As a music producer and an avid hip-hop head, I have listened to thousands of rappers bragging about their clothes, money and chains, but also drugs, firearms and homicides. Hip-hop has never been just a genre, but also an outlet for artists — sometimes even a ticket out of their crime-infused neighborhoods that they rap about.
The crown jewel is Kendrick Lamar, a rapper who has been able to utilize his personal experiences involving crime, drugs and murder and successfully “made it out,” a term that means growing up in a poor neighborhood and now generating enough money to move out. Lamar has never been sued for his lyrics, even though they are direct and explicit in describing and “confessing” to crimes.But that is how it should be. If rappers did commit a crime, artwork should never be used as evidence because it is fictional, personal, subjective and subject to interpretation and exaggeration.
However, in today’s most followed hip-hop court case involving Jeffery Williams, known as the rapper “Young Thug,” rap lyrics have been allowed to be used as evidence against him in a racketeering case. I believe that this decision is not only ethically wrong but also constitutionally, as it puts restraints on freedom of expression, denies rap as an artistic genre and limits the First Amendment rights in music.
It is worth noting that Williams’ Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) case isn’t the first one where a judge has allowed rap lyrics to be used as evidence. There have been hundreds of cases in the last 30 years since the genre was created, according to a Conversation Magazine’s article titled “Hip Hop on Trial.”
Even though there isn’t a precedent case on this topic, Elonis v. United States is often considered a landmark case. Anthony Elonis isn’t a rapper, but in 2015 he posted a rap poem that was interpreted as a form of violent and threatening messages from one side, and a therapeutic artistic outlet by the other. A lower court sentenced Elonis, but the Supreme Court overturned the ruling 8-1, stating that the government has to prove a true intent of a threat.
Even though the Supreme Court case ruled in favor of Elonis, rap lyrics are still often used against Black artists, especially in cases under gang affiliation laws like the RICO Act, which raises further racial and ethical issues. By emphasizing “proving the intent of a threat,” they opened doors for future cases to use lyrics as evidence if circumstances fit, instead of saying lyrics or other forms of art shouldn’t be used as evidence at all.
One would think that this case plays in favor of rappers boasting about crimes that they did or didn’t commit. However, this case happened in 2015, ages after there have already been hundreds of cases where rap lyrics have been used to convict rappers. It is worth noting that Anthony Elonis is a white man. This is important because while searching for a precedent case for this issue, I ran into an even more interesting statistic.
One New York Times article titled “This Rap Song Helped Send a 17-Year-Old to Life in Prison,” states that since 1950 there have been only four non-rap cases in which lyrics have been used as evidence — three cases were thrown out and a fourth one ended up with an actual conviction, only to later be overturned.
This all ties us back to the case of Williams, where a judge has decided that rap lyrics can be used as evidence against him. While taking a person’s mental health into account was crucial for the Elonis case, taking into consideration the nature of rap is crucial for this one.
Rap is an art form, just like rock, country, horror, sculpture, architecture and any other art. In the courtroom, it cannot be Black art because it has to be an art of all people, and all people deserve to be equal in the face of the law. Drawing a line between artistic expression and verbal confession is crucial in liberating art from being limited in what it has to say.
Art has historically kept governments and individuals in check, and putting restraints on it echoes regimes and dictators’ ways of restraining it. Even though Williams’ music might seem like a confession to a crime, he can not be convicted on the basis of his lyrics, even if they might be true for his case. This would send a message that art can be restricted and its creator might be convicted — which is a dangerous thought for a democracy.
