Drake Sued His Own Label Over “Not Like Us” — Here’s What Happened

Drake, born Aubrey Drake Graham, filed a defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on January 15, 2025. The suit accused UMG of intentionally publishing and promoting Kendrick Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us,” released May 4, 2024, despite knowing that its lyrics falsely accused Drake of being a pedophile. Drake sued UMG directly. He did not name Kendrick Lamar as a defendant.

U.S. District Judge Jeannette A. Vargas dismissed the lawsuit on October 9, 2025, ruling that the lyrics constituted “non-actionable opinion” in the context of a rap battle. Drake filed a notice of appeal in November 2025. His 117-page appellate brief followed in January 2026. The case is now pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan, with briefing still ongoing as of May 2026.

Drake vs. UMG Lawsuit Timeline and Updates

May 4, 2024 — Kendrick Lamar Releases “Not Like Us”

Kendrick Lamar released “Not Like Us” on May 4, 2024, as part of a 16-day rap battle with Drake in which both artists released eight diss tracks with increasingly heated rhetoric. Judge Vargas later described the exchange as “perhaps the most infamous rap battle in the genre’s history.”

The song, produced by Mustard, accused Drake and his associates of being “certified pedophiles.” It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and went on to accumulate over 1.8 billion streams on Spotify. UMG, through Interscope Records, distributed and promoted the track. Drake’s label at UMG is Republic Records, making UMG his own distributor.

July 24, 2024 — Drake’s Lawyers First Notify UMG

According to court filings by Drake’s attorney Michael J. Gottlieb, Drake’s legal team first notified UMG of potential legal claims on July 24, 2024, approximately 11 weeks after the song’s release. Formal notice of intent to sue was delivered on September 16, 2024, following multiple discussions between counsel for both parties.

November 25, 2024 — Pre-Action Petition Filed in New York

Drake filed a pre-action discovery petition in the New York Supreme Court on November 25, 2024, targeting both UMG and Spotify. The petition alleged that UMG conspired with third parties to use bots to artificially inflate streams of “Not Like Us,” offered Spotify a discounted royalty rate to secure preferential placement, paid influencers to promote the track, and suppressed Drake’s own music to amplify Lamar’s. The petition was a pre-litigation maneuver designed to obtain evidence before filing a full complaint.

Drake withdrew this petition in January 2025 before refiling as a full federal lawsuit, apparently having obtained or reconsidered the evidence it sought. The formal defamation complaint dropped the Spotify discount allegation from the withdrawn petition and replaced it with the narrower claim that “UMG charged Spotify lower than usual licensing rates” for the track.

January 15, 2025 — Federal Defamation Lawsuit Filed Against UMG

Drake filed his formal defamation complaint in the Southern District of New York on January 15, 2025. The suit named UMG Recordings, Inc. as the defendant, not Kendrick Lamar. The complaint alleged UMG “intentionally published and promoted” the song while knowing its lyrical content was “false and defamatory,” and that UMG prioritized “corporate greed” over the safety and well-being of its artists.

The complaint alleged UMG “conspired with and paid currently unknown parties” to use bots to inflate the stream count of “Not Like Us,” created financial incentives for streaming platforms to promote the track, and paid radio stations to play it. The bot allegation was based in part on statements from an anonymous source who appeared on a show by streamer DJ Akademiks, claiming that Lamar’s label, Interscope, paid him $2,500 via third parties to generate 30 million Spotify streams in the initial days after the song’s release.

Drake’s attorneys, from Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, said in a statement: “This lawsuit reveals the human and business consequences to UMG’s elevation of profits over the safety and well-being of its artists.” They emphasized the lawsuit “is not brought against Kendrick Lamar.”

UMG responded immediately. The label said Drake “intentionally and successfully used UMG to distribute his music and poetry to engage in conventionally outrageous, back-and-forth rap battles to express his feelings about other artists.” UMG stated that the notion it would seek to harm Drake’s reputation was “illogical.”

March 2025 — UMG Moves to Dismiss

UMG filed its first motion to dismiss in March 2025, calling the allegations baseless and characterizing the lawsuit as an attempt by one of the world’s most successful recording artists to use the courts to relitigate a rap battle he provoked and lost. The motion argued that “Not Like Us” constituted protected creative expression and that Drake’s own extensive participation in the diss track exchange undermined any claim of reputational harm traceable to UMG’s conduct.

