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Speaker 1: Kingslime is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Heirloom Media.

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Speaker 2: Can you do me a favor and give the Somber Court.

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Speaker 1: Educate the Somber Court on who you are.

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Speaker 2: Your background the court may not be familiar Joan.

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Speaker 3: I'm a fifty four year old father for I'm kind

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Speaker 3: of emotional because how good this guy is.

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Speaker 4: It's June second, twenty twenty two, three weeks after Young

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Speaker 4: Thug's arrest. His defense attorney Brian Steele, is trying to

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Speaker 4: demonstrate that Young Thug is a charitable person and a meaningful,

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Speaker 4: positive contributor to Atlanta and the music industry. He's brought

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Speaker 4: in three hundred entertainment CEO Kevin Lyles.

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Speaker 3: I've also started a company with Jeffrey called Youngstone Life.

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Speaker 1: And I remember what he said to me. We're not

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Speaker 1: just starting a company, We're.

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Speaker 3: Gonna change some lives. And that's what he's done, and

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Speaker 3: he's definitely changed mine.

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Speaker 1: Well. This is part of Young thugs first bond hearing.

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Speaker 1: It's when the defense argues its client is not a

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Speaker 1: flight or safety risk, but he deserves a chance to

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Speaker 1: pay bail and be released from jail while his trial

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Speaker 1: is carried out.

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Speaker 4: Lyle says he will financially back Young Thugs Bond and

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Speaker 4: even help the rapper pay for a dozen off duty

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Speaker 4: police officers to supervise home confinement if he's released, a

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Speaker 4: cost that could creep into the millions.

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Speaker 3: I want to back him personally and professionally.

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Speaker 1: After Steel is done making his case, then prosecutor Don

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Speaker 1: Gary steps up and starts his argument in an Atlanta

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Speaker 1: trial against one of the biggest hip hop stars in

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Speaker 1: the world by making reference to an old, dead news

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Speaker 1: radio host who started his career during the dust Bowl.

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Speaker 5: Jeje, I'm going to rely on the statement of age

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Speaker 5: to say that.

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Speaker 2: I'm about to have a Paul Harvey moment.

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Speaker 5: We're sitting here and you got the song and dance,

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Speaker 5: but now you're about to get the rest of the story.

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Speaker 1: The bond hearing is in some ways a condensed version

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Speaker 1: of the trial itself. There's no seated jury, but the

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Speaker 1: prosecution is trying to convince the judge that Jeffrey Williams

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Speaker 1: is too dangerous to walk among the public, that he

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Speaker 1: needs to remain in jail or people could get hurt,

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Speaker 1: could even die.

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Speaker 5: What I can tell the court is mister Williams is

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Speaker 5: the head of YSL, and the y S doesn't stand

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Speaker 5: for stoner, it stands for slime.

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Speaker 2: It's young slime. Wife.

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Speaker 5: Judge, this gang and I call it that because that's

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Speaker 5: what it is by definition of Georgia law. This criminal

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Speaker 5: street gang pre existed the label record, so as a spinoff,

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Speaker 5: he used YSIL again and substituted one of the words.

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Speaker 4: Over the course of forty minutes, Gary lays out his case.

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Speaker 4: He talks about drugs and weapons being found in Young

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Speaker 4: Thug's home when he was arrested.

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Speaker 5: Judge, there was a sought off shotgun or sought off

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Speaker 5: illegal dangerous weapon.

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Speaker 4: He highlights Young thugs alleged connection to the death of

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Speaker 4: Donovan Thomas.

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Speaker 5: It's the state's contention that the car used in that

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Speaker 5: murder was a car rented personally by mister Williams just

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Speaker 5: days before.

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Speaker 4: And he leans on intel law enforcement claims to have

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Speaker 4: gathered from sources.

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Speaker 5: Judge, I will also say that we have taken proffers

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Speaker 5: from fellow gang members from mister Williams. Some are on

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Speaker 5: this indictment, some are not. They have stated uniformally that

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Speaker 5: mister Williams is dangerous, They are afraid of him, that

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Speaker 5: if they cross him, he will kill.

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Speaker 2: Them and their family.

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Speaker 4: Then Gary scoffs at the defense is offered to cover

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Speaker 4: the cost of a supervision.

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Speaker 5: Mister Williams is said in his songs, it's all about

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Speaker 5: the money and there's no difference.

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Speaker 2: That's exactly what it was today.

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Speaker 5: It was I've got money, I can I can pay

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Speaker 5: for whatever you want me to.

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Speaker 1: Not a subtle slight is the first time Gary mentions

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Speaker 1: Young thugs lyrics in this hearing, but it's far from

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Speaker 1: the last. He starts pulling from the indictment, attempting to

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Speaker 1: demonstrate that Young Thug's own music provides evidence of his

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Speaker 1: criminal activity and character.

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Speaker 5: Act nine on four twenty fourteen. It is a song.

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Speaker 5: The name is EWW.

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Speaker 4: The name is actually Ill or sometimes Ill. Young Thug

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Speaker 4: released this song nearly a decade ago to build off

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Speaker 4: the hype he saw firm initial hits like Stoner and

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Speaker 4: Gary hones in on the song's final verse and.

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Speaker 5: In it, basically the defendant says all I ever wanted

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Speaker 5: was the money. Basically, if you mess with me, you

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Speaker 5: go into a wheelchair. That's what that one says.

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Speaker 4: Gary continues, the next one.

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Speaker 5: Is going to be Act sixty of the indictment, which

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Speaker 5: is on three twenty five sixteen. It is a music

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Speaker 5: video entitled slime Shit and it talks about why sl

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Speaker 5: shit kill him well Ship twelve being a if mission

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Speaker 5: for police officers, fuck a Jao shit In that song

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Speaker 5: it goes again, fuck the police, fuck the Joe.

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Speaker 4: Geary sites more songs at one one.

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Speaker 5: On four sixteen of twenty one, there's a video released

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Speaker 5: called Ski Ski with lyrics stating, I fuck with slats,

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Speaker 5: slacks being basic slang life forever we come to eat rats.

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Speaker 5: I came with some buranas Runner on Act ninety seven.

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Speaker 5: From nine to sixteen nineteen, mister Williams post a video.

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Speaker 2: Called just how it Is.

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Speaker 5: There were lyrics in that one as well, and it said,

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Speaker 5: uh last n word tried me almost got popped at Lennox.

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Speaker 5: Asked the cops, asked the detectives. They know all the business,

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Speaker 5: asked the cops and the detective all the jurisdictions. Gave

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Speaker 5: the lawyer close to two mills a killers.

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Speaker 2: He handles all the killings my business.

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Speaker 5: We know to kill the biggest cats of all the kittens.

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Speaker 1: We've known the kid our biggest cats of wild kiddies.

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Speaker 4: Gary even connects a Young Thug song to a shooting

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Speaker 4: incident or Wife and Lucci's mother was hitting the leg.

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Speaker 5: You're on Acts seventy eight from one fifteen to nineteen uh.

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Speaker 5: It's a video called bad Boy. Now understand. At a point,

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Speaker 5: mister Williams got.

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Speaker 2: Into a.

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Speaker 5: Beef if you Will with another rapper by the name

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Speaker 5: of Rayshawn Bennett, also known as Wife and Lucci. At

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Speaker 5: some point Lucci's mother was shot at, and the song

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Speaker 5: comes out with bad Boy that says, you better watch

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Speaker 5: the way you breathe around me, for that breath be

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Speaker 5: your last. Boy Smith and Wesson forty five put a

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Speaker 5: hole in his heart. Better not play with me killers,

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Speaker 5: stay with me. I shot at his mommy. Now he

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Speaker 5: no longer mentioned me, that he no longer missed me again.

