![\"music](\"https:\/\/www.digitalmusicnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/yale-backs-umg-in-drake-vs-kendrick-amicus-brief-1024x576.png\" "\\"music\\"")
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Photo Credit: Sterling Law Building, Yale University by Kenneth C. Zirkel \/ CC by 4.0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Music Law scholars have filed two amicus briefs siding with UMG following Drake\u2019s appeal in his defamation lawsuit over Kendrick Lamar\u2019s \u201cNot Like Us.\u201d<\/h2>\n
On Friday (April 3), two amicus briefs filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit voice support for Universal Music Group (UMG), following Drake\u2019s appeal in his defamation lawsuit over Kendrick Lamar\u2019s \u201cNot Like Us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Law scholars from institutions across the country filed both and support the dismissal of Drake\u2019s lawsuit. They urged the appeals court to affirm the judge\u2019s ruling that the diss track does not constitute \u201cactionable defamation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first brief<\/a> was submitted by the Floyd Abrams Institute for Freedom of Expression at Yale Law School, and Professor Lyrissa Lidsky, who is described as one of the country\u2019s leading defamation scholars. Lidsky also holds the Raymond & Miriam Ehrlich Chair in U.S. Constitutional Law at the University of Florida\u2019s Levin College of Law.<\/p>\n This brief makes an observation that wasn\u2019t a central argument in the case previously, but that turns Drake\u2019s allegations on their heads: Drake actually consented to the statements that he claims are defamatory.<\/p>\n His \u201cTaylor Made Freestyle\u201d includes lyrics encouraging Kendrick to continue their rap battle, and \u201cspecifically encouraged Lamar to \u2018talk about him [Drake] likin\u2019 young girls.\u2019\u201d Kendrick Lamar\u2019s \u201cNot Like Us\u201d came out only days later, containing the lyrics that Drake now objects to, which call him a \u201ccertified pedophile.\u201d<\/p>\n The second amicus brief<\/a> was submitted on behalf of a group of social scientists and legal scholars from institutions including Howard University, the University of Richmond, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and Tulane University, among others. They were represented by Jack I. Lerner of the UCI Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology Clinic at the University of California, Irvine School of Law.<\/p>\n This brief argues that rap lyrics, and particularly those in diss tracks<\/a>, should not be treated as factual statements. The filing includes an account of the history and cultural context of rap music, and describes diss tracks as an \u201cemblematic and long-standing feature of the history\u201d of the genre.<\/p>\n Further, they are \u201cunderstood by audiences not to represent factual assertions about the opposing artist, but rather to demonstrate skill and dominance meant to build allegiance and win competitions through clever wordplay, hyperbole, bluster, and demonstrations of disrespect.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cBy urging Lamar to respond in a diss track and specifically inviting Lamar to put allegedly defamatory lyrics in that diss track, Drake cannot now escape the applicability of a consent defense by suing the record company that published that track and challenging a scale-of-dissemination he had every reason to anticipate,\u201d the brief reads.<\/h4>\n
Treating rap lyrics as factual statements, the brief argues, threatens First Amendment rights and risks introducing racial bias in judicial proceedings. The scholars cite three decades of research on the matter, including studies that have shown that violent lyrics labeled as \u201crap\u201d are typically \u201cinterpreted as more literal and more threatening than identical lyrics represented by a different genre.\u201d<\/h4>\n