UMG’s lawyers also sent Drake’s team a Rule 11 letter, a formal warning under federal court rules that sanctions may follow if a party continues to press claims without adequate factual support. Specifically, UMG challenged the bot allegation, arguing it was “directly refuted by the source Drake relied on.” Following that warning, Drake agreed to withdraw and correct the bot allegation before filing his amended complaint.

April 16, 2025 — Drake Files Amended Complaint

Drake filed an amended complaint on April 16, 2025, narrowing his legal theory. He dropped the original bot allegation after UMG’s Rule 11 challenge. The amended complaint refocused on UMG’s specific promotional decisions: the company’s choice to feature “Not Like Us” at the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show, performed by Lamar before a record television audience, and at the 2025 Grammy Awards, where the song won five awards including Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Rap Song, Best Rap Performance, and Best Music Video.

Drake argued that UMG’s decision to amplify the song through these platforms reached “millions of people” who had no knowledge of the rap battle context, including children watching the Super Bowl and audiences who had never heard of the Drake-Lamar feud. His brief later argued that “millions who tuned in to the Big Game, including young children and people whose religious or cultural beliefs leave them with no interest in or exposure to rap battles, were unaware of the feud.”

May 2025 — UMG Files Second Motion to Dismiss

UMG filed a second motion to dismiss targeting the amended complaint in May 2025. The label argued that the amended complaint misrepresented the creative expression at issue and that the Super Bowl performance actually excluded the disputed “certified pedophiles” lyric, rendering the centerpiece of Drake’s new theory factually incorrect. UMG’s lawyers wrote: “The focus of Drake’s new claims, that the largest audience for a Super Bowl halftime show ever did not hear Lamar call Drake or his crew pedophiles, betrays this case for what it is: Drake’s attack on the commercial and creative success of the rap artist who defeated him.”

February 2025 — “Not Like Us” Sweeps the Grammys

Kendrick Lamar performed “Not Like Us” at the 67th Grammy Awards in February 2025, where the song won all five categories in which it was nominated. The performance and sweep occurred while Drake’s lawsuit was pending, and Drake’s amended complaint cited UMG’s facilitation of these performances as independent acts of defamatory promotion directed at new audiences.

October 9, 2025 — Judge Vargas Dismisses the Case

U.S. District Judge Jeannette A. Vargas issued her ruling on October 9, 2025, dismissing Drake’s lawsuit entirely. The ruling was decisive.

Judge Vargas framed the central question as whether “Not Like Us” could “reasonably be understood to convey as a factual matter that Drake is a pedophile or that he has engaged in sexual relations with minors.” Her answer: it could not, given the context. “In light of the overall context in which the statements in the recording were made, the court holds that it cannot,” Vargas wrote.

Vargas described the song as full of “profanity, trash-talking, threats of violence, and figurative and hyperbolic language,” consistent with the broader rap battle in which it was embedded. She concluded: “A rap diss track would not create more of an expectation in the average listener that the lyrics state sober facts instead of opinion.” The court characterized the entire exchange as a “heated rap battle, with incendiary language and offensive accusations hurled by both participants,” and found the accusations fell within protected opinion rather than actionable defamation.

UMG released a statement after the dismissal: “From the outset, this suit was an affront to all artists and their creative expression and never should have seen the light of day. We’re pleased with the court’s dismissal and look forward to continuing our work successfully promoting Drake’s music and investing in his career.”

November 12, 2025 — Drake Files Notice of Appeal

Drake’s legal team filed a formal notice of appeal on November 12, 2025, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan, triggering the appellate process. Drake vowed to challenge the ruling immediately after it was issued.

January 21, 2026 — Drake Files 117-Page Appellate Brief

Drake filed a 117-page appellate brief with the Second Circuit on January 21, 2026. The brief advanced two central arguments. First, that Judge Vargas created a “dangerous categorical rule” that rap diss tracks can never constitute actionable defamation, which Drake’s lawyers argued was an unprecedented and overbroad legal precedent. Second, that Vargas committed “reversible error” by considering materials outside the complaint, weighing evidence prematurely, making factual findings against Drake at the pleading stage, and drawing inferences adverse to the plaintiff, all of which violate the standard that applies when a court evaluates a motion to dismiss.

