The rapper Young Thug is the latest in a line of rappers who have ended up behind bars, partly on the basis of their own music lyrics. In May, he was arrested for gang-related violence and gang activity in Atlanta, Georgia. The rap lyrics will be part of the evidence against him when the trial starts in January. Jeffery Lamar Williams (31), better known as Young Thug, is a Grammy-winning rapper, who has sold more than 2.5 million albums. The prosecution believes his record company, Young Stoner Life (YSL) Records, is the front for a criminal network which is responsible for 75-80% of the violent crime in the city. Part of the evidence for the prosecution in this case is the same lyrics that have gained Williams millions of fans. “I’ve never killed anyone, but I have something to do with that body,” he raps, for example, on the 2018 song Anybody. “I asked them to fire a hundred rounds.” Young Thug has been in prison since May, while he awaits the trial which starts in January next year. Young Thug was one of 28 people who were indicted on Monday 9 May 2022 in Georgia. He is guilty of violating the state’s RICO act and gang charges, according to prison records. Photo: AP – Racist Now a new bill can stop the practice and make it illegal to use lyrics in legal proceedings against rappers in the USA. This is the first time such a law has been proposed at national level. In July, the black Democrat Hank Johnson from Georgia presented the Restoring Artistic Protections (Rap Act) to the US Congress. He believes the use of rap lyrics as evidence in criminal cases is racist. – Mixing rap lyrics into the court process is often just a way of creating prejudices among jurors and judges, says Johnson to the BBC. According to Johnson, it is often less resourceful rappers who fall victim to this practice. “Hip hop is art, it’s literature, it’s poetry, it’s free speech, it’s journalism, and it shouldn’t be criminalized,” said Jamaal Bowman, a congressman whose district includes the Bronx, NY, the birthplace of hip hop. – Hårreisande Photo: Katarina Theis-Haugan / news The Norwegian music producer and rap artist Tommy Tee has followed the case against Young Thug from the sidelines, and reacts strongly to the prosecution’s use of the rap lyrics. – It is hair-raising to use art in that way there. That it should somehow prove something criminal. People say anything in texts, and you can’t take the texts for good fish. Tommy Tee has himself produced countless hip-hop songs during his nearly 30-year career. He believes that the case, with Young Thug at the center, is a good example considering how much weight the prosecution places on these texts. – The way I see it, these texts are just boastful lines, where they are bragging and trying to position themselves. But using them as legal evidence is going too far, says Tommy Tee. Lawyer Stine Helén Pettersen believes that there is also great freedom in Norway in what can be presented as evidence. Text messages, diaries, health app information, journal notes, letters – and also texts written by the accused are quite common to see in such cases, says Pettersen. – If the lyrics are written close to the event, i.e. so that they are contemporary evidence, then they can be given more importance than if, for example, they were written after the police knocked on the door.
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Using rap lyrics as evidence in court – Young Thug could end up in prison – news Culture and entertainment
