Drake’s legal battle with Universal Music Group is officially headed back into a courtroom, more than a year after a federal judge dismissed his lawsuit over Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.”
According to Music Business Worldwide, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has scheduled oral arguments in the Drake UMG appeal for December 4, 2026. A scheduling notice entered on September 18 calls for attorneys representing Drake and UMG Recordings to appear before a three-judge panel.
The hearing will not determine whether the allegations made about Drake in “Not Like Us” are true. Instead, the appellate judges will consider whether the lower court properly dismissed Drake’s claims before the case could move further through litigation. A ruling is expected sometime after oral arguments, although the court has not announced when a decision will be issued.
Drake, whose legal name is Aubrey Drake Graham, filed his federal lawsuit against UMG in January 2025 following his explosive 2024 rap battle with Kendrick Lamar. According to the federal court’s October 2025 opinion, Drake accused UMG of intentionally publishing and promoting Lamar’s “Not Like Us” while allegedly knowing that insinuations concerning Drake and minors were false and defamatory.
Lamar was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
The case instead targeted UMG, the music company connected to both artists. According to Music Business Worldwide, Drake releases music through Republic Records while Lamar releases through Interscope, both under the UMG umbrella.
The legal fight hit a major roadblock on October 9, 2025, when U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas granted UMG’s motion to dismiss. According to Vargas’ opinion and order, the court concluded that the statements Drake challenged in “Not Like Us” were “nonactionable opinion.”
Vargas determined that context was central to how the song should legally be interpreted. The judge pointed to the highly publicized battle between Drake and Lamar, which included multiple diss records and increasingly hostile accusations from both sides.
The court concluded that a “reasonable listener could not have concluded that ‘Not Like Us’ was conveying objective facts about Drake.”
That interpretation has become one of the central issues in the Drake UMG appeal.
According to Drake’s January 2026 appellate filing, his attorneys contend that the district court used the rap battle context too broadly when deciding that the statements could not support a defamation claim. Drake’s team argues the ruling effectively created an “unprecedented and overbroad categorical rule that statements in rap diss tracks can never constitute statements of fact.”
His attorneys are also challenging how the lower court handled the case procedurally. According to Music Business Worldwide, Drake’s lawyers argued in an April 2026 reply that the district court “relied heavily on matters outside the pleadings, weighed the evidence, made adverse factual findings contradicting well-pleaded facts, and improperly drew inferences against Drake.”
UMG is asking the Second Circuit to leave the dismissal intact.
According to Music Business Worldwide, UMG filed an 83-page appellate response in March 2026 arguing that Drake “seeks to strip words from their context and deem them actionable defamation.” The company’s lawyers maintained that the language has to be evaluated as part of a rap battle rather than separated from the musical exchange surrounding it.
UMG argued that “a rap diss track signals – if not shouts – opinion not fact.”
The Drake UMG appeal has also attracted attention outside the immediate dispute. According to Music Business Worldwide, two friend-of-the-court briefs supporting UMG were filed in April 2026. One came from the Floyd Abrams Institute for Freedom of Expression at Yale Law School along with University of Florida law professor Lyrissa Lidsky. Another was submitted by social scientists and legal scholars represented by the UCI Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology Clinic.
Meanwhile, “Not Like Us” grew far beyond its origins in the Drake and Lamar battle. According to ABC News, the song won five awards at the 2025 Grammys, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year. Lamar also performed the track during his February 2025 Super Bowl LIX halftime performance.
Drake’s attorneys have pointed to that enormous reach as part of their appellate argument. According to Music Business Worldwide’s reporting on his appeal, his legal team argued that the record eventually reached audiences who had little or no familiarity with the original rap battle, challenging the lower court’s reliance on the feud as the defining context for every listener.
The Second Circuit is also considering Drake’s separate request involving New York law. According to Music Business Worldwide, his attorneys asked the federal appeals court to certify a state law question to the New York Court of Appeals. That request was referred to the same merits panel considering the Drake UMG appeal.
December 4 will therefore mark another important stage in a dispute that has moved well beyond the original exchange of diss records. The three appellate judges will hear directly from both legal teams before determining whether Drake’s lawsuit remains dismissed, whether any portion should return to the lower court, or whether another legal step is necessary before the appeal can be resolved.