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Speaker 5: We believe that mister Williams doesn't sing about random theoretical acts.

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Speaker 5: He sings about gang acts that he's a part of

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Speaker 5: or his gang participates in.

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Speaker 1: Finally, Gary uses Young Thugs words to lay out the

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Speaker 1: prosecution's overarching theory. This next song is Anybody. His second

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Speaker 1: collaboration with Nicki Minaj.

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Speaker 5: Acts seventy four is a music video on four twelve eighteen,

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Speaker 5: where mister Williams states or sings, I never kill.

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Speaker 2: Anybody, but I guess I'm doing it bad. But I

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Speaker 2: got something to do with that audist. And as would

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Speaker 2: be our.

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Speaker 5: Position is that as the leader of this criminal street gang,

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Speaker 5: mister Williams probably has never killed anybody. I don't know

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Speaker 5: that to be true or not, but he probably gets

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Speaker 5: others do it for him.

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Speaker 2: As as we understand the evidence, Judge.

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Speaker 5: Judge, mister Williams essentially is everybody else is a follower.

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Speaker 5: There are leaders, we said, mister Kitchens, mister Greer, they

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Speaker 5: are also leaders. But the leader, the top doll, the

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Speaker 5: most dangerous man here is Jeffrey Williams because he doesn't

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Speaker 5: have to get.

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Speaker 2: His hands dirty. He has others to do his business.

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Speaker 1: Gary argues that the man who calls himself King Slime

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Speaker 1: in records, who Gana calls King Slime, and who even

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Speaker 1: Drake knows to call King the slime, there is also

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Speaker 1: a king pin.

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Speaker 2: This is the most of them. This is the one.

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Speaker 5: That you see the shadow in the back of the room.

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Speaker 5: He's the one directing traffic. He is the one that

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Speaker 5: we're all afraid of. He's the one that's king slime.

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Speaker 5: He's pulling the shots.

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Speaker 4: I'm Christina Lee and I'm George Chety. This says, indeed

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Speaker 4: king slime.

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Speaker 1: The prosecution of Young Thug and Ysell.

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Speaker 4: Using lyrics in a criminal case rubs a lot of

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Speaker 4: people the wrong way. On the stand of that first

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Speaker 4: bond hearing, Young Thug's business partner, Kevin Lyles offered a

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Speaker 4: familiar critique.

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Speaker 3: I've been fighting this battle for over forty years.

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Speaker 1: It's not new, and it's funny.

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Speaker 3: How were the number one music in the world now?

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Speaker 1: Anyone to bring this back up. We don't argue.

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Speaker 6: About movies or other genres of music that talk about

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Speaker 6: I ran them over in my truck, or I got

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Speaker 6: drunk and I went and shot them.

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Speaker 7: We don't bring.

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Speaker 6: Those things to quip, but quote unquote our music.

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Speaker 3: We been on trout and we constantly on trout about

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Speaker 3: who we are, what we.

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Speaker 1: Are, and nobody gave us nothing. The argument goes, Johnny

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Speaker 1: Cash didn't get arrested for singing I shot a man

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Speaker 1: in Reno just to watch him die. Bob Marley didn't

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Speaker 1: go to jail for bellowing out that he shot the sheriff.

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Speaker 1: But not the deputy, and Freddie Mercury didn't have to

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Speaker 1: worry about being prosecuted for the second verse of Bohemian Rhapsody,

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Speaker 1: Mama just killed a man, put a gun against his head,

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Speaker 1: pulled my trigger. Now he's dead. At this point, the

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Speaker 1: decades long debate Overwrapp being on trial, these are cliches.

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Speaker 1: They're easy points in which should be a hard conversation,

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Speaker 1: and they distract from the much more nuanced debate that

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Speaker 1: needs to happen. Virtually everyone we spoke with about lyrics said,

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Speaker 1: we believe there's a place for their use in prosecution

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Speaker 1: when their actual evidence of a crime. It's not that

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Speaker 1: prosecutors quote an artist's lyrics, it's how.

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Speaker 4: There are extreme cases where lyrics have been used to

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Speaker 4: achieve nightmarish results, the most egregious perhaps being the case

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Speaker 4: of Mac Phipps, a twenty two year old rapper with

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Speaker 4: no criminal record who was wrongfully convicted by all white

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Speaker 4: jury on a manslaughter charge in Louisiana in two thousand

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Speaker 4: and one. Phipps spent twenty one years in prison for

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Speaker 4: a crime he didn't commit. Shoddy police work and coerced

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Speaker 4: witness testimony were a big part of the conviction and

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Speaker 4: without any physical evidence, prosecutors recited the lyrics of one

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Speaker 4: of Phipps's songs in court, or at least where prosecutors

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Speaker 4: wanted that jury to hear from phipps lyrics the hook

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Speaker 4: from Murder, Murder, Kill Kill, and what's actually a misquote

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Speaker 4: from his song shell shocked, He'll give you a bullet

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Speaker 4: in the brain, not i'le he is phips Dad, known

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Speaker 4: as Big Mac. Phipps lyrics were in part a reference

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Speaker 4: to Big Mack's experiences as a Vietnam War soldier. Stripped

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Speaker 4: of its context, the lyric implied something about phipps character

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Speaker 4: that simply had no facts to back it up.

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Speaker 1: On top of the lack of evidence, someone else confessed

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Speaker 1: to the crime. Nevertheless, Phipps was locked up, and since

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Speaker 1: his release in twenty twenty.

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Speaker 8: One, McKinley Phipps Junior could be released from prison soon.

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Speaker 8: This week, the former No Limit rapper received a letter

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Speaker 8: from Governor John Bell Edwards, who granted him clemency after

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Speaker 8: serving more than two decades from manslaughter.

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Speaker 1: The now forty six year old has become the poster

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Speaker 1: child for how courts can wrongfully interpret artistic expression as

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Speaker 1: an outright confession and for how rap lyrics in particular

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Speaker 1: can introduce racial bias into a trial.

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Speaker 4: In a study from nineteen ninety nine, lyrics by the

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Speaker 4: Kingson Trio, a folk and pop group, were presented to

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Speaker 4: one group as rap music and the other as country music.

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Speaker 4: The first group who believed the Kingston Trio lyrics were

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Speaker 4: rap lyrics were far more likely to believe that the

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Speaker 4: lyrics would incite violence and require regulation. That said, he

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Speaker 4: was conducted again in twenty sixteen, but this time they

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Speaker 4: also presented lyrics from a Boy named Sue by Johnny Cash. Specifically,

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Speaker 4: they included this excerpt that goes quote.

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Speaker 5: I hit him hard, rot between the eyes, and he

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Speaker 5: went down.

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Speaker 9: With my surprise.

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Speaker 4: He come up with a knife and cut off a

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Speaker 4: piece of my ear. But I busted a chair right

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Speaker 4: across his.

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Speaker 5: Teeth and through the wall and into the street, kicking

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Speaker 5: on a godget and the mud and the blood.

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Speaker 1: And the beer.

