Drake has filed an appeal in a bid to revive his dismissed defamation case over Kendrick Lamar’s diss track Not Like Us.
In court documents filed on Wednesday, the God’s Plan rapper and his legal team attempt to overturn the dismissal of his lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG) over Lamar’s 2024 song, in which he calls Drake a “certified paedophile”.
According to Rolling Stone, Drake argues that his rap rival sang those lyrics as an “unambiguous matter of fact” and UMG executives “relentlessly” marketed the song, misleading consumers and causing him serious harm.
The rapper, real name Aubrey Graham, also claimed that the dismissal of his case could have major consequences for future diss tracks by creating a “dangerous categorical rule” that allegations contained in them are non-actionable opinion, therefore protecting artists from any defamation claims.
“The court effectively created an unprecedented and overbroad categorical rule that statements in rap diss tracks can never constitute statements of fact,” his brief claims, reports the outlet.
U.S. District Court Judge Jeannette A. Vargas dismissed the lawsuit in October, ruling that the inflammatory lyrics were “nonactionable opinion” and “would not incline the reasonable listener to believe that Not Like Us imparts verifiable facts”. Drake filed his notice of appeal on 12 November.
The Hotline Bling rapper sued his and Lamar’s shared record label in January last year, and UMG’s lawyers ultimately prevailed with their motion to dismiss the case.
In his new filing, Drake’s legal team called for the court to send the case back and decide his defamation claims at trial.
Not Like Us was released as part of a rap battle between Drake and Lamar in 2024. Not Like Us is widely considered to be the most successful of the diss tracks, as it won the Record and Song of the Year Grammys last year, and Lamar performed it during the 2025 Super Bowl Halftime Show.
