Drake and Universal Music Group are ready for a courtroom showdown in their legal battle over Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” — and now a court date is finally set.
The star is currently appealing a ruling last year that dismissed his lawsuit, in which Drake accused UMG (his own longtime label) of defaming him by releasing and promoting the blockbuster diss track, which called him a “certified pedophile.”
In an order Friday (Sept. 18), the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Second Circuit scheduled the case for arguments hearing on Dec. 4, setting the stage for a key hearing in which attorneys for Drake and UMG will spar before a three-judge panel over the fate of a lawsuit that’s captivated the music industry.
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Lamar released “Not Like Us” in May 2024 amid an epic exchange of diss tracks with Drake. The song quickly transcended the beef, becoming a chart-topping hit in its own right, winning five Grammy Awards (including record and song of the year), and serving as the centerpiece of his Super Bowl halftime show.
Drake stunned the music business in January 2025 by taking UMG to court over the song. The lawsuit, which didn’t name Lamar himself as a defendant, alleged that the music giant had defamed him by spreading a “malicious narrative” about pedophilia that it knew to be false.
The lawsuit drew ridicule in the hip-hop world and criticism from free speech advocates. And just 10 months after it was filed, a federal judge dismissed it — ruling that diss tracks are filled with “hyperbolic language” and that fans didn’t take Kendrick’s insults as literal statements of fact.
In seeking to overturn that ruling on appeal, Drake’s lawyers have argued that’s actually exactly what listeners thought: “Millions of people understood [Not Like Us] to convey factual information, causing countless individuals around the globe to believe that Drake was a pedophile.”
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UMG’s lawyers, in their own appellate briefs, have warned that the star is using litigation to “critically undermine” the art of hip-hop simply because he’s upset he lost a rap beef. That point was echoed in April by a group of law scholars, who called the lawsuit “dangerous.”
With the case now fully briefed, the Second Circuit’s December hearing will see attorneys for both sides make those arguments to the appellate judges. UMG’s lawyers have plenty of ammo from the lower judge’s ruling, but some legal experts think Drake’s attorneys could make it a closer case.
Following the hearing, the appellate judges will weigh the case and eventually issue a ruling at some point after. Either side can — and likely will — then appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
