The news of Young Thug’s and Gunna’s arrests along with those of their friends led me to speed up my work on this a bit. Below is a form letter that you can copy and paste and send to prosecutors, judges, or anyone else involved in a case in which rap lyrics are being considered as evidence. I might tweak this a bit now and again (and feel free to make your own edits/adjustments), but wanted to get this out there sooner than later…
My name is [YOUR NAME] and I am a [PROFESSION/COMMUNITY MEMBER/ETC] in [CITY/COUNTY]. I am writing to ask you not to admit rap lyrics as evidence in this trial because their prejudicial value far outweighs their probative value.
Rap music is political critique from marginalized communities rendered as art. Because rap music constitutes political speech, it is protected by the First Amendment and should not be admissible as evidence.Rap music emerged in the 1970s from communities of color who were suffering the effects of racist political, social, and economic policies. The genre has a history of criticizing these policies: as Professor Tricia Rose writes: “Rap gives voice to the tensions and contradictions in the public urban landscape… and attempts to seize the shifting urban terrain to make it work on behalf of the dispossessed” (1994).
Lyrics are poetry, but are incorrectly presented as autobiographical, and are often presented out of context. Rap lyrics rely heavily on poetic devices and figurative language like rhyme, alliteration, and metaphor, and cannot be read literally. Few rappers perform using their given name: often they adopt one or more personae–like actors choosing a role–when they perform. Just as we would not prosecute an actor for crimes their character commits in a film, we should not prosecute a musician for anything that they describe in their lyrics. In trials, prosecutors often present excerpts from lyrics, often as little as a single line. Doing so removes the lyrics from their original context, which is crucial to an honest appraisal of their potential meanings.
Most rappers are copying what they hear on mainstream media outlets in order to gain fame. Like any musical style, rap music relies on the repetition and revision of certain generic conventions: the gangster figure, braggadocio, hustling, and violence, to name but a few. In order for an aspiring artist to have a chance at succeeding in the music industry, they need to draw on these conventions, whether they represent their lived experience or not. Relying on these formulas suggests that much of what we hear is not as original as we are led to believe.
The use of lyrics as evidence is prejudicial. Rap music is fundamentally Black music: to rap is to sound Black; to call someone a rapper is to racialize them as Black, and to activate the prejudices associated with perceptions of mainstream rappers. Studies by Amy Binder (1993), Carrie Fried (1996), and Stuart Fischoff (1999), among others, prove that people are biased against rappers and their lyrics, believing them to be violent and criminal. Rap lyrics are routinely used as evidence in criminal trials, but it is exceptionally rare that lyrics from other genres are similarly used. Hip hop culture has been targeted by law enforcement from the beginning, and the police departments of most major cities have units devoted specifically to the surveillance of hip hop culture.
When courts allow prosecutors to use rap music as evidence, they open the door to race-based decision-making, which violates the defendant’s right to due process. As more guilty verdicts appear in these cases, the court sends the message that the stories of people of color are invalid and unimportant, and it reifies and validates the prejudicial images that led to the conviction. I urge you to reconsider entering lyrics into evidence: their prejudicial value far outweighs their probative value.
Sincerely,
[YOUR NAME HERE]