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Speaker 4: Despite how mainstream rap had become, how rap had essentially

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Speaker 4: become the new pop music, the results were damn near

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Speaker 4: the same. Those who believed a Boy Named Sue was

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Speaker 4: rap music had evaluated the song far more negatively. Adam

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Speaker 4: Dunbar helped conduct the twenty sixteen study. He also appeared

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Speaker 4: at the Fulton County Courthouse in April twenty twenty three,

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Speaker 4: called by the defense in an attempt to qualify him

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Speaker 4: for testimony in the Wisel trial.

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Speaker 10: When the lyrics were represented as rap music compared to

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Speaker 10: country or having medaled, participants view the songwriter as having.

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Speaker 1: A worse character and greater criminal propensity.

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Speaker 4: There is also an entire book about the use of

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Speaker 4: lyrics and prosecution rap on Trial Race Lyrics and Guilt

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Speaker 4: in America. It features a foreword by Atlanta artist Killer Mike.

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Speaker 4: One of the book's co authors, Eric Nielsen, has also

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Speaker 4: appeared at the Fulton County Corehouse as a potential witness.

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Speaker 1: Doctor Nielsen, good happening, Sure, come on up to the

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Speaker 1: witness stands, surf you wouldn't mind.

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Speaker 4: When Prosecutor Adrian love Cross examined him, she essentially wondered

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Speaker 4: why a rap expert like Nielsen would be necessary. She

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Speaker 4: wondered why a jury shouldn't be able to take lyrics

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Speaker 4: literally at face value.

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Speaker 11: Would it matter to you that this is something anyone

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Speaker 11: just simply listening to rap.

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Speaker 7: Music would be able to figure out? On their own.

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Speaker 10: Unfortunately, no, and that's kind of the entire point of

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Speaker 10: my book and a lot of my research is that's

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Speaker 10: just not how it works. Lyrics are highly inflammatory, prejudicial,

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Speaker 10: and subject to misinterpretation and mischaracterization. I would say it's

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Speaker 10: almost insulting to the art form to suggest that anybody

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Speaker 10: with a limited knowledge or experience with rap music would

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Speaker 10: just naturally understand all of these things. It's much more

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Speaker 10: complex than that, and it's really it's reverence to the

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Speaker 10: genre to acknowledge that it is as sophisticated and complex

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Speaker 10: as it is.

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Speaker 7: So the short.

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Speaker 1: Answer is no.

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Speaker 4: The whole issue is a lightning rod for criticism, a

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Speaker 4: softball for anyone who wants to declare discrimination or in fairness.

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Speaker 4: It's why Michael Carlson, Executive District Attorney in Fulton County,

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Speaker 4: is eager to challenge a song that the use of

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Speaker 4: lyrics in court only impacts black artists and rap music specifically.

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Speaker 12: There are scores of cases from around the country, some

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Speaker 12: of them under state anti gang laws. Were white supremacist

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Speaker 12: groups and members have been prosecuted, and the lyrics not

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Speaker 12: necessarily of what they created, but just of what they

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Speaker 12: listened to. Was introduced against them, and it's interesting that

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Speaker 12: those cases don't seem to make it into the conversation.

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Speaker 4: Although when we asked which other musical genres had been

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Speaker 4: examined in these cases, what.

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Speaker 12: The particular background was to that type of music, I'd

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Speaker 12: have to go back and check the case law.

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Speaker 4: So, given all the other evidence law enforcement claims to

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Speaker 4: have in the Wiseel indictment, why does the DA's office

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Speaker 4: even bother with lyrics? We asked Fannie Willis herself. We

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Speaker 4: assume that you must have known that the lyrical part

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Speaker 4: of this was going to be a lightning row for criticism.

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Speaker 4: But my question, I guess we should take a step back,

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Speaker 4: like did you know?

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Speaker 13: I guess the better question is did I care? So

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Speaker 13: that's not my job is to care if criticism should come.

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Speaker 13: That's not what the people elected me for. I represent

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Speaker 13: one of the best communities in the United States of America,

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Speaker 13: and I've been telling juries that for years and I

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Speaker 13: mean it. And let me tell you why it's one

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Speaker 13: of the best one. It's one of the most diverse communities.

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Speaker 13: It has every ethnicity. You are allowed to come to

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Speaker 13: this county that I live in, and you are allowed

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Speaker 13: to be of any sexuality. There is opportunity in Atlanta.

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Speaker 13: You know, we're the city of Hope right here that

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Speaker 13: is just not present other places.

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Speaker 4: And let me just talk to you as a black woman.

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Speaker 13: It is the mecca of opportunity, unity right here in Atlanta.

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Speaker 13: That's worth salvaging and saving. And so I am not

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Speaker 13: going to allow people, no matter who they are, to

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Speaker 13: come into this community to not be held responsible and

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Speaker 13: to commit crime.

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Speaker 1: And so if you.

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Speaker 13: Ask me, if I make decisions because someone criticizes me

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Speaker 13: doing everything that I can to keep this community safe,

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Speaker 13: I have to be honest with you, I don't really care.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so the DA isn't worried about the criticism, But

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Speaker 1: what's the actual value in using lyrics in a gang trial?

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Speaker 1: The short answer is it's another tool in the toolbox,

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Speaker 1: and the District Attorney's office will use whatever legal tools

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Speaker 1: it has it its disposal to prosecute gangs. In fact,

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Speaker 1: Assistant District Attorney Chris Berry goes as far as saying,

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Speaker 1: because it's legal, it would be a miscarriage of justice

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Speaker 1: not to use them.

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Speaker 14: Can I look a family member in the eye and

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Speaker 14: say that I did absolutely everything for their loved one?

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Speaker 14: Who is victim of a crime, and I'm not going

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Speaker 14: to go ahead and look the other way on potential

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Speaker 14: party admissions in relation to that crime.

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Speaker 1: Because that office is in Georgia, that toolbox is well equipped.

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Speaker 1: We mentioned before that Michael Carlson helps write the state's

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Speaker 1: current gang law, which he boasts is among the most

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Speaker 1: powerful in the United States, and he says there are

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Speaker 1: three basic criteria in Georgia for admitting lyrics as evidence.

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Speaker 12: First, where the lyric forms the crime itself, and that

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Speaker 12: would be in the case of a threat. Secondly, where

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Speaker 12: the lyric demonstrates proof of an underlying crime where the

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Speaker 12: person is perhaps admitting to doing something. And three where

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Speaker 12: the lyric demonstrates something about the person's state of mind

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Speaker 12: related to the crime.

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Speaker 1: Chuck d of Public Enemy is famously called rep Black

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Speaker 1: America's TV Station. That sentiment has been rephrased several times over,

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Speaker 1: eventually evolving to Black America's CNN. The distinction to be

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Speaker 1: made there is that while rap has this reputation for

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Speaker 1: being autobiographical, the music could also serve as a broader

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Speaker 1: cultural commentary Reportage Willis says that she understands this distinction

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Speaker 1: as well.

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Speaker 13: If you listen to my playlist, it's got rap music.

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Speaker 13: Now I'm old. Now I'll admit it. I'm listening to

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Speaker 13: Drake and jay Z and shoot, I'm still listening to NWA.

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Speaker 13: So I like the classics.

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Speaker 4: I enjoy that music.

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Speaker 13: And I don't want to say that just because someone

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Speaker 13: is making music, even if they're telling stories of their environment,

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Speaker 13: that that is a connection, because we can certainly tell

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Speaker 13: the stories.

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Speaker 1: But she says that she can also distinguish reportage from

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Speaker 1: a true threat.

