A judge has dismissed Drake's controversy-stirring lawsuit against his own record label, Universal Music Group.
The rapper sued UMG in January, accusing the company of defamation for distributing and promoting Kendrick Lamar's "Not Like Us," a diss track that arrived amid a heated rap battle between him and Drake, and became a runaway hit. In it, Lamar implies that Drake is a pedophile, among other accusations.
In an opinion filed Thursday, Oct. 9, Judge Jeannette Vargas dismissed the suit, claiming that insults thrown in a rap battle are not viewed as objective facts. Within the context of the dueling verses, which were exchanged in rapid succession, the pedophile accusation was not aimed to be construed as "a factual matter," Vargas said, but rather an opinion.
Drake and Kendrick Lamar's beef: A timeline of features, diss tracks and drama
"The average listener is not under the impression that a diss track is the product of a thoughtful or disinterested investigation conveying to the public fact-checked verifiable content," she wrote in documents reviewed by USA TODAY.
