Hip Hop as Evidence
In 2008, Vonte Skinner was on trial for murder when the prosecutor was given permission by the court to read the following aloud to the jury, “In the hood, I am a threat / It’s written on my arm and signed in blood on my Tech.”
The prosecutor read for 13 more pages. The lyrics were that of Skinner but none of them mentioned the victim or specific details about the crime he was being charged for. The other evidence in the case was extremely subjective with witnesses changing testimonies multiple times and no other factual evidence provided. In the end, a New Jersey jury found the rapper guilty of murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
This is an issue.
The First Amendment gives us all permission to depict criminality and violence without being suspected of engaging in it. While other genres remain protected by The First, this is one of many instances where hip-hop was not.
Prosecutors know their juries. The worse the image and character of the individual on trial, the more likely a conviction. Juries rarely realize when they are being coerced or when the constitutional rights of the defendant are being violated. Even when artists are simply expressing themselves or depicting their surroundings, their words are being taken and used against them.
In 2011, Taylor Bell was summoned to the office of Mississippi High School after his lyrics cited a female students’ claims that they had been harassed by two school coaches.
“Looking down girl’s shirts / Drool running down your mouth / You fucking with the wrong one / Going to get a pistol down your mouth.”
School officials from the district of Itawamba, Mississippi claimed the lyrics portrayed a legitimate threat. They suspended Bell for 2 days while simultaneously disregarding the fact that four different students submitted sworn affidavits detailing the instances Bell described. Along with Bell being suspended, he was removed from Itawamba and placed in a different district.
His family has proceeded to sue the School Board for $1, choosing such a minimal amount to reinforce that the case is not about money, but instead justice. Bell’s first amendment challenge case was rejected by the US fifth circuit court of appeals. The appeals court claimed that the digital world requires new rules for policing and punishing students. Bell has filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court. While Supreme Court only hears about 100 of 7,000 potential cases a year it possesses ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all courts. If the case is heard it has the potential to largely change the rhetoric behind hip hop lyrics and their ability to be presented as evidence in the court of law.
Bell is not alone. Stars such as Big Boi, T.I., and Killer Mike expressed strong interest in the case cited as friends of the court in Bell’s appeal. “I see a kid who saw wrong happening and was outraged about it. He wrote a poem about it over a beat” Killer Mike told the press.
Together with the help of Erik Neilson (professor of hip-hop at Richmond University) and two other hip-hop scholars an amicus brief was drafted on the case. “By taking Bell’s song lyrics literally rather than as forms of artistic expression, both the school and the fifth circuit essentially delegitimized rap as an art form that is entitled to full protection under the constitution,” the brief said. “The government punished a young man for his art — and, more disturbing, for the musical genre by which he chose to express himself,” it continued.
Neilson has repeatedly cited that rap music is increasingly being used in criminal courts. Estimates put the number in the high hundreds, annually.
“The defendants in these cases are almost exclusively young men of color and this attack on black speech is not at all new to our country,” Nielson said. “It is the latest example of a long tradition of fearing, censoring, and frequently punishing black speech and black art and so there is no question that what is happening here is largely based on race.”
Creating art forms that depict violence and criminality without being suspected of engaging in it is a constitutional right we all are entitled to. We take that away when we have the courts portraying rap lyrics as autobiographical testimony. Will this case be the one to change the distributing rhetoric? While it’s not impossible, it will ultimately come down to the Supreme Court’s decision to either hear the case or not. But there is hope.
In 2014, Vonte Skinner’s case was overturned by the NJ Supreme Court. In a 6–0 ruling, there was unanimous agreement that the violent rap lyrics read during his trial unfairly persuaded the jury.
Bell, now pursuing a career in music was ecstatic to hear legends such as Killer Mike and Big Boi were supporting his case. He was quoted telling the New York Times “It makes me feel like a kid in a candy store.” It has us all a bit giddy. The potential for legislation to address these issues doesn’t come about often, and while change looks promising, it has yet to be seen.
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Originally published at bmbr.nyc.