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Speaker 13: This becomes the problem me and you got beef, and

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Speaker 13: I make a song with the purpose of intimidating you,

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Speaker 13: and then I carry it out.

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Speaker 4: It's fair game. I'm gonna use it.

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Speaker 1: Several people from Atlanta Police and the DA's offices say

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Speaker 1: lyrics are being used as true threats. Atlanta Police detective Kimberly.

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Speaker 11: Underwood, I think if you're bragging in a song about

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Speaker 11: something that really happened, and the police know it really happened,

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Speaker 11: then I think that should be used as evidence that

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Speaker 11: on crime was committed. You're actually bragging about shooting into

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Speaker 11: somebody's personal vehicle that you know that's the type of

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Speaker 11: vehicle that this did person own, and you put this

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Speaker 11: in your lyrics. That's a problem that should be a

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Speaker 11: problem to the family, like just like you rubbing it in.

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Speaker 1: Atlanta Police investigator Marissa Viverrito, who was in the room

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Speaker 1: with little Woody during his interrogation.

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Speaker 4: It's another layer of victimization.

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Speaker 15: Like I've spoken to families where they're just distraught or

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Speaker 15: enraged that the crime committed against their loved one is

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Speaker 15: being used for profit and it's stuff that maybe we

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Speaker 15: didn't catch and the family says to you, oh, have

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Speaker 15: you heard this like this is and it's just like heartbreaking.

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Speaker 15: I couldn't matter if something happened to one of my

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Speaker 15: loved ones, and to hear that over and over and

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Speaker 15: hear somebody bragging about it in such a public form

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Speaker 15: and just so flagrantly.

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Speaker 4: Cara Convrey runs Georgia's new statewide Gang Prosecution Office. She's

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Speaker 4: a former prosecutor in Fulton County who's worked alongside and

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Speaker 4: then under Fannie Willis before moving to the state level.

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Speaker 4: She's familiar with the y cl case, and she says

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Speaker 4: there's yet another layer to the lyrics question.

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Speaker 16: A big part of the gang culture and what is

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Speaker 16: really the currency in that world is this whole concept

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Speaker 16: of respect and disrespect, and of course pride and ego

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Speaker 16: and having the courage to put this out there, like

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Speaker 16: I'm out here doing this. Nobody can touch me to

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Speaker 16: the point where I'm not just talking about it with

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Speaker 16: my friends, like I'm putting it out here nationally, and look,

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Speaker 16: I have success as a result of it, because this

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Speaker 16: is how big I am. This is how untouchable I am.

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Speaker 16: I'm out here literally broadcasting evidence of these crimes and

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Speaker 16: here I am still untouchable. That's going to increase your

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Speaker 16: rank within your organization, and that's going to increase that

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Speaker 16: currency of respect. I mean, that's really everything.

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Speaker 4: Convery believes that the way the gangs communicate with music

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Speaker 4: can lead to further recruitment and retaliation.

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Speaker 16: Recently in Atlanta, sadly, there's been a bunch of young

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Speaker 16: kids that have been the victim of gang violence and

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Speaker 16: have associated themselves. We had a thirteen year old killed

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Speaker 16: at Atlantic Station earlier this year.

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Speaker 17: Atlanta police arrested two teens on election Day and charged

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Speaker 17: them with murder in the shooting that occurred on seventeenth Street,

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Speaker 17: just feet away from a popular Atlantic station.

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Speaker 16: And the response to that on social media, I mean,

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Speaker 16: his body is still out on the street, and people

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Speaker 16: are speaking and singing and putting it out there through

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Speaker 16: any medium they can the disrespect towards that set. Then

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Speaker 16: once you have this disrespect out there, there's a required

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Speaker 16: response from the other side or else all of a sudden,

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Speaker 16: you look like you don't have any respect.

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Speaker 17: Police would not release the juvenile's names or talk about

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Speaker 17: a motive, but they have called the shooting that left

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Speaker 17: two youth dead and four others injured a gang related shooting.

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Speaker 4: In this modern age, that true threat could end up

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Speaker 4: being as lengthy as a fifteen hundred word essay or

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Speaker 4: as brief as a tweet or even a bar or two.

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Speaker 13: To me, one of the worst crimes that has been

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Speaker 13: committed in recent history is that massacred they did at

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Speaker 13: that grocery store where all those senior citizens were there,

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Speaker 13: and it targeted African Americans.

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Speaker 1: She's talking about the twenty twenty two mass shooting at

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Speaker 1: a Buffalo, New York supermarket that killed ten people.

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Speaker 18: Just moments ago, Buffalo police confirmed an eighteen year old

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Speaker 18: man opened fire at a supermarket, killing ten people and

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Speaker 18: wounding three others.

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Speaker 1: Prior to the attack, the shooter uploaded a nineteen page

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Speaker 1: document saying that he targeted black residents to undo what

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Speaker 1: has been called the Great Replacement Theory, which falsely states

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Speaker 1: that white Americans are being systemically replaced through birth, interracial marriage,

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Speaker 1: and violence by non white Americans.

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Speaker 19: The alleged teenage gunman was planning his attack for years,

442
00:25:03,880 --> 00:25:07,560
Speaker 19: his young mind consumed with a racist, anti Semitic, and

443
00:25:07,680 --> 00:25:10,440
Speaker 19: anti immigrant messages he found on the internet.

444
00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:15,679
Speaker 13: So often when we see crimes like that, we see manifestos. Right,

445
00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:18,879
Speaker 13: That's something that we've almost become common to know as manifestos.

446
00:25:19,400 --> 00:25:22,240
Speaker 13: Do you understand that a manifesto is a literary work,

447
00:25:22,760 --> 00:25:26,639
Speaker 13: That's all it is. It's a literary work. It is

448
00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:30,520
Speaker 13: no different than a lyric. Are you making the argument

449
00:25:30,800 --> 00:25:33,600
Speaker 13: that we should not be allowed to use that manifesto

450
00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:37,080
Speaker 13: to confix someone that did that crine? Because that's what

451
00:25:37,119 --> 00:25:39,600
Speaker 13: you're saying, and that's what people are saying, and they

452
00:25:39,600 --> 00:25:41,960
Speaker 13: have not took the time to step back. What I

453
00:25:42,040 --> 00:25:44,800
Speaker 13: tell you is, if you wrote a manifesto and then

454
00:25:44,880 --> 00:25:48,480
Speaker 13: did those acts, that's good evidence. There's no different because

455
00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:49,399
Speaker 13: he put a beat behind it.

456
00:25:58,760 --> 00:26:01,440
Speaker 4: When Dina Lapoultz fo and rings in her Los Angeles

457
00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:05,240
Speaker 4: home late one Saturday night in February twenty nineteen. Her

458
00:26:05,280 --> 00:26:06,600
Speaker 4: heart sinks.

459
00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:09,520
Speaker 20: I knew the minute she was calling me, this was

460
00:26:09,560 --> 00:26:10,800
Speaker 20: not a good call.

461
00:26:11,040 --> 00:26:14,560
Speaker 4: Shay, I've been Abraham Joseph is the rapper twenty one Savage,

462
00:26:15,119 --> 00:26:17,879
Speaker 4: and at the start of twenty nineteen, his career is

463
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:21,320
Speaker 4: hitting new heights. The then twenty six year old scores

464
00:26:21,359 --> 00:26:24,440
Speaker 4: his first number one album and lands a guest spot

465
00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:26,320
Speaker 4: on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

466
00:26:26,119 --> 00:26:29,800
Speaker 3: Performing a Lot from his number one album I Am

467
00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:32,960
Speaker 3: Greater Than I Was giving Up for twenty one Savage.

