Billboard
As Drake appeals his case, law professors say he can’t sue over a fight he picked himself: “Consent is an absolute defense to defamation.”
Legal scholars are harshly criticizing Drake’s bid to revive his lawsuit over Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” arguing that he cannot sue after he “consented” to the war of words — and that litigation over rap lyrics is “dangerous.”
Drake is currently appealing an October ruling that dismissed his case, which accused Universal Music Group (UMG) of defaming him by releasing Lamar’s Grammy-winning diss track that tarred him as a “certified pedophile.”
But according to law professors from Yale University, the case ought to stay dismissed. In a brief filed Friday (April 3), they say Drake clearly granted “consent” — not only for the exchange of diss tracks generally, but specifically by goading Lamar to rap about him “likin’ young girls.”
“Suppose a self-assured boxer challenges the world champion to a prize fight, is knocked out on live television, and, with bruised ego and body, files a lawsuit for battery,” the Yale scholars write. “That lawsuit would fail at the outset for a simple but important reason: the challenger consented to the fight, and consent is a classic defense to an intentional tort.”
Having given consent to the rhetorical bout — and having made his own bombastic claims about Lamar — Drake was not allowed to go to court when he lost, according to the professors. “Lamar won in the court of public opinion,” they say. “Having lost in that forum, Drake turned to another.”
Lamar released “Not Like Us” in May 2024 amid a war of words with Drake that saw the two UMG stars release a series of bruising diss tracks. The song, a knockout punch that blasted Drake as a “certified pedophile” over an infectious beat, became a chart-topping hit in its own right and won five Grammy Awards, including record and song of the year.
In January, Drake stunned the music business by taking UMG to court over the song, claiming his own label had defamed him by boosting its popularity. The lawsuit, which didn’t name Lamar himself as a defendant, alleged that UMG “waged a campaign” against its own artist to spread a “malicious narrative” about pedophilia that it knew to be false.
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https://www.billboard.com/pro/drake-kendrick-lamar-lawsuit-dangerous-legal-scholars/
