Certified Lover Boy? Certified not going to trial.<\/p>\n
A federal judge dismissed Drake\u2019s lawsuit against Universal Music Group over Kendrick Lamar\u2019s \u201cNot Like Us<\/a>\u201d today. Per Billboard<\/a>, Judge Jeannette Vargas found that the \u201cseven-track rap battle\u201d between the two rappers was a \u201cwar of words\u201d with \u201cincendiary language and offensive accusations\u201d that wouldn\u2019t lead any \u201creasonable listener\u201d to accept the lyrics as fact. Drake initially sued UMG for defamation in January, claiming that Lamar\u2019s insult against him\u2014that he was a \u201ccertified pedophile\u201d\u2014in the diss track would stick in the minds of fans. Still, in the fine art of the rap battle, there must be room for hyperbole, she found. In addition to not violating the law, the judge found that some of Champagne Papi\u2019s case was \u201clegally incoherent.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe artists\u2019 seven-track rap battle was a \u2018war of words\u2019 that was the subject of substantial media scrutiny and online discourse,\u201d Judge Vargas wrote. \u201cAlthough the accusation that plaintiff is a pedophile 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 \u2018Not Like Us\u2019 imparts verifiable facts about plaintiff.\u201d<\/p>\n Both Lamar and Drake \u201cexchanged progressively caustic, inflammatory insults and accusations,\u201d she wrote. In that context, in which Drake implied that \u201cLamar is a domestic abuser\u201d and that \u201cone of Lamar\u2019s sons may not be biologically his,\u201d the judge found \u201can audience may anticipate the use of epithets, fiery rhetoric or hyperbole rather than factual assertions.\u201d Drake\u2019s representatives did not immediately respond to the A.V. Club\u2019s\u00a0request for comment.<\/p>\n Drake’s record label thinks he’s being “ridiculous” with “Not Like Us” lawsuit<\/a>Drake Bell says “most” Nickelodeon stars don’t get residuals<\/a><\/p>\n In the time since Drake filed the lawsuit, though, Lamar performed the song at the Super Bowl (where a massive crowd sang along to the not-legally-defamatory lyrics) and won five Grammys for it; Drake released \u201cGimme A Hug\u201d for his $ome $exy $ongs 4 U album with PartyNextDoor. He also got some new abs.<\/p>\n UMG filed a motion for dismissal in March. \u201cFrom the outset, this suit was an affront to all artists and their creative expression and never should have seen the light of day,\u201d a UMG spokesperson told Billboard. \u201cWe\u2019re pleased with the court\u2019s dismissal and look forward to continuing our work successfully promoting Drake\u2019s music and investing in his career.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Certified Lover Boy? Certified not going to trial. A federal judge dismissed Drake\u2019s lawsuit against Universal Music Group…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-69219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}