468
00:26:33,600 --> 00:26:37,400
Speaker 4: In his song a Lot, twenty one Savage's lyrics contemplate

469
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:40,720
Speaker 4: his biggest wins, how many Loyds You've got and losses?

470
00:26:40,840 --> 00:26:42,280
Speaker 7: How many time you got you out of that?

471
00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:45,399
Speaker 4: But on this particular night on the thirty Rock Stage,

472
00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:47,880
Speaker 4: he decides to add a new verse to his top

473
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:50,160
Speaker 4: forty hit, He wraps.

474
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:52,399
Speaker 7: Through some things, but I can imagine my kids stuck

475
00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:54,800
Speaker 7: in the border, then a flat stale, the water thick.

476
00:26:54,840 --> 00:26:56,280
Speaker 7: It was anything Kennedy, Lord is.

477
00:26:56,359 --> 00:26:59,720
Speaker 4: That been through some things, so I can't imagine my

478
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:02,359
Speaker 4: care It stuck at the border, flints still need water.

479
00:27:02,800 --> 00:27:05,960
Speaker 4: People was innocent couldn't get lawyers. It's a nod to

480
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:08,560
Speaker 4: the images that are swirling through the news at the time.

481
00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:13,000
Speaker 19: Hundreds of people who are now facing this zero tolerance policy.

482
00:27:12,720 --> 00:27:15,600
Speaker 4: Migrant's children being separated from their families at the US

483
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:20,080
Speaker 4: border with Mexico during the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration.

484
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:22,000
Speaker 19: And the result of that is, in many cases, many

485
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:23,959
Speaker 19: families have been separated.

486
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:26,639
Speaker 4: The changes to the song are so subtle and so

487
00:27:26,880 --> 00:27:30,480
Speaker 4: brief that many outlets reporting on the performance don't even

488
00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:35,760
Speaker 4: catch it or mention it. But that changes quickly and dramatically.

489
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:40,639
Speaker 20: I literally got tipped off, probably a week after his

490
00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:44,680
Speaker 20: performance that Ice was going to take him.

491
00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:46,719
Speaker 2: I had advanced notice.

492
00:27:46,760 --> 00:27:49,240
Speaker 20: It's like getting noticed that there's going to be an earthquake,

493
00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:51,520
Speaker 20: like amazing.

494
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:54,600
Speaker 4: By this time twenty one, Savage is back in Atlanta

495
00:27:54,680 --> 00:27:57,399
Speaker 4: for a Super Bowl weekend. The city is hosting the

496
00:27:57,480 --> 00:28:00,920
Speaker 4: Big Game and it's new two billion dollars stay and

497
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:03,000
Speaker 4: a music fest and the days leading up to it

498
00:28:03,240 --> 00:28:04,800
Speaker 4: at State Farm Marina the next door.

499
00:28:05,359 --> 00:28:08,640
Speaker 20: I called him and I said, sayan Ice is looking

500
00:28:08,720 --> 00:28:11,680
Speaker 20: to take you. But it was Super Bowl weekend in

501
00:28:11,760 --> 00:28:16,000
Speaker 20: Atlanta that weekend, and he was performing at the Pepsi

502
00:28:16,080 --> 00:28:19,560
Speaker 20: Arena with j Cole and he had press commitments the

503
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:22,880
Speaker 20: next day, the super Bowl, and he really couldn't leave

504
00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:26,040
Speaker 20: because we would have some contractional issues.

505
00:28:26,560 --> 00:28:29,720
Speaker 4: US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has a field office not

506
00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:32,000
Speaker 4: even a mile away from the stadium complex.

507
00:28:32,359 --> 00:28:35,760
Speaker 20: I flew a lawyer down to Atlanta who worked for me,

508
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:38,440
Speaker 20: and I said, you know, stay with Savage. Do not

509
00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:42,480
Speaker 20: leave him until you're ready to get on the plane

510
00:28:42,640 --> 00:28:45,160
Speaker 20: Sunday after the super Bowl. And they were scheduled to

511
00:28:45,280 --> 00:28:47,520
Speaker 20: leave right after the super Bowl on Sunday.

512
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:51,040
Speaker 4: But it isn't exactly hard to track down a headlining

513
00:28:51,160 --> 00:28:53,880
Speaker 4: artist who was part of the city's biggest event in years.

514
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:57,800
Speaker 20: Saturday night at ten o'clock at night my time Pacific,

515
00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:00,800
Speaker 20: because I'm in La, you know, she called me and

516
00:29:00,960 --> 00:29:03,000
Speaker 20: I knew the minute she was calling.

517
00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:04,040
Speaker 7: Me this was not a good call.

518
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:10,280
Speaker 20: And she said ICE had taken him, and thus it

519
00:29:10,520 --> 00:29:13,200
Speaker 20: began us trying to get am out of air.

520
00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:17,920
Speaker 4: On February third, twenty nineteen twenty one, Savage is arrested

521
00:29:18,120 --> 00:29:20,280
Speaker 4: and when ICE calls a targeted operation.

522
00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:22,720
Speaker 7: He is up for two Grammy Awards. But instead of

523
00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:24,520
Speaker 7: preparing for this moment in the spotlight.

524
00:29:24,600 --> 00:29:27,760
Speaker 18: Wrapper twenty one Savage is in custody after he was

525
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:28,560
Speaker 18: detained by ice.

526
00:29:28,840 --> 00:29:30,720
Speaker 4: Here's what the rapper told Good Morning America.

527
00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:33,360
Speaker 7: I was just driving and I just seen guns and

528
00:29:33,680 --> 00:29:35,960
Speaker 7: blue lights, and then I was in the back of

529
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:37,000
Speaker 7: a car and I was gone.

530
00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:38,920
Speaker 18: They felt you're under arrest, so.

531
00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:43,440
Speaker 7: They didn't say nothing. They just said, we got Savage.

532
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:44,920
Speaker 4: They said we got Savage.

533
00:29:45,320 --> 00:29:50,120
Speaker 18: Yeah, sounds like this was potentially something they set out

534
00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:52,160
Speaker 18: to do. This would have been targeted and not just

535
00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:53,360
Speaker 18: a random traffic stop.

536
00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:54,920
Speaker 7: It was definitely targeted.

537
00:29:55,360 --> 00:29:57,880
Speaker 4: Why I set out to do that at this time

538
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:01,040
Speaker 4: was up for debate. A huge part of rap in

539
00:30:01,120 --> 00:30:04,320
Speaker 4: general is about how artists establish and represent where they're from.

540
00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:07,920
Speaker 4: To listen to the music is to learn that NWA

541
00:30:08,160 --> 00:30:11,440
Speaker 4: straight out of Compton, Low Wayne, hails from Holly Grove

542
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:15,040
Speaker 4: in New Orleans, and that outcas origin story begins at

543
00:30:15,040 --> 00:30:18,160
Speaker 4: the southwest Atlanta intersection of Headland and the Low.

544
00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:21,760
Speaker 1: Twenty one Savages music and origin story had been firmly

545
00:30:21,840 --> 00:30:25,640
Speaker 1: rooted in Atlanta's de Caab County, just east of Fulton.

