Rap as Threat? The Violent Translation of Music in American Law

Abstract

In Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Jamal Knox and Rashee Beasley (2013), the defendants were charged with making "terroristic threats" after their rap song "F* the Police" appeared on YouTube. This unique case (similar only to U.S. v. Elonis of the same year) exposes significant issues within the law: ambiguity surrounding the law's definitions of threat and the problematic assumption at court that rap as evidence is a literal text or confessional. It also, however, reveals a certain consistency in the court's treatment of music: general dismissal. That mishandling of music, in this case, allowed for a rather drastic translation of "F* the Police" -a court-constituted violence credited to the defendants alone.

Rap music, race, and perceptions of crime

“…Regardless of rap music's origins, one thing is readily apparent: Rap music has had a contentious relationship with the criminal justice system and, more broadly, the public. Scholars who study rap document when record stores have been prohibited from selling rap albums (Blecha, ; Crenshaw, ; Dixon & Linz, ), when rap concerts have been canceled by local authorities (Blecha, ; Hyman, ), and when prosecutors have used rap lyrics as confession evidence in criminal trials (Calvert, Morehart, & Papdelias, ; Dennis, ; Hirsch, ; Kubrin & Nielson, ; Powell, ). More generally, politicians, media pundits, and the public at large have criticized rap music for its references to drug use, violence, and other criminal activities.…”

“…Concerns about the violence and crime in rap music is not, however, isolated to media and political commentary. In the past decade, rap lyrics are increasingly being introduced as evidence in criminal trials, with prosecutors often using the lyrics to characterize rappers as criminal offenders who are writing about their violent and illicit exploits in the form of music lyrics (Calvert et al, ; Dennis, ; Hirsch, ; Kubrin & Nielson, ; Powell, ). For example, Larry Yellin, a senior prosecutor for the Orange County District Attorney's Office, contends that rap lyrics can be useful evidence because they may illuminate whether a defendant had intent or motive to commit a crime (Puente, ).…”

Rap jako muzyka tożsamościowa: od czarnego getta do polskiego pop-nacjonalizmu

“…Chris E. Kubrin, Erik Nielson oraz Lily Hirsch -analizujący przebieg procesów poszlakowych, w wyniku których już kilkudziesięciu raperów-amatorów skazano na wieloletnie kary więzienia lub karę śmierci -dowodzą, że wyroki te wydano jedynie na podstawie literalnej interpretacji "ulicznej" poezji (Kubrin & Nielson, 2014;Hirsch, 2014). 6 Apogeum zainteresowania afrocentryzmem obserwowano na przełomie lat 80. i 90.…”

Listening Back: Music, Cultural Heritage and Law

“…First, this enrichment involves a diversification in the types of music admitted to the interdisciplinary conversation. To list some recent examples: Lily E. Hirsh has employed rap to examine how law interprets music [7], Kieran Dolin has explored postcolonial issues in relation to Indigenous Australian culture, rethinking the nature of music and its relation to the worldviews proliferated by legal systems [3: 32-33], and Desmond Manderson has looked to punk in exploring the aesthetics and political significance of how modern art is understood. Second, there has been an enrichment of the way in which legal theoretical issues are thought through.…”