Credit: Alamy

Drake has officially filed an appeal following the dismissal of his defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group. The case was centred around Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Not Like Us’ diss track.

Drizzy’s representatives made their filing on October 29th, stating they would appeal the District Court’s order from earlier in October. For now, his lawyers’ arguments are unspecified.

“This confirms our intent to appeal, and we look forward to the Court of Appeals reviewing that filing in the coming weeks,” they told Variety.

The Toronto rapper initially filed his federal lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on January 15th, accusing UMG of valuing “corporate greed over the safety and well-being of its artists.”

Drizzy’s suit claimed Universal “approved, published and launched a campaign to create a viral hit out of a rap track” that was “intended to convey the specific, unmistakable and false factual allegation that Drake is a criminal paedophile, and to suggest that the public should resort to vigilante justice in response.”

Judge Jeannette A Vargas dismissed the case on October 9th, claiming Kendrick’s lyrics were “non-actionable opinion.”

“The issue in this case is whether ‘Not Like Us’ can reasonably be understood to convey as a factual matter that Drake is a paedophile or that he has engaged in sexual relations with minors,” she said at the time. “In light of the overall context in which the statements in the Recording were made, the Court holds that it cannot.”

She added, “The average listener is not under the impression that a diss track is the product of a thoughtful or disinterested investigation, conveying to the public fact-checked verifiable content.”