546
00:30:26,120 --> 00:30:28,880
Speaker 1: In the twenty sixteen song No Heart, his first song

547
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:31,480
Speaker 1: to be certified platinum, he remembers getting caught with a

548
00:30:31,520 --> 00:30:34,600
Speaker 1: pistol as a student at Stone Mountain Middle School. Yet

549
00:30:34,680 --> 00:30:37,920
Speaker 1: Ice suspected that twenty one Savage was a UK national

550
00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:41,000
Speaker 1: who entered the United States legally in two thousand and

551
00:30:41,080 --> 00:30:43,400
Speaker 1: five when he was twelve years old, old enough to

552
00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:46,239
Speaker 1: attend to middle school, and over state his visa when

553
00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:47,520
Speaker 1: it expired a year later.

554
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:50,200
Speaker 18: Many fans were stunned to learn the rapper was born

555
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:52,520
Speaker 18: in Britain but lived in Atlanta, and.

556
00:30:52,600 --> 00:30:56,240
Speaker 4: ICE spokesman told CNN that quote his whole public persona

557
00:30:56,400 --> 00:30:59,640
Speaker 4: is false. Twenty one Savage is held in confinement at

558
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:01,920
Speaker 4: a South Georgia immigration detention facility.

559
00:31:02,440 --> 00:31:06,360
Speaker 20: Also, it's important to note to Christina that the Grammys

560
00:31:06,440 --> 00:31:07,720
Speaker 20: were the following weekend.

561
00:31:08,040 --> 00:31:10,480
Speaker 7: My Goodness and MC grammy goes too.

562
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:13,960
Speaker 4: He misses the schedule performance at the award show, where

563
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:16,760
Speaker 4: the song he appears on with Childish Gambino and Young

564
00:31:16,840 --> 00:31:18,520
Speaker 4: Thug wins Record of the Year.

565
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:20,040
Speaker 7: This is America.

566
00:31:20,320 --> 00:31:22,320
Speaker 20: Childish Gambino.

567
00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:26,440
Speaker 4: Donald Glover skips the ceremony, but the song's co producer

568
00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:28,520
Speaker 4: make sure to note twenty one's absence.

569
00:31:29,480 --> 00:31:31,400
Speaker 10: We want to thank all the rappers that are featured

570
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:33,240
Speaker 10: on his song twenty one Savage, it should be here

571
00:31:33,240 --> 00:31:34,840
Speaker 10: tonight young Thug.

572
00:31:35,720 --> 00:31:39,120
Speaker 4: Twenty one Savage would confirm his immigration status, though he

573
00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:41,240
Speaker 4: says he wasn't twelve when he entered the country.

574
00:31:41,520 --> 00:31:43,040
Speaker 7: I was seven when I first came here.

575
00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:45,400
Speaker 21: I knew I wasn't born here, but I didn't know

576
00:31:46,320 --> 00:31:49,200
Speaker 21: what that meant as far as when I transition into adult,

577
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 21: how it was going to affect my life.

578
00:31:51,800 --> 00:31:54,560
Speaker 4: That qualifies him as one of three and a half

579
00:31:54,680 --> 00:31:58,440
Speaker 4: million Dreamers living in the States at the time. Lapoulte

580
00:31:58,480 --> 00:32:00,880
Speaker 4: says that Ice has held his sup on twenty one

581
00:32:00,960 --> 00:32:04,880
Speaker 4: Savage for years, yet she thinks that twenty one Savage

582
00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:08,840
Speaker 4: was arrested when he was arrested because of that Tonight

583
00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:13,920
Speaker 4: Show performance. How did y'all know that lyrics were the

584
00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:16,280
Speaker 4: reason that he was being targeted by Ice?

585
00:32:16,800 --> 00:32:17,880
Speaker 11: I did not know that.

586
00:32:18,600 --> 00:32:24,000
Speaker 20: However, it's because that happened. Everything is about connection, right,

587
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:29,560
Speaker 20: so it just was somebody was connected to that.

588
00:32:30,600 --> 00:32:33,240
Speaker 4: Drawing that connection from his Tonight Show performance to his

589
00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:36,720
Speaker 4: arrest may seem like a stretch to some At the time,

590
00:32:37,240 --> 00:32:39,200
Speaker 4: twenty one Savage would have actually agreed with you.

591
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:41,360
Speaker 18: You have a line in there where you say went

592
00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 18: through some things, but I couldn't imagine my kids stuck

593
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:43,920
Speaker 18: at the border.

594
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:44,360
Speaker 7: Right?

595
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:47,120
Speaker 18: Do you feel like you were targeted as a result

596
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:50,760
Speaker 18: of that basically being critical of the immigration system.

597
00:32:50,520 --> 00:32:55,240
Speaker 7: Here, my lawyers think that, what do you think? I

598
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:55,920
Speaker 7: don't really know.

599
00:32:56,120 --> 00:32:58,760
Speaker 21: I can't really say. I think he's I will see

600
00:32:58,800 --> 00:33:01,320
Speaker 21: why people would think that, but I really can't say.

601
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:04,960
Speaker 1: What we can say is that in Georgia, twenty one

602
00:33:05,040 --> 00:33:09,000
Speaker 1: Savage's arrest sparked a much broader conversation, starting with a

603
00:33:09,040 --> 00:33:12,520
Speaker 1: phone call that Lapoult made right away to Hank Johnson.

604
00:33:12,840 --> 00:33:17,440
Speaker 9: Greetings everyone, I'm Congressman Hank Johnson, representing Georgia's fourth congressional

605
00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:20,440
Speaker 9: district for the last This is my seventeenth year.

606
00:33:20,760 --> 00:33:24,600
Speaker 1: A former lawyer and judge turned nine time Georgia Democratic

607
00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:29,080
Speaker 1: representative from twenty one's congressional district. Lapault asks the congressman

608
00:33:29,120 --> 00:33:31,080
Speaker 1: if you can help twenty one Savage out of jail.

609
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:34,680
Speaker 9: He was released on bund after being held at the

610
00:33:34,760 --> 00:33:38,800
Speaker 9: Irwin County Detention Facility in South Georgia.

611
00:33:39,280 --> 00:33:42,160
Speaker 7: For a few days. Before he was released, She.

612
00:33:42,280 --> 00:33:45,480
Speaker 1: Also asks him to consider the larger issues at hand.

613
00:33:45,760 --> 00:33:49,160
Speaker 9: That was thought to have been a targeting of twenty

614
00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:54,800
Speaker 9: one Savage based on his lyrics, and thus began discussions

615
00:33:55,040 --> 00:34:01,400
Speaker 9: about the need for federal legislation to protect artists for

616
00:34:01,560 --> 00:34:05,400
Speaker 9: their creative content being used against them inappropriately.

617
00:34:05,760 --> 00:34:09,440
Speaker 1: What has since become called the RAP Act. The Restoring

618
00:34:09,600 --> 00:34:13,399
Speaker 1: Artistic Protections Act reflects a larger debate within the justice

619
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:16,640
Speaker 1: system over bry lyrics should or shouldn't be presented as

620
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:21,279
Speaker 1: evidence in criminal cases, and in Georgia, as twenty one

621
00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:25,160
Speaker 1: Savages frequent collaborator Young Thug gets taken to trial on

622
00:34:25,280 --> 00:34:28,680
Speaker 1: the basis of his own lyrics, that debate has gotten

623
00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:32,200
Speaker 1: louder between those at the District Attorney's office.

