“Everything you read will be used against you”: how rap music got into the courtroom

Rap music and especially rap artists from the 80s and 90s were accompanied by scandals and allegations of ties to organized crime. And if in the past everything could be limited to public censure, then now the case sometimes even reaches the courtrooms - in the USA there are precedents when the performers and songwriters were held accountable for the lyrics. In other cases, these texts turned out to be an aggravating circumstance, confirmation of the criminal mood of the accused. We will tell you why rappers did not please American justice and why the extreme cruelty of rap music compared to other genres is a myth.

^{Photo Glodi Miessi / Unsplash}

The track " F ** k tha police " has long become the world famous anthem of civil disobedience. Despite its scandalous nature, it caused a positive response among many representatives of the African American population of the United States who were unhappy with the situation with interracial relations. On the other hand, since the release of the track, no one doubted that it was a creative work, not a call for unrest.

But when the Pittsburgh rapper Jamal Knox, known by the pseudonym Mayhem Mal, released his composition in 2014, referring to this song, it was recognized as terrorist content and evidence that the author was going to intimidate witnesses. He was sentenced to imprisonment for a term of two to six years. The reason Jamal’s track caught the attention of the prosecution was because in the text he threatens two specific police officers by calling them by name. Knox appealed to the State Supreme Court, but this step did not produce results - the judges did not recognize that Jamal’s work was protected by his constitutional rights.

This case is not unique. Musical creativity, especially provocative, can be perceived by society at least ambiguously. We understand how this situation arose - and try to debunk the myth of the extraordinary cruelty of rap music.

Why should accusers rap

“Big” performers are rarely held accountable for provocative lyrics. Few people doubt that the threats in Eminem’s songs are more than artistic exaggeration. Despite the fact that there are enough threats in his tracks - for example, towards his ex-wife or FBI agents.

But when it comes to lesser-known artists, the approach changes. For the first time in the US, rap music began to be used as evidence of illegal activity in the early 90's. Since then, the American authorities from time to time pay attention to the lyrics and music videos of the defendants - sometimes to establish a person’s intention to commit a cruel act, and sometimes even as a confession to a crime. For example, in the same 2014, 18 trials took place, where the prosecution worked with rap lyrics.

In some cases, not even his work, but simply musical tastes can play against the accused. In Poetic (In) Justice, lawyer Andrea L. Dennis, now a professor at the University of Georgia Law School, provides several examples of how radical musical tastes can be used to prove that defendants have criminal attitudes and intentions to act in accordance with them.

Gangsta rap and gangsta rap

In order to better understand why guns, drugs, and threats are so often found in rapper texts, you need to understand how and in what conditions these texts are created, and to what social environment their performers usually belong. The source of inspiration for the authors is the reality surrounding them. For many African-American areas in US cities, poverty and cruelty are its inherent attributes. When rap experienced a big bang in the late 80s and early 90s, these communities experienced a comparable explosion of criminal activity. So, to the sound of clan wars, gangsta rap entered the big stage.

^{Photo by Robert Katzki / Unsplash}

The lyrical hero of gangsta rap cannot stand aloof from this conflict. As in the genre of war songs, the author here needs to clearly distinguish between “strangers” and “friends”. Therefore, even those rappers who do not have ties to organized crime often “play the bad guys” so as not to go beyond the scope of the genre. When the action of the songs takes place “in the area”, it is impossible to distance oneself from the cruelty, witness of which, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, becomes the rapper - and the characters of his tracks.

Rappers who really have no connection with the underworld - and most of them - are often called "fake gangstas." Someone does this for reasons of solidarity. Someone to earn a fashionable reputation. And not everyone, after all, is able to write brilliant texts about ordinary life, not to mention the fact that the audience is unlikely to appreciate such a choice.

Therefore, hyperbole is an indispensable tool in this case. One can draw an analogy with the Russian chanson - in this genre, performers who have neither a criminal record nor a connection with crime often sing about the difficult share of a lawbreaker.

Cruel lyrics

In fact, scenes of cruelty are found in the songs of many popular musical genres - not only in rap music. For example, country is at first glance a harmless and family genre. But the content of many country hits is not at all consistent with this view. In their center are local and sometimes everyday conflicts of the Wild West or the modern south of the USA.

Take, for example, the song “Goodbye Earl” by Dixie Chicks. The main character of the song is beaten by the groom, so a friend flies to her aid. They poison a man, hide his body and "sleep soundly," like cold-blooded killers. Laila Lovett’s song “LA County” tells of a shootout at a wedding that her lyrical hero started. Move the characters of these tracks to Compton - and get the same rap.

Research at the University of Missouri shows that popular songs over the past few years have, in principle, become more violent and aggressive - even if you don't take rap statistics into account. However, rap often becomes the scapegoat, who is blamed for current cultural trends.

However, not everything is so bad. Now in the USA, many lawyers, journalists and performers themselves are opposed to using rap lyrics as evidence in court. For example, recently, a number of well-known rappers - such as Chance The Rapper and 21 Savage - called on judges to change their attitude towards the genre, which is becoming more and more popular every year.

^{Photo Clem Onojeghuo / Unsplash}

As rap becomes mainstream and more and more authors turn to it, the lyrical hero of the tracks changes - this is not necessarily a resident of disadvantaged areas, and he is far from always associated with drugs, weapons and domestic violence. Gradually, rap “domesticates”, ceases to be a means of expressing anger and protest - but at the same time the stigmatization of the genre as a criminal is also a thing of the past.