Rap Lyrics as Evidence
| Author | Kevin Drakulich,Kyle Adams,Nicholas Stoia |
| Published date | 01 October 2018 |
| Date | 01 October 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/2153368716688739 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Race and Justice
2018, Vol. 8(4) 330-365
Rap Lyrics as Evidence:
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Nicholas Stoia1, Kyle Adams2
and Kevin Drakulich3
Abstract
Recent scholarship has shed light on the troubling use of rap lyrics in criminal trials.
Prosecutors have interpreted defendants’ rap lyrics as accurate descriptions of past
behavior or in some cases as real threats of violence. There are at least two problems
with this practice: One concerns the interpretation of art in a legalistic context and
the second involves the targeting of rap over other genres and the role of racism
therein. The goal of the present work is translational, to demonstrate the relevance of
music scholarship on this topic to criminologists and legal experts. We highlight the
usage of lyric formulas, stock lyrical topics understood by musicians and their audi-
ences, many of which make sense only in the context of a given genre. The popularity
of particular lyric formulas at particular times appears connected to con-
temporaneous social conditions. In African American music, these formulas have a
long history, from blues, through rock and roll, to contemporary rap music. The work
illustrates this through textual analyses of lyrics identifying common formulas
and connecting them to relevant social factors, in order to demonstrate that
fictionalized accounts of violence form the stock-in-trade of rap and should not be
interpreted literally.
Keywords
race and courts, race and sentencing, bias in the criminal justice system, race and
public opinion, rap music, hip-hop, lyric formulas
1 Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
2 Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, USA
3 Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA
Corresponding Author:
Kevin Drakulich, Northeastern University, 206 Churchill Hall, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Email: k.drakulich@neu.edu
Stoia et al.
331
Every black man who goes into the studio, he’s always got two people in his head: him, in
terms of who he really is, and the thug that he feels he has to project.
—Conrad Tillard, “The Hip-Hop Minister” (from Hurt, 2006)
There is one musical genre that seems almost wholly devoted to violence. Dozens
of the most popular works in this genre graphically depict murders. Male protagonists
boast about their physical and sexual prowess, frequently challenging other males to
battles for no other reason than sheer pride. Female characters are often cartoonish
shells; they are usually portrayed as wanton and shallow and easily manipulated for
sexual purposes. In short, the entire genre seems intent on displaying—and celebrating—
humanity’s basest desires.
That genre, of course, is opera. But opera aficionados understand that violent and
sexual themes are conventions within the genre and that it would have been bizarre to
treat Don Giovanni, Pagliacci, or Rigoletto as somehow representing the literal wishes
of their composers or to interpret the lyrics penned by their librettists as auto-
biographical admissions of crimes.1
Recent work, however, suggests that this practice is occurring for a different
musical genre—specifically that rap lyrics are being used in criminal trials.2 Prose-
cutors are using rap lyrics penned by defendants in several ways: as accurate
descriptions of or admissions to past behavior, as implying that they reflect a criminal
or violent disposition, or in some cases to criminalize the lyrics themselves as threats
of violence (Kubrin & Nielson, 2014). Rap lyrics have been used as evidence in
criminal trials since at least the early 1990s, and their use by prosecutors has been
directly advocated in literature produced by the U.S. Department of Justice and the
National District Attorneys Association (Dennis, 2007).
There are at least two major and interrelated sets of problems with the usage of rap
lyrics in trials. The first broadly concerns the interpretation of artistic products in a
legalistic context. As Dennis (2007) notes, courts tend to incorrectly assume that no
specialized knowledge is required to interpret lyrics and that lyrics should be inter-
preted literally as reflecting accurate, truthful, and self-referential narratives.3 This
usage sets up the potential for a “chilling effect” on free speech (Agorist, 2015; H. A.
Anderson, 2004; De Melker & Brangham, 2014; Kubrin & Nielson, 2014; Manley,
2014; Minsky, 2015; Shumejda, 2014; Valdmanis, 2013). The second set of problems
involves the apparent targeting of rap music over other verbal cultural products and
the likely role of racism in this focus. Race, racial inequalities, and racism are critical
to understanding the usage of rap lyrics in trials, a topic we return to in the discussion.