Drake’s brief argued the district court was required, at minimum, to convert UMG’s motion to dismiss into one for summary judgment before making factual determinations. It also argued that Drake never had the opportunity to contest UMG’s evidence or present his own during the early stages of discovery. The brief contended that millions of viewers of the Super Bowl halftime show and Grammy performances, who had no rap battle context, received the song’s accusations as factual information rather than artistic hyperbole.

March-April 2026 — Second Circuit Briefing Continues

UMG filed an 83-page response brief in the Second Circuit, obtained by Rolling Stone, in late March 2026. The label argued Drake’s appeal was “astoundingly hypocritical” and that the rapper was trying to “turn the law upside down.” UMG’s brief stated the district court’s ruling “nowhere indicated that a diss track could never be defamatory; it simply recognized that the average listener in this forum and common expectation for statements in this forum were significant.” The label argued Drake “goaded” Lamar into writing the lyrics he is now suing over, and that rap diss tracks “signal, if not shout, opinion not fact.”

Drake’s attorneys from Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP filed a reply brief on April 17, 2026, the most recent major filing in the case. The reply maintained that Vargas “relied heavily on matters outside the pleadings, weighed the evidence, made adverse factual findings contradicting well-pleaded facts, and improperly drew inferences against Drake.” Drake’s team accused UMG of largely repeating the district court’s errors and relying on its own version of facts from outside the pleadings rather than addressing the actual allegations in the amended complaint.

The Legal Question at the Heart of the Appeal

The Drake-UMG appeal turns on a specific and unresolved legal question: can rap lyrics in a diss track ever constitute actionable defamation, and if so, under what circumstances?

Defamation law requires a plaintiff to show that a defendant made a false statement of fact, not opinion, that was published to third parties and caused reputational harm. Courts have long recognized that context shapes whether a statement reads as fact or opinion. Parody, satire, and hyperbole are protected. A reasonable listener standard governs the analysis.

Judge Vargas applied that standard to “Not Like Us” and found that a reasonable listener, aware of the rap battle context, would not understand “certified pedophile” as a factual assertion. Drake’s appeal argues the judge got the standard wrong by contextualizing the song exclusively within the rap battle, rather than asking how it read to the millions of Super Bowl and Grammy viewers who had no exposure to the underlying feud.

That contextual divide is the crux of the Second Circuit’s task. If the court agrees the Super Bowl and Grammy audiences represent a legally distinct viewing population requiring separate analysis, Drake’s case may survive to discovery. If it upholds Vargas’s approach of reading the song within its broader creative and competitive context, the dismissal stands.

What This Lawsuit Teaches Consumers

The Drake-UMG lawsuit is unusual in the history of music industry litigation because the plaintiff and defendant are contractual partners, not adversaries. Drake signed to Republic Records, a UMG subsidiary. UMG distributes his music, funds his recording budget, and earns from his success. He sued the same company that handles his catalog.

That alignment exposes a structural conflict that exists across the modern music industry. Major labels routinely represent artists who compete commercially and sometimes personally. When one artist’s song damages another artist on the same label’s roster, the label faces competing obligations. UMG chose to promote “Not Like Us” aggressively, including at the highest-profile live performance stages in American music. Drake’s lawsuit argues that choice was not artistically neutral. It was commercially calculated, and it came at his expense.

The case also raises a question that courts have not squarely resolved: does a label bear defamation liability for the content it amplifies on behalf of its artists? UMG did not write “Not Like Us.” Kendrick Lamar did. But UMG booked the Super Bowl, accepted the Grammy nominations, and chose how aggressively to promote the track. Whether that promotional role rises to the level of legal publishing responsibility for the content’s truth or falsity remains the open question Drake is pressing at the Second Circuit.

For consumers and fans, the lawsuit clarifies the difference between artistic beef and legal liability. The rap battle itself is probably protected. What Drake is arguing is that the commercial machinery UMG deployed to maximize the song’s reach, bot inflation, platform deals, live performance bookings, crosses into territory that should carry accountability.

Whether the Second Circuit agrees will set a precedent that every major streaming platform, label, and artist with a grievance will cite for years. The outcome also bears watching alongside other cases where media companies have faced accountability for amplifying harmful content, including the Candace Owens defamation suits, which similarly test the boundaries of what public figures can recover when contested statements reach mass audiences. The Diddy civil suits also show how the entertainment industry’s institutional power shapes what accountability ultimately looks like when reputations and careers are at stake.