Two amicus briefs filed on Friday (April 3) within the United States Court docket of Appeals for the Second Circuit have backed UMG Recordings in its protection in opposition to Drake’s defamation attraction over Kendrick Lamar’s Not Like Us.
Each briefs help the dismissal of Drake’s lawsuit and urge the appeals court docket to affirm the October 2025 ruling by Decide Jeannette Vargas, who discovered that the diss monitor “constitutes protected opinion somewhat than actionable defamation.”
The filings, obtained by MBW, could be learn in full right here (1) and right here (2).
The primary transient was submitted by the Floyd Abrams Institute for Freedom of Expression at Yale Legislation College and Professor Lyrissa Lidsky, described within the submitting as one of many nation’s main defamation students.
Lidsky holds the Raymond & Miriam Ehrlich Chair in U.S. Constitutional Legislation on the College of Florida’s Levin Faculty of Legislation and is a co-reporter for the in-progress Restatement (Third) of Torts: Defamation and Privateness.
The transient was ready by the Media Freedom & Data Entry Clinic at Yale Legislation College, with John Langford serving as counsel of report alongside David A. Schulz.
The second transient was filed on behalf of a bunch of social scientists and authorized students from establishments throughout the nation, represented by Jack I. Lerner of the UCI Mental Property, Arts, and Know-how Clinic on the College of California, Irvine College of Legislation. The amici embody students from Howard College, the College of Richmond, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Tulane College, and different establishments.
‘Consent is a whole protection’
The Floyd Abrams Institute transient advances an argument that wasn’t beforehand central within the case: that Drake consented to the allegedly defamatory statements, barring his lawsuit beneath established defamation regulation.
“Suppose a confident boxer challenges the world champion to a prize battle, is knocked out on stay tv, and, with bruised ego and physique, recordsdata a lawsuit for battery.”
Floyd Abrams Institute amicus transient
The transient opens with an analogy: “Suppose a confident boxer challenges the world champion to a prize battle, is knocked out on stay tv, and, with bruised ego and physique, recordsdata a lawsuit for battery. That lawsuit would fail on the outset for a easy however necessary motive: the challenger consented to the battle, and consent is a traditional protection to an intentional tort.”
“Defamation can be an intentional tort, and defamation claims are likewise foreclosed by consent,” the transient states.
Beneath New York regulation, the transient argues, consent to defamation is an “absolute protection,” whether or not it’s expressly given or implied by the circumstances.
The transient’s central declare is that Drake particularly invited the statements he now challenges in court docket. It factors to Drake’s Taylor Made Freestyle, launched on April 19, 2024, wherein he urged Lamar to proceed the rap battle and — the transient alleges — “particularly inspired Lamar to ‘discuss him[—i.e., Drake—]likin’ younger ladies.’”
Lamar responded days later with Not Like Us, launched on Might 4, 2024, containing the lyrics Drake now alleges are defamatory. In keeping with the transient, Drake then confirmed in The Coronary heart Half 6, launched on Might 5, 2024, that “This Epstein angle was the shit I anticipated.”
“It’s tough to think about a clearer call-and-response,” the transient states.
The transient additionally addresses Drake’s framing of the lawsuit as being about UMG’s promotional conduct somewhat than Lamar’s lyrics. Drake’s criticism makes no point out of Taylor Made Freestyle and contends that the swimsuit “shouldn’t be in regards to the artist who created ‘Not Like Us.’ It’s, as a substitute, fully about UMG, the music firm that determined to publish, promote, exploit, and monetize allegations that it understood weren’t solely false, however harmful.”
The amici reject that argument: “By urging Lamar to reply in a diss monitor and particularly inviting Lamar to place allegedly defamatory lyrics in that diss monitor, Drake can not now escape the applicability of a consent protection by suing the report firm that printed that monitor and difficult a scale-of-dissemination he had each motive to anticipate.”
The transient additionally argues that dismissal on the pleading stage is acceptable, citing New York courts’ recognition that resolving defamation claims early “has specific worth, the place acceptable, in libel instances, in order to not protract litigation by means of discovery and trial and thereby chill the train of constitutionally protected freedoms.”
‘Diss monitor lyrics are removed from factual representations’
The second amicus transient, filed by the group of social scientists and authorized students, takes a distinct however complementary method, arguing that rap lyrics — and diss monitor lyrics particularly — shouldn’t be handled as factual statements.
“Drake’s defamation declare rests on the belief that each phrase of ‘Not Like Us’ ought to be taken actually, as a factual illustration,” the transient states. “This assumption isn’t just defective — it’s harmful.”
The students’ transient supplies an account of the historical past and conventions of rap music, describing diss tracks as “an emblematic and long-standing characteristic of the historical past and cultural context of rap” which can be “understood by audiences to not signify factual assertions in regards to the opposing artist, however somewhat to reveal ability and dominance meant to construct allegiance and win competitions by means of intelligent wordplay, hyperbole, bluster, and demonstrations of disrespect.”
The transient additionally argues that treating rap lyrics as literal statements threatens First Modification rights and dangers introducing racial bias in judicial proceedings, citing three many years of empirical analysis. In keeping with the submitting, research have proven that violent lyrics labeled as rap music are, on common, “interpreted as extra literal and extra threatening than equivalent lyrics represented as a distinct style.”
The students word that Drake himself beforehand endorsed a “Defend Black Artwork” marketing campaign criticizing the usage of rap lyrics as literal proof in court docket. “Although Drake has beforehand acknowledged this hazard publicly, he now paradoxically and problematically embraces it,” the transient states.
The amici urge the Second Circuit to determine “a presumption that inventive expression shouldn’t be a factual admission,” citing a 2021 ruling within the Japanese District of Pennsylvania which held that “courts ought to begin with a presumption that artwork is artwork, not a press release of reality.”
Drake filed his defamation lawsuit in opposition to UMG in January 2025. The case was dismissed by Decide Vargas in October 2025. Drake appealed the ruling in January 2026, and UMG filed its response transient late final month.
Each Drake and Kendrick Lamar launch their data by way of UMG and its Republic Information and Interscope labels, respectively.
