by Cedric ‘BIG CED’ Thornton
The Canadian rapper is still feuding with the label over “Not Like Us.”
Canadian recording artist Drake is not letting his feud with his distribution label, Universal Music Group (UMG), go. He has appealed a federal judge’s’ decision in the “OVO” label head’s defamation lawsuit.
According to Rolling Stone, the suit, which uses his rival, Kendrick Lamar’s award-winning and popular diss track, “Not Like Us,” as the backdrop of the legal action, was dismissed when Judge Jeannette Vargas determined that the statements Drake alleged were defamatory amounted to “non-actionable opinion,” effectively ending the high-profile case.
Attorneys for the rapper filed an appellate brief that requests that the ruling be overturned, citing that the song’s line labeling him a “certified pedophile” caused fans of “Not Like Us” to believe it and causing him serious harm.
They claim that the dismissal of the lawsuit could have far-reaching consequences. The ruling that diss tracks are non-actionable opinion created a “dangerous categorical rule” that would protect recording artists and labels from defamation liability.
“The court effectively created an unprecedented and overbroad categorical rule that statements in rap diss tracks can never constitute statements of fact,” according to the brief.
Drake’s attorneys are requesting that the appellate court remand the case, insisting that it be decided at trial rather than on a motion to dismiss.
UMG must submit a brief response by March 27. (In case you forgot, Lamar is an Interscope Records artist, which is a division of UMG. Drake’s current label is Republic Records, which is also part of UMG.)
“A rap diss track would not create more of an expectation in the average listener that the lyrics state sober facts instead of opinion,” Vargas wrote in her Oct. 9 ruling, describing the song as full of “profanity, trash-talking, threats of violence, and figurative and hyperbolic language.”
Source: Black Enterprise
