Superstar rapper Drake has filed a formal notice of appeal in an effort to revive his defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG) over Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy-winning diss track Not Like Us.<\/p>\n
The Canadian rapper, whose real name is Aubrey Drake Graham, will ask an appeals court in Manhattan to overturn the October 9 dismissal by a federal judge.<\/p>\n
UMG releases both Drake and Lamar’s music.<\/p>\n
Drake and Lamar have been involved in a lengthy feud<\/a> in which they both released diss tracks targeting one another.<\/p>\n Drake’s lawsuit over Kendrick Lamar diss track dismissed<\/a><\/p>\n The judge says a reasonable listener could not have concluded that Not Like Us was conveying objective facts about Drake.<\/p>\n While UMG Recordings is a defendant, Lamar is not.<\/p>\n Drake sued UMG in January<\/a> over its promotion of Not Like US, saying the song deceived listeners into believing the false accusations that he is a paedophile.<\/p>\n But US district judge Jeannette Vargas dismissed the case<\/a> saying Lamar’s lyrics, in which he targets Drake and his affiliates<\/a>, were not defamatory because they amounted to non-actionable opinion.<\/p>\n “The artists’ seven-track rap battle was a ‘war of words’ that was the subject of substantial media scrutiny and online discourse,” Vargas wrote.<\/p>\n “Although the accusation that plaintiff is a paedophile is certainly a serious one, the broader context of a heated rap battle, with incendiary language and offensive accusations hurled by both participants, would not incline the reasonable listener to believe that Not Like Us imparts verifiable facts about plaintiff.”<\/p>\n