The Next Crime I Write Might be about You: Decriminalizing Rap
by Mikal Amin Lee
Two New York Senators this past November submitted to the legislature senate bill S7527 ubiquitously referred to as “The Rap Music on Trial” bill. The impetus for this bill extended from the trial of rap music artist Daniel Hernandez (Tekashi69 or 6ix9ine) where prosecutors introduced as evidence against him, lyrics they believed showed and proved his affiliation to various gang members and drug traffickers. Using this as a part of the case against him they were able to force him to turn state's evidence in exchange for a lesser sentence. This case is only the most recent example of law enforcement’s preoccupation with and bias towards rap music and the rappers themselves specifically. Several Hip-Hop artists the most prominent of which being Jay-Z and Meek Mills are publicly and actively supporting the bill.
New York has a history of police harassing and racially profiling Hip Hop artists. Before, 6ix9ine the most recent had been Bobby Schmurda. In 2014, the up-and-coming Flatbush rapper whose affiliation with a supposed gang, GS9 had cops jonesing to make a connection. Their reductive reasoning led them to believe his music and the persona he portrayed as an artist was proof that he’d been involved in a series of crimes ranging from illegal gun possession to drug smuggling. Their investigation ended in a conviction of Bobby Schmurda that resulted in him serving almost six years behind bars due to at best circumstantial evidence that mostly revealed very loose neighborhood ties to said GS9 (which in and of itself is dubious as an actual “gang”). For more than twenty years, the NYPD has had a “Hip-Hop Squad”, an intel unit born out of a section of the gang task force that specializes in surveilling and collecting information on famous and well-known rappers. The justification? Police allege the personas, lifestyles and music these artists produced foretell of real-life drug and gang affiliations that can be used to stop crime. To say that the NYPD’s history is at best spotty on how successful this ‘unit’ has been in truly thwarting violent crime or capturing actual hardened criminals would be an understatement. And still, not only in NY but all around the country law enforcement has persisted and in the courts been successful in introducing fictionalized accounts of street life as evidence of real-life criminal wrongdoing.
The story of Mac Phipps, one of the most famous cases where an artist's persona and music was used against them in a court of law, has been well documented in NPR’s podcast series, Louder than a Riot. Mac served a twenty plus year sentence for a shooting that through independent forensic investigations showed he was innocent. Numerous inconsistencies in testimony, coerced affidavits and a well-known racist New Orleans police force who had an open hatred for the Hip-Hop and black communities revealed the actual truth, that Mac Phipps was only guilty of three things, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, being black, and being successful.
We can start with looking at the racist history of police profiling, harassing, and attacking black and brown people for no other reason than for breathing. We can go in even deeper and look at the portrayal of black and brown people overall as inherently violent and dangerous by the community at large. “Look at them, look at how they dress, at how they talk. They must be up to no good.” There is an immediate bias, and pre-disposition that we are automatically criminal. Guilty until proven otherwise. Still there is a relationship between elements of street life and the music that tells its story. Hip Hop’s connection to gang life is there with some of the forefathers at it’s genesis. It’s been evident in the rise of gangsta rap in the latter half of the twentieth century. Going back to the nineties some of the most prominent artists openly discussed their affiliations or direct involvement in the drug trade including Jay-Z. However, black and brown people largely have been forced into abject ghetto conditions meaning that mere survival has been by any means necessary, illicit or otherwise. Now, widening the lens to all of American history the same could be said early on for poor Irish, Jewish and Italian communities as well. Yet never was an automatic link between the art and the underworld made in any other circumstance than with us. Should associations of illegal elements or past transgressions mean a presumption of guilt? Should creative output be looked at once above simple critique and scrutiny as an admission of potential illegal activity? If that was universally held true American legends such as Frank Sinatra might have had a different life considering their documented “affiliations” with organized crime.
Even with all of this, it is still complicated. It can’t be argued that Hip Hop’s proximity to people of interest by law enforcement doesn’t exist. It also can’t be disputed that there are numerous Hip-Hop artists, rappers in particular who have expressed openly on record and in candid interviews that they formerly had illegal dealings and activities. In some cases, they’ve even served time. A more recent phenomenon has seen Drill artists who allegedly are sending death threats directly through diss tracks that have been carried out. Overall, the music still remains fantasy, fiction and hyperbole that uses reality as inspiration rather than delivering autobiographical information or actual state’s evidence. It's a sad testament to the lazy and racist thinking that would dedicate actual public resources and time to committing scanning rap genius in search of the clues to the crimes of the century. Moreover, guilt by association isn’t really a prosecutable offense. The threshold in our justice system should be and needs to be much higher than that to be credible. The fact remains that overwhelmingly this is art and not even close to a smoking gun or the wrench in the parlor that proved the butler did it.