Despite these problems, and despite coverage and commentary of some of these
trials in mainstream news media outlets (e.g., Brick, 2006; Nielson, 2012, 2013;
Nielson & Kubrin, 2014; Nielson & Render, 2015), academic work has only recently
begun to directly engage with this practice (e.g., Calvert, Morehart, & Papadelias,
2014; Dennis, 2007; Hirsch, 2014; Kubrin & Nielson, 2014; Tanovich, 2016). Our
goal is to add to this discussion in general and in particular to critique the literal
interpretation of rap lyrics. Drawing on music scholarship,4 we highlight the usage of
332
Race and Justice 8(4)
lyric formulas, stock lyrical topics and tropes shared by performers and understood by
both musicians and their audiences, many of which make sense only in the context of a
given genre. In African American music, these formulas have a long history, most
notably in blues, but also in other American genres including country music, rhythm
and blues, rock and roll, and rap music of the present day. In other words, many
lyrics—in many musical styles—should be interpreted not as autobiographical but as
drawing from stock lyrical conventions well established in the genre. In the context of
rap, such formulas may be especially important for amateur artists—those whose
lyrics are most often used in criminal trials (Kubrin & Nielson, 2014)—who often
imitate the lyric formulas of more successful musicians in the hopes of establishing
their own credibility and sharing in that success.
To set the stage, we begin with an overview of some of the key issues in the usage of
rap lyrics in criminal trials, engaging in a critique of the literal interpretation of rap
lyrics “as depicting true-life, self-referential stories” (Dennis, 2007, p. 4), in order to
highlight, as the quote at the outset of this paper suggests, the “two people” in rap artists’
heads. Following this, we introduce the idea of lyric formulas and briefly review earlier
genres of music to set up three ideas: That lyric formulas are pervasive in American
popular music, that they frequently are intertwined with violent subject matter, and that
preferences for certain formulas are often rooted in contemporary social forces and
conditions—that formulas, in other words, should be understood in broader contexts.
Turning to rap, we begin by setting up the relevant context for its interpretation and then
identify a series of common lyric formulas in rap music, paying particular attention to
those with violent themes. Finally, we conclude by setting the idea of lyric formulas
within the broader critique of the use of lyrics in trials put forth by others.
Rap Lyrics on Trial
Rap music has long experienced a uniquely fraught and contentious relationship with
the police and the criminal justice system. From its earliest days, hip-hop culture was
resistive: Graffiti art was illegal, break dancing took place spontaneously in public
spaces not designed for it, and rapping and DJing were the provenance of house and
block parties of questionable legality. With the rise of “gangsta rap” in the late 1980s,
this resistance changed from the passive to the assertive, as rappers openly challenged
the police and government in lyrics and at concerts. Popular outrage and perceptions
of the threat of rap have engendered intensive and persistent legal and legislative
attacks from the Parents Music Resource Center’s focus on rap and heavy metal to the
obscenity trial for 2 Live Crew, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe of Niggaz
with Attitudes (N.W.A.) for “Fuck Tha Police,” to the incredible uproar over Ice-T’s
“Cop Killer,” including police union boycott of Time Warner companies and public
denouncements from figures ranging from Charlton Heston to the sitting president and
vice president (e.g., Charnas, 2011; Kubrin & Nielson, 2014; Russell-Brown, 2004).5
Rap has also been the target of media coverage that frames the music as posing
profound dangers to society, a framing unique even in comparison to other frequently
vilified genres like heavy metal (Binder, 1993), and which stands in contrast to the
Stoia et al.
333
lack of evidence that rap music plays any causal role in crime (Kubrin & Weitzer,
2010; Russell-Brown, 2004). This focus appears to be the product of the “racial
composition of the music’s audiences and producers” (Binder, 1993, p. 753). Simi-
larly, race seems to play a role in a public distaste for rap music but not heavy metal
music (Lynxwiler & Gay, 2000). The disproportionate moral outrage engendered by
rap and the exploitation of this sentiment by politicians mirrors other racial dog
whistle issues like “welfare queens” and “urban crime” which rally those with racial
biases while avoiding explicitly mentioning race (e.g., Beckett, 1997;...
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