A federal choose is pondering the character of rap battles and the reducing wordplay in Kendrick Lamar ’s “Not Like Us,” the megahit diss observe that spurred a defamation lawsuit from his fellow celebrity Drake.
Drake sued Common Music Group — each his and Lamar’s file label — over “Not Like Us,” saying the corporate printed and promoted a tune he deems slanderous. Common says the lyrics are simply hyperbole within the custom of rap beefing, and the label is making an attempt to get the case dismissed.
Choose Jeannette Vargas didn’t instantly determine after a full of life listening to Monday, when the uncooked creativity of hip-hop brushed up in opposition to the staid confines of federal courtroom.
“Who’s the unusual listener? Is it somebody who’s going to catch all these references?” Vargas questioned aloud, addressing a authorized customary that considerations how a median, cheap individual would perceive a press release. “There’s a lot specialised and nuanced to those lyrics.”
Neither artist attended the listening to.
The case stems from an epic feud between two of hip-hop’s largest stars over one in every of 2024 largest songs — the one which received the file of the yr and tune of the yr Grammys, obtained probably the most Apple Music streams worldwide and helped make this winter’s Tremendous Bowl halftime present probably the most watched ever.
Launched as the 2 artists had been buying and selling a flurry of insult tracks, Lamar’s tune calls out the Canadian-born Drake by title and impugns his authenticity, branding him “a colonizer” of rap tradition who’s “not like us” in Lamar’s residence turf of Compton, California, and, extra broadly, West Coast rap.
“Not Like Us” additionally makes insinuations about Drake’s intercourse life, together with “I hear you want ’em younger” — implications that he rejects.
Drake’s swimsuit says that the tune quantities to “falsely accusing him of being a intercourse offender, participating in pedophilic acts” and extra. Contending that the observe endangered him by fanning notions of vigilante justice, the swimsuit blames “Not Like Us” not just for harming Drake’s picture however for tried break-ins and the taking pictures of a safety guard at his Toronto residence. The mansion was depicted in an aerial photograph within the tune’s cowl artwork.
“This tune achieved a cultural ubiquity not like another rap tune in historical past,” Drake lawyer Michael Gottlieb stated. He argued that Common had campaigned and contrived to make it “a de facto nationwide anthem” that didn’t simply handle hip-hop followers who knew the backstory and had been accustomed to over-the-top lyrical battling.
The typical listener could possibly be “a 13-year-old who’s dancing to the tune at a bar mitzvah,” Gottlieb steered.
“That might be a really fascinating bar mitzvah,” the choose opined. (The tune has certainly been performed at some such celebrations.)
Common, in the meantime, has emphasised that “Not Like Us” was a part of an trade of barbs between Drake and Lamar.
“Context is vital,” label lawyer Rollin Ransom argued Monday, at one level apologizing for having to make use of profanity whereas reciting a few of the lyrics Drake geared toward Lamar in a observe referred to as “Taylor Made Freestyle.”
“What you hear in these rap battles is trash-talking within the excessive, and it’s not, and shouldn’t be handled as, statements of truth,” the lawyer stated.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.
Drake additionally went after iHeartMedia, claiming in a Texas authorized petition that the radio big obtained unlawful funds from Common to spice up airplay for “Not Like Us.” IHeartMedia has denied any wrongdoing. That dispute was resolved in March.
Drake hasn’t sued Lamar himself.
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