Free Republic

A United States federal judge has dismissed the lawsuit brought on by Drake against Universal Music Group. The rapper accused his own record company of defamation over its distribution and promotion of Kendrick Lamar’s infamous “Not Like Us” diss track. District Judge Jeannette Vargas dismissed the suit on Thursday citing Lamar’s track as a “nonactionable opinion” that is not considered defamatory. Robert De Niro Is Trump's New FCC Chair in Kimmel's Return: 'I'm the F---ing FCC, I Can F---ing Say Whatever the F--- I Want' “The fact that the Recording was made in the midst of a rap battle is...

Serena Williams made a surprise cameo during Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX halftime show, as she was spotted dancing during the performance of "Not Like Us." Making an appearance for that song sparked some debate on social media, especially considering Lamar’s song is a diss track toward the rapper Drake, whom Williams dated in 2011. Many believed it was no coincidence Williams’ time to shine was during this track, and ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith thinks the same. It’s why, during his Monday edition of "First Take," he told his colleagues he would divorce her if he was her husband....

The performer who raised a dual Sudanese-Palestinian flag during Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl halftime show says he has no regrets about the stunt, which exposed a massive security failure for a major event attended by the US president. Zül-Qarnain Nantambu confirmed that he unfurled the banner, emblazoned with the words 'Sudan' and 'Gaza,' in New Orleans on Sunday evening as a message of solidarity to the victims of those conflicts. Nantambu stood on a car used as a prop for Lamar's show and held up the flag, before running around the field and then being wrestled by security staff and...

The NFL 'immediately' sent a letter of apology to Lil Wayne after announcing last year that Kendrick Lamar had been chosen to perform the Super Bowl halftime show. Lil Wayne was denied the chance to headline this year's halftime show in New Orleans, a move which sparked outrage given his famous association with the Big Easy - where he was born and raised. And to add to the controversy, Kendrick's performance at the Superdome was heavily criticized by viewers who were left underwhelmed on Sunday night. The Not Like Us rapper, who included his famous diss track about bitter rival...

In American society, it is widely acknowledged that white people should not say the n-word. Nor should they rap it. Nor should they rap it on stage at a Kendrick Lamar performance in front of thousands of people. One white-appearing woman, identified in a video as "Delaney," learned that lesson the very public way at Alabama's Hangout Festival on Sunday. Lamar invited Delaney onstage during his song "M.A.A.D. City," which chronicles the rapper and recent Pulitzer Prize winner's experiences growing up in Compton. The song contains 15 instances of the slang word "n---a," three of which Delaney rapped with abandon....

Kendrick Lamar was forced to step in after the white female fan he invited up on stage at a music festival dropped the N-word three times while rapping along to the star's song. Lamar, 30, was in the middle of his Sunday night set at the Hangout Music Festival in Alabama when he invited several lucky fans on stage to join him in performing his 2012 track "m.A.A.d city." After a concertgoer named Rohan "killed it," as one Twitter user said, and respectfully avoided rapping the racial slur, a young attendee named Delaney hopped on stage to join Lamar. Delaney...

If we valued black art, Kendrick Lamar’s Pulitzer would have been for literature. When will the education system wake up to black creativity? I can’t help thinking that the Pulitzer prize committee missed a trick in their award to the rapper Kendrick Lamar this week. If they had given him the Pulitzer for literature rather than for music it would have elevated his artform and sent a message that would have resonated around the world: that rap is a legitimate form of poetry and should be put on a par with, and treated with the same deference as, Shakespeare and...

Kendrick Lamar and his label Top Dawg Music are being sued for a Bill Withers sample used in the Compton rapper's song "I Do This" off 2013's Kendrick Lamar EP mixtape, according to a lawsuit obtained by Billboard. "The musical composition "I Do This" consists of nothing more than new, so-called Rap or Hip Hop lyrics, set to the existing music of "Don't Want You To Stay," reads the suit filed by Mattie Music Group, who claims to own the rights to Withers' 1975 record, which appeared on the Making Music, Making Friends album. The plaintiffs are pursuing damages, accusing...