Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Not Like Us’ has enjoyed yet another boost in streaming after Drake‘s defamation suit against Universal Music Group was dropped.
- READ MORE: Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s feud: the full timeline
In a ruling published last Thursday (October 9), a federal judge ruled that the allegedly defamatory statements made in the hit song – among them that Drake was a “certified paedophile” (Drake has continually denied any wrongdoing) – qualified as “nonactionable opinion” and dismissed the suit.
Shortly thereafter, stats emerged showing the track had re-entered the iTunes and Apple Music Top 100 song charts. In the latter streamers’ case, this was across multiple countries. Similarly, the day of the ruling (October 9), the track was said to have received upwards of 1 million streams on Spotify.
That same day, a spokesperson for Drake told NME: “We intend to appeal today’s ruling, and we look forward to the Court of Appeals reviewing it.”
“Not Like Us” received over 1.2 million Spotify streams yesterday and re-entered Apple Music Top 100 in multiple countries:
🇺🇸 United States
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🇦🇺 Australia pic.twitter.com/aoFAptnumQ— pgLang Updates (@pgLangUpdates) October 10, 2025
The legal battle kicked off last year, when the ‘Hotline Bling’ hitmaker filed a dispute against Universal Music Group (UMG) in New York, alleging that the publisher and label had “artificially inflated” streams for ‘Not Like Us’, among other allegations.
In the filing – which can be viewed here – Drake’s Frozen Moments LLC accused UMG and Spotify of “illegally” aiding and boosting ‘Not Like Us’ streams in favour of Lamar – who entered a viral rap feud with Drake last year.
The, back in March, UMG filed a motion to dismiss the Canadian rapper’s suit, stating that he had sued the corporation because he “lost a rap battle”. They went on to say that “instead of accepting the loss like the unbothered rap artist he often claims to be”, Drake had “sued his own record label in a misguided attempt to salve his wounds”.
Drake’s team later hit back at UMG’s central argument: that most listeners wouldn’t take “outrageous insults”, which are naturally par for the course in diss tracks, as fact.
Per Billboard, the ‘Legend’ rapper’s lawyers said that line of argument was “doomed to fail” because people had taken Lamar’s words seriously.
“UMG completely ignores the complaint’s allegations that millions of people, all over the world, did understand the defamatory material as a factual assertion that plaintiff is a pedophile,” his attorneys wrote.
Indeed, Lamar played the biggest 13-minute gig in music when he headlined the Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show back in February. Boasting guest appearances from SZA, Serena Williams and Samuel L. Jackson, it was later named the most-watched Super Bowl performance in history, and saw a performance of the contentious track.
You can check out NME’s full run down of Kendrick and Drake’s longstanding beef here.
