Imagine that the music you wrote is against you in a criminal case. in the documentary “As we speak: rap music on trial” Bronx-born rapper Kemba travels around the country and Britain, interviewing artists and legal experts about how that's been more than a theoretical possibility for rappers.
MacPhipps, for example, was convicted of murder and spent more than two decades in prison, even though another man had confessed to the crime. (He was released in 2021.) In an interview with Kemba, he describes how references to violence in his lyrics were used at his trial, despite what he suggests was an inappropriate context. (One line quoted referred to his father, a Vietnam veteran.)
Elsewhere in this documentary, directed by JM Harper, academic Adam Dunbar explains a series of studies he conducted. Participants were asked to judge lyrics from the same song: some were told they were rap lyrics, some were told they were country, and some were told they were heavy metal. The group that believed the words were rap lyrics labeled the composer as someone who had a higher criminal propensity. When artist manager Chace Infinite argues that rap is taken more literally than other music, the film cuts to clips of Johnny Cash and Freddie Mercury. Would a jury have given legal weight to Cash's claim, in a song, that he “shot a man in Reno just to watch him die”?
Kemba places the association of rap with crime in a historical context of censorship of black music. In another thread, “As We Speak,” he imagines Kemba himself on trial, with his writings being used against him in criminal court. The staged material is a little clunky, but “As We Speak” makes a strong case for the need to be free to make art and the public awareness that art rarely qualifies as legal evidence.
As we speak: rap music put to the test
Not qualified. Duration: 1 hour 36 minutes. Watch it on Paramount+.