624
00:34:32,680 --> 00:34:35,760
Speaker 12: There are several statutes out there that have been proposed

625
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:37,640
Speaker 12: around the country that say, well, we want to carve

626
00:34:37,719 --> 00:34:42,400
Speaker 12: out a special rule to exclude this sort of evidence. Well,

627
00:34:42,440 --> 00:34:45,440
Speaker 12: if a special rule is needed to exclude a certain

628
00:34:45,520 --> 00:34:48,880
Speaker 12: type of evidence, well isn't that an admission in ways

629
00:34:49,200 --> 00:34:51,520
Speaker 12: that the current structure allows it in?

630
00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:55,080
Speaker 1: And those who are pushing back against such historic precedents

631
00:34:55,280 --> 00:34:56,320
Speaker 1: on Capitol Hill.

632
00:34:56,560 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 22: Look, there has been a very strategic, deliberate plan on

633
00:35:02,800 --> 00:35:08,160
Speaker 22: how young black men, young Black America is portrayed in

634
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:15,080
Speaker 22: mass media. That narrative of criminals guilt before innocence. There

635
00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:18,800
Speaker 22: has been something that, through mass media, has been a

636
00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:22,200
Speaker 22: jacket that Black America has worn for a very long time.

637
00:35:22,239 --> 00:35:22,880
Speaker 1: In this country.

638
00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:27,360
Speaker 4: Willie Stiggers, an artist manager better known as Prophet, spend

639
00:35:27,400 --> 00:35:30,920
Speaker 4: childhood summers with his father in Scottsdale, Georgia. He has

640
00:35:30,960 --> 00:35:34,080
Speaker 4: since lived in Atlanta for eighteen years. But he's from

641
00:35:34,120 --> 00:35:36,759
Speaker 4: the South Bronx, where the birth of hip hop became

642
00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:40,759
Speaker 4: a necessary outlet to diffuse gain violence. You can tell

643
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:43,680
Speaker 4: that Prophet is from the South Bronx not just from

644
00:35:43,719 --> 00:35:46,760
Speaker 4: his voice, but from his ability to trace the lineage

645
00:35:46,800 --> 00:35:49,880
Speaker 4: of a single rap lyric from Biggie Small's and Bedstye

646
00:35:50,280 --> 00:35:52,520
Speaker 4: to Ti and Bankhead jay Z.

647
00:35:53,400 --> 00:35:55,880
Speaker 22: He say, when I said big verse, I'm only bigging

648
00:35:55,960 --> 00:35:58,160
Speaker 22: up my brother. I'm big enough to do it. I'm

649
00:35:58,200 --> 00:36:00,440
Speaker 22: at tholl plus, I know my whole flow is foolish.

650
00:36:00,480 --> 00:36:02,799
Speaker 22: On them rings and things you sing about, bring them out.

651
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:05,319
Speaker 22: It's hard to yell when the barrels in your mouth.

652
00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:05,880
Speaker 5: Right.

653
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:08,719
Speaker 22: That was a Biggie lyric that jay Z then incorporated

654
00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:12,719
Speaker 22: too his song. Then Swiss Beats takes that sample of

655
00:36:12,880 --> 00:36:16,280
Speaker 22: Jay's voice and incorporate that into a beat that becomes

656
00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:19,040
Speaker 22: the hook with one of TI's biggest records. Bring them out,

657
00:36:19,120 --> 00:36:21,760
Speaker 22: Bring them out. It's hard to yell when the barrels

658
00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:26,520
Speaker 22: in your mouth. So who's going to jail for the

659
00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:27,719
Speaker 22: battle of someone's mouth?

660
00:36:27,840 --> 00:36:28,000
Speaker 7: Is it?

661
00:36:28,560 --> 00:36:28,840
Speaker 1: Ti?

662
00:36:29,280 --> 00:36:29,440
Speaker 4: Is it?

663
00:36:29,719 --> 00:36:29,840
Speaker 5: Is it?

664
00:36:29,960 --> 00:36:30,360
Speaker 7: Biggie?

665
00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:30,719
Speaker 5: Is it?

666
00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:31,160
Speaker 1: Jay Z.

667
00:36:31,880 --> 00:36:34,160
Speaker 4: Prophet has also been an advocate for hip hop since

668
00:36:34,200 --> 00:36:37,720
Speaker 4: he was a teenager. In nineteen ninety three, when Reverin

669
00:36:37,800 --> 00:36:40,400
Speaker 4: Calvin Butts the Third was trying to steamroll CDs and

670
00:36:40,480 --> 00:36:43,520
Speaker 4: cassettes in front of his church in Harlem, pushing back

671
00:36:43,560 --> 00:36:45,880
Speaker 4: against rap's explicit content we will not.

672
00:36:46,080 --> 00:36:50,080
Speaker 1: Stand for the viral, ugly long rhyme.

673
00:36:50,239 --> 00:36:55,719
Speaker 4: A Prophet who was an aspiring artist himself stood up

674
00:36:55,760 --> 00:36:56,960
Speaker 4: to the steamroller to stop it.

675
00:36:57,320 --> 00:36:59,960
Speaker 22: I remember telling Reverend Buts, you know these are your

676
00:37:00,160 --> 00:37:05,319
Speaker 22: sons and daughters, your nephews and nieces that you're steamrolling here.

677
00:37:05,400 --> 00:37:06,320
Speaker 22: These are their dreams.

678
00:37:06,360 --> 00:37:09,239
Speaker 4: What are you doing today? The artist manager is still

679
00:37:09,360 --> 00:37:13,400
Speaker 4: asking hard questions. Prophet is also co founder and co

680
00:37:13,600 --> 00:37:16,839
Speaker 4: chair of the Black Music Action Coalition or b MAC,

681
00:37:17,360 --> 00:37:19,840
Speaker 4: which advocates for racial justice issues in music.

682
00:37:20,239 --> 00:37:23,839
Speaker 22: It came our attention about over five hundred cases where

683
00:37:24,040 --> 00:37:29,160
Speaker 22: black men were being prosecuted for lyrics, so that prompted

684
00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:34,319
Speaker 22: b mac one hour executive board members Diana La Poe

685
00:37:34,600 --> 00:37:37,480
Speaker 22: to write an op ed, and that op ed.

686
00:37:37,520 --> 00:37:41,040
Speaker 1: Went Why that op ed was for Variety Magazine. On

687
00:37:41,160 --> 00:37:45,480
Speaker 1: a judicial opinion found in December twenty twenty, Maryland's Court

688
00:37:45,520 --> 00:37:49,359
Speaker 1: of Appeals have just upheld rap lyrics as quote substantive

689
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:52,759
Speaker 1: evidence of a defendant's guilt when the lyrics bear a

690
00:37:52,920 --> 00:37:56,560
Speaker 1: close nexus to the details of an alleged crime. And

691
00:37:56,640 --> 00:37:59,439
Speaker 1: the basis of this opinion was Lawrence Montague versus State

692
00:37:59,480 --> 00:37:59,960
Speaker 1: of Maryland.

693
00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:02,640
Speaker 2: Lawrence Montacue is wanted an Annapolis plase.

694
00:38:02,800 --> 00:38:07,320
Speaker 5: Montague shot and killed George Foster last week on Newtown Drive.

