{"id":6611,"date":"2026-03-28T17:59:29","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T17:59:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/2026\/03\/umg-drake-critically-undermine-rap-not-like-us-lawsuit-appeal\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T17:59:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T17:59:29","slug":"umg-drake-critically-undermine-rap-not-like-us-lawsuit-appeal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/2026\/03\/umg-drake-critically-undermine-rap-not-like-us-lawsuit-appeal\/","title":{"rendered":"LOL Lawbrey! UMG Drags Drake In Court For \u2018Critically Undermining\u2019 Rap With \u2018Not Like Us\u2019 Lawsuit Appeal"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The legal fallout from the most significant rap rivalry of the decade has reached a critical turning point. On Friday, Universal Music Group (UMG) filed a blistering response to the ongoing appeal of Drake<\/a>\u2018s lawsuit against the music corporation, arguing that the Canadian superstar is attempting to undermine the very foundation of hip-hop because he is being a sore loser over losing his high-profile beef with Kendrick Lamar<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Drake
Source: Prince Williams \/ Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The center of the dispute centers on Lamar\u2019s 2024 global phenomenon, \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d which famously branded Drake a \u201ccertified pedophile.\u201d While the song went on to dominate the charts and sweep the Grammy Awards, Drake responded with a defamation suit against his own distributor, UMG, claiming the company promoted the track despite knowing its allegations were false.<\/p>\n

As previously reported<\/a>, in October 2025, federal judge Jeannette Vargas dismissed Drake\u2019s lawsuit, delivering a ruling that has since become a flashpoint for legal debate in the music industry. Judge Vargas categorized the seven-track exchange between the two artists as a \u201cwar of words\u201d and concluded that a fans and listeners would not interpret the negative lyrics of a rap battle as verifiable factual claims.<\/p>\n

In her ruling, the judge noted that while the accusations were serious, the \u201cbroader context of a heated rap battle\u201d inclined listeners to view the lyrics as hyperbolic insults rather than literal indictments. However, Drake and his legal team, led by Michael J. Gottlieb, were not ready to let the matter rest, filing an appeal<\/a> in January 2026 to revive the case.<\/p>\n

Drake\u2019s Lawsuit Appeal Argues \u2018Not Like Us\u2019 Warranted Belief He Is A Pedophile<\/h3>\n

In the appeal, Drake\u2019s attorneys argued that the lower court created an \u201cunprecedented\u201d and \u201cdangerous\u201d precedent. They contend that if the ruling stands, it essentially suggests that statements made within rap songs can never be considered defamatory, regardless of how damaging they are to an individual\u2019s reputation or safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cMillions of people understood [\u2018Not Like Us\u2019] to convey factual information, causing countless individuals around the globe to believe that Drake was a pedophile,\u201d the appeal states. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is hard to imagine a statement more damaging to one\u2019s reputation and safety than being labeled a \u2018certified pedophile,\u2019 which elicits intense vitriol, and can spur violent retaliation,\u201d his attorney wrote. \u201cThe court\u2019s rule brushes aside the risk of concrete reputational harms that can and here did spill over into violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drake\u2019s team also pointed out a hypocrisy in the legal system: if rap lyrics are regularly used by prosecutors as evidence of factual intent in criminal cases, they should be treated with the same weight in civil defamation cases.<\/p>\n

In the new brief filed this week, UMG\u2019s attorneys fired back, claiming that Drake\u2019s lawsuit seeks to \u201cstrip words from their context\u201d to satisfy a personal vendetta. According to Complex<\/a>,<\/em> label argues that Drake\u2019s view would destroy a \u201chighly creative art form built on exaggeration, insult, and wordplay.\u201d<\/p>\n

UMG\u2019s stance is that the rapper is attempting to rewrite the rules of hip-hop because the public narrative didn\u2019t swing in his favor. The company had previously called the suit an \u201caffront to all artists and their creative expression,\u201d maintaining that the artistic license afforded to rappers must be protected from litigious interference.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The post LOL Lawbrey! UMG Drags Drake In Court For \u2018Critically Undermining\u2019 Rap With \u2018Not Like Us\u2019 Lawsuit Appeal<\/a> appeared first on Bossip<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The legal fallout from the most significant rap rivalry of the decade has reached a critical turning point. On Friday,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14044,"featured_media":6670,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[10,9],"class_list":["post-6611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-rss","tag-culture","tag-hip-hop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14044"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}