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This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between.
This week: Kendrick Lamar plays “Not Like Us” during his Super Bowl halftime show despite Drake’s defamation lawsuit; an appeals court sends a case over Jimi Hendrix’s music to trial; the estate of Notorious B.I.G. sues over a famed photo; and much more.

THE BIG STORY: Say, Drake…

If a team of lawyers tried to dissuade Kendrick Lamar from performing “Not Like Us” during Sunday night’s Super Bowl halftime show, they didn’t do a great job.

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After much speculation about whether or not the rapper would play his chart-topping, Grammy-sweeping hit at the Superdome – a performance that came weeks after Drake sued Universal Music Group over allegations that the song defamed him by calling him a pedophile — Kendrick really didn’t hold back much.

With a trolling grin, he looked directly into camera and made eye contact with 120 million viewers when he rapped “Say, Drake, I hear you like ’em young” – a lyric he then followed up with lines like “You better not ever go to cell block one” and “Just make sure you hide your lil’ sister from him.” If anyone was expecting him to avoid the controversy entirely, think again.

Lamar did avoid saying the actual word “pedophile,” but that hardly made a difference when thousands in the crowd sang it for him — and millions more at home knew exactly what was missing. And no such omission spared Drake from the song’s comedic punchline: “Tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A minnnnorrrrr.”

The very structure of Kendrick’s set seemed designed to mock the idea that a lawsuit might stop him. Early in the show, he explicitly referenced the case, saying “I wanna do their favorite song, but they love to sue” before teasing the song’s infectious four-note riff. When Lamar quickly moved on to another song, it seemed like he wanted the fans to think that might be it. Maybe it was a happy compromise? A quick nod that wouldn’t give the lawyers heartburn?

Lol, nope: Minutes later, Kendrick launched into a full-blown rendition of “Not Like Us” on the world’s biggest stage. “They tried to rig the game,” he said right before he started, “but you can’t fake influence.” For good measure, Lamar brought out Serena Williams – rumored to be a one-time romantic partner of Drake – to crip walk on his metaphorical grave.

What does it all mean for the lawsuit? For Kendrick, probably not much. Don’t forget: he isn’t actually named as a defendant, and Drake’s lawyers have taken great pains to stress that their client is only suing a malevolent record label that boosted a defamatory song, not the rival rapper who created it: “UMG may spin this complaint as a rap beef gone legal,” they wrote in the original complaint, “but this lawsuit is not about a war of words between artists.”That stance doesn’t appear to be changing. Just hours before Kendrick took the stage in New Orleans, Drake’s lawyers released a new statement on the case that harshly attacked UMG – but they never mentioned the man himself. It would be hard to reverse course now, even after that stare into the camera.

Perhaps Drake’s legal team will try to add Fox or the NFL or even Apple (the show’s sponsor) as defendants, claiming they gave Kendrick a platform to republish lyrics they knew were defamatory. Or maybe they’ll cite the performance as more ammo against UMG — the latest example of how the popularity of the “Not Like Us” is harming Drake’s reputation. As CNN wrote after the game, in which the Philadelphia Eagles thrashed the Kansas City Chiefs: “Drake lost worse than the Chiefs at the Super Bowl.”

At the end of the day, those secondary moves won’t matter much unless a federal judge eventually rules that “Not Like Us” is actually defamatory in the first place. And as I wrote last week, legal experts are skeptical that’s going to happen.

Stay tuned at Billboard for more as Drake’s case moves forward – we’ll keep you updated on any major (or minnnnorrrrr) developments.

Other top stories this week…

JIMI HENDRIX TRIAL – A long-running legal battle over the rights to Jimi Hendrix’s music is headed to trial after a U.K. appeals court ruled against Sony Music. The case was filed by the estates of his two Jimi Hendrix Experience bandmates (bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell), who say they own part of the copyrights to the trio’s albums and that Sony owes them millions. After the appeals court refused Sony’s renewed bid to dismiss the case, a trial is tentatively set for December in London.

BIGGIE BIGGIE BIGGIE – The estate of legendary rapper Notorious B.I.G. filed an infringement lawsuit against Target, Home Depot and others over allegations that they sold unauthorized canvas prints of a famed photo called the “King of New York.” Joined by the photographer who snapped the image, the estate accused a company called iCanvas of showing a “disdain for intellectual property law” by creating the prints sold by the big box stores: “Defendants specifically chose to use Mr. Wallace’s persona, name, image, likeness … in an attempt to capitalize on their fame and extraordinary financial value.”

A “WILD” COPYCAT? – MTV owner Viacom filed a lawsuit claiming that Nick Cannon’s new comedy battle rap game show (Bad vs. Wild) is a “flagrant” copycat of his long-running series Wild ’N Out. Notably, the lawsuit targeted only the streaming service that produces the show, Zeus Network, and not Cannon himself – claiming that the streamer effectively poached the star and is now “cosplaying” as successor to MTV’s Wild: “Zeus has chosen the path of least resistance: stealing the fruits of Viacom’s goodwill and decades of labor and innovation, and pawning it off as its own original idea.”

SUCH A LOVELY MESS – A year after the spectacular implosion of a criminal trial over the Eagles legendary 1976 album Hotel California, one of the accused men filed a civil lawsuit against Don Henley and longtime manager Irving Azoff over accusations they engaged in a “malicious prosecution.” The new case, filed by rare-books dealer Glenn Horowitz, says Henley knew the handwritten notes at the center of the trial were not stolen but misled authorities into bringing the charges. The trial ended abruptly last spring after new evidence cast doubt on whether Henley’s materials were stolen in the first place, prompting a judge to suggest prosecutors had been “manipulated” into filing the case.

MEGAN THEE PLAINTIFF – A federal judge ruled that Megan Thee Stallion can proceed with a defamation lawsuit accusing social media personality Milagro Gramz of waging a “campaign of harassment” against the star on behalf of Tory Lanez, who was convicted in 2022 of shooting the star rapper during an argument. The judge said Megan had made a “compelling case” that the blogger had defamed her with her posts, including those that suggested the star lied in her testimony during Lanez’s trial: “Plaintiff’s claims extend far beyond mere negligence — they paint a picture of an intentional campaign to destroy her reputation.”

OZZY SUED OVER OZZY PIC – Ozzy Osbourne was hit with a copyright lawsuit for allegedly posting images of himself to Instagram and other social media platforms, filed by a veteran rock photographer who snapped the pictures. The legendary rocker is just the latest to celeb to face that kind of bizarre-sounding lawsuit, joining the ranks of Miley Cyrus, Dua Lipa, Justin Bieber and many others. Once again for those in the back: the copyrights to a photo are almost always retained by the person who took it, and simply appearing in an image does not give a celebrity the right to repost it.

POP SMOKE PLEA DEAL – Corey Walker, a man charged with murder over the killing of Pop Smoke (Bashar Jackson), reached a deal with prosecutors to avoid a looming trial, pleading guilty to lesser charges of voluntary manslaughter and home invasion robbery that will see him serve 29 years in prison. The actual triggerman in the 2020 shooting, an unnamed 15 year old, admitted to the killing in 2023 and was sentenced as a juvenile to detention until is 25.