
His claim was that UMG knowingly published and promoted a false and damaging accusation for profit. The suit also alleged that UMG used deceptive tactics to inflate the song's streams and reach. In October 2025, a federal judge in New York dismissed the case.
The appeal
Drake filed a 117-page opening brief with the Second Circuit on January 21, 2026. He argues the lower court created a dangerous rule that diss tracks can never be defamatory. UMG answered in March that Drake was pulling words out of their context: a heated rap battle in which listeners expect exaggeration and insult.
Free-speech scholars, including a Yale Law School institute, filed briefs supporting UMG. Oral argument is scheduled for December 4, 2026.
The analysis: suing your own label
The strangest part of this case is the business relationship. Drake's label, Republic Records, is part of UMG, and so was Lamar's distribution. Drake effectively sued the company that releases his own music, over a song by another artist on its roster.
That creates a conflict every major label faces. A label profits from both sides of a feud, and a viral diss track is valuable content. If labels could be liable for every insult in a song they release, they might start screening lyrics like a newspaper's legal department. That would change how hip-hop gets made.
The case has also had a reputational cost. Many observers said Drake lost the feud in public and then lost again in court. Whatever happens on appeal, few artists will want to follow him into suing their own distributor.
👁️ Legal lens (non-lawyer view)
Defamation requires a false statement of fact. Opinion, insult and obvious exaggeration are protected by the First Amendment. The core question is whether a reasonable listener hears "Not Like Us" as a factual claim or as rhetorical trash talk in a battle that both sides joined.
The district court chose the second reading. Context matters a great deal under U.S. law, and rap battles are a genre built on hyperbole. Drake himself made sharp personal accusations against Lamar during the same feud, which makes it harder to argue that listeners took every line literally.
Drake's best argument is procedural. At the motion-to-dismiss stage, a court must accept the plaintiff's facts as true. His lawyers say the judge weighed evidence and made factual findings too early. If the appeals court agrees, the case could be sent back for discovery, which UMG would very much like to avoid.
Even then, Drake would face another high bar. As a public figure, he must prove "actual malice": that UMG knew the claim was false or recklessly ignored the truth. Proving a distributor's state of mind about an artist's lyrics is very difficult.
❓ What happens next ❓
A ruling could come months after the December hearing. If the Second Circuit upholds the dismissal, it will strengthen protection for artistic expression in music. If it revives the case, every label's legal team will start reading lyrics more carefully.