Beat The Rap

There’s a curiosity about rap music, rappers adopting names to make themselves sound tough, like a thug, to establish street cred. What made this curious to me was that there were people who were “tough,” who had street cred, not because they made up rhymes to music but because they were violent and used violence to pursue their ends. In criminal defense, we knew the people who rappers pretended to be. They were tough on the streets, not for show.

Did some rappers act in ways that aligned with their image? Of course. Particularly with some of the early rappers, they were very often the “thugs” they said they were. Indeed, some of the beloved elder rappers today were not the sort of people you wants to come across in a dark alley when they were young street kids trying to establish themselves as tough motherfuckers.

Now that they’re wealthy and respected, they can afford to be above the fray, their merits acknowledged within and without the rap community. But back then, if they couldn’t beat down their competition, they were nothing. But back then, rap was in its infancy, a genre of dubious artistic merit that was unaccepted or appreciated by the broader (mostly white) public. Like rock in its infancy, it was deemed unworthy of being taken seriously.

Today, many take on names to create the appearance of their being thugs, to establish themselves as worthy of rapping about violence, drugs, police, women and money. That’s the nature of the genre, for better or worse, and there’s 99 problems with it in court.

Rap lyrics, which can have violent, crime-related themes, are routinely used as evidence against amateur rappers in court, executives said. The practice has also affected well-known acts such as Snoop Dogg, Mac, Boosie Badazz and the late Drakeo the Ruler.

Music executives argue that by treating rap lyrics as de facto confessions or pure autobiography, prosecutors misunderstand how art works. In many cases, the legal strategy plays—especially for jurors and judges unfamiliar with rap—on stereotypes of criminality among Black people, injecting implicit racial bias into proceedings, according to Erik Nielson, professor of liberal arts at the University of Richmond and co-author of “Rap On Trial: Race, Lyrics, and Guilt in America.”

The argument, that lyrics about shooting people or dealing drugs are not reflective of conduct or lifestyle, is conflating artistry with reality. An open letter appeared in the New York Times and Atlanta-Journal Constitution to argue against using rap lyrics as evidence of criminality.

Born from street culture nearly 50 years ago, hip-hop has grown to become the most popular genre of music around the world. Fans of our culture know that creative expression in music is rooted in what artists see and hear, and hip-hop often magnifies the good and the bad happening in impoverished communities around the world. Rap artists are storytellers. As with all entertainment, hip-hop artists create entire worlds populated with complex characters who often play both hero and villain.

Today in courtrooms across America, Black creativity and artistry is being criminalized. With increasing and troubling frequency, prosecutors are attempting to use rap lyrics as confessions. This practice isn’t just a violation of First Amendment protections for speech and creative expression. It punishes already marginalized communities and silences their stories of family, struggle, survival, and triumph.

Are rap lyrics reflections of a person’s conduct, intent, or are they just a story that an artist creates? Are rappers thugs or entertainers, or can they be both? That it punished marginalized communities may be true, but if those people from marginalized communities are using violence against other people when they aren’t rapping, does their race mean they get away with it?

The problem is that rappers simultaneously seek to claim their lyrics reflect reality on the street, sometimes their personal experience, while denying that it should be taken “literally,” as truth of what it claims to be truth.

But then, rapping about violence, street life, poverty and survival is as clear an expression of free speech as can be. More to the point, rapping that you shot a man in Reno just to watch him die doesn’t mean you shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. And if you did, then there should be evidence to prove it, and its the conduct, not the hip hop music, for which any person accused should be convicted.

The argument is that when a rap song “mirrors” the conduct for which a rapper is being prosecuted, it serves as a confession put to music, a song about what this person did and thus evidence of guilt. The “Protect Black Art” response is somewhat disingenuous, as if these songs of violence, this public claim to street cred, is merely performative by otherwise nice folks who pet kittens and read Jane Austin in their spare time. The point of rap was to be tough, and to pretend it’s merely artistic story telling is to deny the genre’s raison d’etre. How many rap song are there about studying biology so a kid can get into Harvard?

But what songs are not are evidence that their writer, their performer, their artist, are whatever the song claims they are. It’s still just a song. Even if there may be bits and pieces of reality woven into the lyrics, it’s impossible to distinguish the real from the story. Rappers have long overstated their thuggishness for the sake of being accepted as thugs rapping songs about thug life. That songs about thug life are popular is another matter.

Currently in Georgia, multiple artists belonging to Young Stoner Life Records – including Grammy-winning artists like Young Thug – are facing more than 50 allegations, including RICO charges which claim the record label is a criminal gang. The allegations heavily rely on the artists’ lyrics that prosecutors claim are “overt evidence of conspiracy.” In the indictment, Fulton County prosecutors argue that lyrics like “I get all type of cash, I’m a general” are a confession of criminal intent.

If these individuals are engaged in a criminal conspiracy, then there should be evidence of it, not a song about it. And if the prosecution seeks to introduce a rap song to prove criminal intent, then their evidence fails. It’s not a confession. It’s just a song. And if it’s going to taken as gospel, of sufficient reliability as to be admissible into evidence, it cuts both ways.

I heard, “Son, do you know why I’m stopping you for?”
“Cause I’m young and I’m black and my hat’s real low”
Do I look like a mind reader, sir? I don’t know
Am I under arrest or should I guess some more?