Can I Live?: Jay Z, Meek Mill, and Others Garner Industry Support for ‘Rap on Trial’ Bill

Written by Ciara Hendrix, originally published in February 2022 print

New York has been a destination for artists globally since the late 1970s. It’s where hip-hop was born. The Empire state has also become a legal battleground for the protection of rap lyrics and creative expression.

Industry veterans Jay-Z, Meek Mill, and Kelly Rowland are just a few who have lent their time and social capital to support legislation seeking to protect artists from unfair prosecution tactics involving their lyrics. The legislation, Senate Bill S7527, was introduced November 2021 by Senator Brad Holyman (D-Manhattan), Senator Jamaal Bailey (D-Bronx), & Assembly member Catalina Cruz (D-Queens) and is currently on the Senate Floor Calendar awaiting a full vote. It does not ban New York prosecutors from using lyrics as evidence; instead it requires them to ‘provide clear and convincing evidence’ (S.7527./a/8681) against defendants in cases when seeking to use lyrics as admissible evidence in court for convictions. Prosecutors would be tasked with proving that the lyrics are a direct admission of guilt.

In Rap on Trial: Race, Lyrics, and Guilt in America (p.2019), co-authors Professor of Law Andrea Dennis (Univ. of Georgia) and Associate Professor Erik Nielson, Ph.D (Univ. of Richmond) cite that since the early aughts of the 1990s, there have been over 500 different cases in which rap lyrics were used to target, incriminate, and indict rappers. The book is a thoroughly researched exposé chronicling the predatory hyper-surveillance Black folks have been exposed to since the birth of hip-hop.

One example involves former No Limit Records artist Mac Phipps. In 2001, prosecutors entered lyrics from his album Shell Shocked into evidence which contributed to a wrongful conviction and 20 years in prison. Prosecutors were permitted to read multiple pages aloud of Phipps’ lyrics in front of the jury, despite them having zero connection to the charges brought against him. In June of 2021 Phipps was granted clemency and released on parole.

Passing this legislation will be significant in upholding the protection of artistic expression and First Amendment rights. It also has the potential to alleviate how white supremacy tries to silence artists in Black and Brown communities. In an interview with The Crime Report, a non-profit newsroom based out of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, Dennis calls attention to the socio economic aspect of using lyrics as “another example of white American society embracing a cultural creation by the Black community while demonizing the people who engage in it.”

It is worth noting that no other genre of music receives the scrutiny that hip-hop does. The practice of perverting free speech – a protected liberty in the First Amendment – to limit creativity is a severe miscarriage of justice where race is front and center.

Rap is melodic storytelling & oral tradition is integral to Black culture. It’s how we preserve family recipes, customs and practices and everything in between. Subjecting an entire diaspora of people to oppression over centuries, then designing & upholding systems that actively move against them at every intersection, delays us all.