Memorandum of Support

“Rap Music on Trial”

(S7527)
The undersigned support Senate Bill S7527—An act to amend the criminal procedure law, in
relation to rules of evidence concerning the admissibility of evidence of a defendant's creative
expression (S7527-Hoylman, Bailey)—and urge the legislature to pass, and the Governor to sign,
this bill.

We are writing to express our strong support for Senate Bill S7527, “An act to amend the criminal
procedure law, in relation to rules of evidence concerning the admissibility of evidence of a defendant's
creative expression,” cosponsored by New York State Senators Brad Hoylman and Jamaal Bailey. If signed
into law, this bill would provide long overdue protections for creative expression, particularly rap music,
which has been targeted and punished by the criminal justice system for decades.
This reform is urgently needed. In courtrooms in New York and across the country, prosecutors are
increasingly introducing rap lyrics as evidence in criminal proceedings. Rather than acknowledge rap
music as a form of artistic expression, police and prosecutors argue that the lyrics should be interpreted
literally—in the words of one prosecutor, as “autobiographical journals”—even though the genre is rooted
in a long tradition of storytelling that privileges figurative language, is steeped in hyperbole, and employs
all of the same poetic devices we find in more traditional works of poetry.
This tactic effectively denies rap music the status of art and, in the process, gives prosecutors a dangerous
advantage in the courtroom: by presenting rap lyrics as rhymed confessions of illegal behavior, they are
often able to obtain convictions even when other evidence is lacking. No other fictional form, musical or
otherwise, is (mis)used like this in courts. And it should come as no surprise that the overwhelming
majority of artists in these cases are young black and Latino men.1
In 2021, we might expect that rap would be recognized as the art form it is. After all, it is easily one of the
most popular genres in the United States, influencing a wide range of other musical genres, not to mention
popular culture in the U.S. and across the world. It has also enjoyed widespread critical and scholarly
acclaim. Rap lyrics—characterized by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. as “a new vanguard of American poetry”—are
included in numerous literary anthologies, are taught at universities across the country, and acknowledged
by our most venerable institutions for their imagination, innovation, and sophistication.2
At the same time, rap music and hip hop culture more broadly have given rise to a multibillion dollar
industry, offering opportunities for upward mobility to young men and women from communities where
such opportunities are all too rare.
And yet, despite all this, it is being exploited in the criminal justice system. Research has identified
hundreds of cases nationwide, but we know the number is far higher and growing, with no sign of slowing
without the kind of legal intervention proposed in Bill S7527.
Research has also demonstrated that rap music has the potential to be highly prejudicial. One study, for
example, divided subjects into two groups and provided them with identical violent lyrics—one group was
told they came from a country song, while the other group was told they came from a rap song. The people

1Nielson, Erik and Andrea L. Dennis. (2019). Rap on Trial: Race, Lyrics, and Guilt in America. New York: The New Press.
2Gates, Jr., Henry L. (2011). Foreword. The Anthology of Rap. Eds. Adam Bradley and Andrew DuBois. New Haven:
Yale University Press.
who believed the lyrics came from a rap song were significantly more likely to view them as threatening
and in need of regulation than those who believed they were country lyrics. The study’s author emphasizes
an important racial dimension; whereas country music is traditionally associated with white performers,
rap “primes the negative culturally held stereotype of urban Blacks.”3
In another study, one focused on the impact of rap lyrics on potential jurors, the researcher found that the
set of violent rap lyrics he presented to study participants exerted “a significant prejudicial impact” on his
test subjects, to the point that participants who read the lyrics were significantly more likely to think the
author of the lyrics was capable of committing murder than those who did not.4
As these and other studies suggest, weaponizing rap music against its creators is racially and culturally
discriminatory.5 It is also an affront to the First Amendment protections that everyone in this country
should be entitled to. As the undisputed home of hip hop, New York should lead the nation in protecting the
vibrant cultural and artistic movement it gave birth to. This bill would be an important first step.
Collectively, we urge the legislature and the governor to make it law—and to demonstrate to the other 49
states that when it comes to rap music, the “Empire State of Mind” should be their state of mind, too.

Alex Spiro Erik Nielson, Ph.D.

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan University of Richmond

3 Fried, Carrie B. (1999). “Who’s afraid of rap? Differential reactions to music lyrics,” Journal of Applied Social
Psychology 29(4), 705-721. Note that this study was replicated in 2016, nearly 20 years after Fried’s study, and the
authors reached the same conclusions. See Dunbar, Adam, et al. (2016). “The threatening nature of ‘rap’ music,”
Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 22(3), 280-292.
4 Fischoff, Stuart P. (1999). “Gangsta’ rap and a murder in Bakersfield,” Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 29(4),

795-805.
5 For more examples, see the following:

• Binder, Amy. (1993). “Constructing racial rhetoric: media depictions of harm in heavy metal and rap
music,” American Sociological Review, 58(6), 753-767.
• Dixon, Travis and Daniel Linz (1997). “Obscenity law and sexually explicit rap music: Understanding the
effects of sex, attitudes, and beliefs,” Journal of Applied Communication Research, 25(3), 217-241.
• Fried, Carrie B. (1996). “Bad rap for rap: bias in reactions to music lyrics,” Journal of Applied Social
Psychology, 26(23), 2135–2146.
• Fried, Carrie B. (2003). “Stereotypes of music fans: Are rap and heavy metal fans a danger to themselves or
others?,” Journal of Media Psychology, 8(3), 2-27.
 SIGNATORIES

Artists Scholars/activists

Shawn Carter (aka JAY-Z) Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow
Michael Render (aka Killer Mike) Jody Armour, University of Southern California
Robert Rihmeek Williams (aka Meek Mill) Paul Butler, Georgetown University
Sean Anderson (aka Big Sean) Andrea L. Dennis, University of Georgia
Kelly Rowland Lambros Fatsis, University of Brighton
Robin Thicke Murray Forman, Northeastern University
Joseph Antonio Cartagena (aka Fat Joe) Robin D.G. Kelley, UCLA
Mario Mims (aka Yo Gotti) Walter Kimbrough, Dillard University
McKinley Phipps (aka Mac) Abenaa Owusu-Bempah, London School of Economics
Marlanna Evans (aka Rapsody) Emmett G. Price III, Berklee College of Music
Victor Kwesi Mensah (aka Vic Mensa) Eithne Quinn, University of Manchester
Chauncey Hollis (aka Hit-Boy) Simon Tam, petitioner in Matal v. Tam
Shaquan Lewis (aka Mad Skillz)
Darius Scott Dixson (aka Dixson)
Jeremie Pennick (aka Benny the Butcher)
Darius Henry (HDBeenDope)
Tawyanna Hughes (aka Big Bottle Wyanna)
Jose Javier Reyes
Matthew Wolfgang Garstka
Akinoya Abasi
Daniel Charles Carle
Trent Robert Hafdahl
Anthony Philip Notarmaso
Luis Adrian Oropeza
Erick James Hansel
Mario Antonio Camarena
Christopher Lane Conley
James Nielsen
Andrew Joel Glass
Brian Louis Cotton
Joshua Elliot Moore
David Jacob Stephens
David Matthew Puckett
Courtney LaPlante
Bill Crook
Mike Stringer
Zev Rosenberg
Jose Mangin
Caity Babs
Kaash Paige
Nnena C. Adigwe
Tinashe Kachingwe