695
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:09,960
Speaker 1: A two thousand dollars reward is being offered for information

696
00:38:10,120 --> 00:38:13,160
Speaker 1: leading to his arrest. Lawrence Montague had been indicted for

697
00:38:13,239 --> 00:38:16,000
Speaker 1: the twenty seventeen shooting death of George Forrester in a

698
00:38:16,080 --> 00:38:19,960
Speaker 1: botched drug deal. During his trial, a jail house recording

699
00:38:20,040 --> 00:38:23,399
Speaker 1: of Montague rapping a verse including the words I'll give

700
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:27,400
Speaker 1: you a dream a couple shots snitch, became grounds for

701
00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:31,160
Speaker 1: sentencing him to a combined fifty years in prison. Lapolte

702
00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:35,560
Speaker 1: wrote that the Maryland decision set a dangerous president, but

703
00:38:35,640 --> 00:38:39,759
Speaker 1: the responses she received suggested that there were antecedent events too.

704
00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:46,280
Speaker 20: Everybody contacted me, I mean, oh my god, Ben Crump, Okay,

705
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:51,480
Speaker 20: the renown seed rights attorney, college professors that had been

706
00:38:51,600 --> 00:38:55,040
Speaker 20: working on this issue for years and years and years,

707
00:38:55,800 --> 00:38:58,200
Speaker 20: defense attorneys from all over the country.

708
00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:01,200
Speaker 4: B Mack brought these people together to craft legislation that

709
00:39:01,239 --> 00:39:05,920
Speaker 4: would rein in this problem. Profit remembers how researchers identified

710
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:09,680
Speaker 4: over five hundred cases, and he remembers reading some of

711
00:39:09,719 --> 00:39:12,120
Speaker 4: these cases himself, thinking this.

712
00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:12,880
Speaker 1: Is fucked up.

713
00:39:13,239 --> 00:39:15,959
Speaker 22: As I began to read some of these cases where

714
00:39:16,920 --> 00:39:20,160
Speaker 22: you know, in one instance, the judge allowed lyrics to

715
00:39:20,239 --> 00:39:23,399
Speaker 22: be read in the courtroom and it wasn't even from

716
00:39:23,480 --> 00:39:27,239
Speaker 22: the person that was being prosecuted, and it was to

717
00:39:27,320 --> 00:39:30,959
Speaker 22: paint and illustrate a narrative. And some of these guys

718
00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:33,600
Speaker 22: had like two hundred views, so they wasn't even like artists,

719
00:39:33,760 --> 00:39:36,960
Speaker 22: for no disrespect, everyone's an artists at heart, but like

720
00:39:37,080 --> 00:39:40,160
Speaker 22: to categorize it like rap artists. And some of these guys,

721
00:39:40,320 --> 00:39:44,120
Speaker 22: you know, emerging to say the best and there was

722
00:39:44,280 --> 00:39:46,879
Speaker 22: no other physical evidence, and I'm like, what whoa WHOA?

723
00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:48,120
Speaker 1: WHOA, WHOA, what are we doing here?

724
00:39:48,520 --> 00:39:50,840
Speaker 4: In twenty twenty two, the New York Senate passed the

725
00:39:50,920 --> 00:39:52,879
Speaker 4: Rap Music on trialbilm.

726
00:39:52,680 --> 00:39:56,080
Speaker 18: Jay Z, one of several artists teaming up to block

727
00:39:56,360 --> 00:39:58,520
Speaker 18: rap lyrics from being used in court.

728
00:39:58,840 --> 00:40:01,279
Speaker 4: That's the act or Artists like ja Z, Meek Mill,

729
00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:04,319
Speaker 4: and Killer Mike signed a letter of support. That same year,

730
00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:09,080
Speaker 4: Governor Gavin Newsom signed the Decriminalizing Artistic Expression Act into

731
00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:10,000
Speaker 4: California law.

732
00:40:10,200 --> 00:40:13,520
Speaker 1: Bill this band's prosecutors from using an artist's lyrics and

733
00:40:13,640 --> 00:40:16,399
Speaker 1: music videos against them in court unless they can prove

734
00:40:16,560 --> 00:40:18,760
Speaker 1: it directly is relevant.

735
00:40:18,360 --> 00:40:20,400
Speaker 4: To the case, but the working group realized that it

736
00:40:20,560 --> 00:40:24,080
Speaker 4: help set a federal precedent. Lapoult suggested that Congressman Hank

737
00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:27,640
Speaker 4: Johnson introduce that president back when twenty one Savage was arrested,

738
00:40:28,120 --> 00:40:28,680
Speaker 4: and to.

739
00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:31,680
Speaker 9: Be quite frank with you, I took a while to

740
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:37,520
Speaker 9: really think and ponder about the legal implications of her request,

741
00:40:38,160 --> 00:40:41,200
Speaker 9: and I didn't act until probably a year later.

742
00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:45,040
Speaker 1: But once he did start drafting that legislation, it felt

743
00:40:45,160 --> 00:40:47,040
Speaker 1: like a good fit for him and his legacy as

744
00:40:47,040 --> 00:40:47,719
Speaker 1: a politician.

745
00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:51,120
Speaker 9: As I get older, I get more conservative, and I

746
00:40:51,239 --> 00:40:55,000
Speaker 9: have to fight that sometimes It takes me a little

747
00:40:55,040 --> 00:40:59,120
Speaker 9: while to get over the urge to be safe, the

748
00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:04,040
Speaker 9: urge to the law in order, urge to be traditional,

749
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:08,759
Speaker 9: the urge to not push the envelope.

750
00:41:08,920 --> 00:41:11,240
Speaker 1: And so, in July twenty twenty two, in an effort

751
00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:15,560
Speaker 1: to continue pushing that envelope, Hank Johnson introduced the Wrap

752
00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:18,800
Speaker 1: Act to Congress, and in April twenty twenty three, he

753
00:41:19,040 --> 00:41:20,879
Speaker 1: reintroduced the Wrap Act.

754
00:41:21,120 --> 00:41:25,320
Speaker 23: This legislation is a common sense measure that is long overdue.

755
00:41:26,200 --> 00:41:30,720
Speaker 23: For too long, artists have been unfairly targeted by prosecutors

756
00:41:30,719 --> 00:41:34,799
Speaker 23: who use their lyrics as evidence of guilt, even though

757
00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:38,560
Speaker 23: there's no evidence that the lyrics are anything more than

758
00:41:38,760 --> 00:41:40,360
Speaker 23: just simply creative expression.

759
00:41:40,560 --> 00:41:43,200
Speaker 1: Well, this time, he's backed by about two dozen supporters

760
00:41:43,239 --> 00:41:46,560
Speaker 1: in front of the Capitol Building, including three hundred Entertainment

761
00:41:46,680 --> 00:41:51,400
Speaker 1: CEO Kevin Lyles and wearing sunglasses and a magic Navy tracksuit,

762
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:55,719
Speaker 1: profit a frontline advocate, just as he was in New York.

763
00:41:56,200 --> 00:41:59,480
Speaker 22: My argument, then, is the argument now that when I

764
00:41:59,600 --> 00:42:02,799
Speaker 22: listen to certain rap music through I like everything I hear,

765
00:42:03,080 --> 00:42:08,759
Speaker 22: absolutely not. But what I hate is the reality that

766
00:42:08,880 --> 00:42:12,560
Speaker 22: a lot of that music is representing. So I need

767
00:42:12,640 --> 00:42:16,120
Speaker 22: to address those I need to address policies to address

768
00:42:16,560 --> 00:42:21,120
Speaker 22: povity that leads to criminal behavior. I need to address

769
00:42:21,200 --> 00:42:23,920
Speaker 22: policy that leads to the lack of education, the lack

770
00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:27,600
Speaker 22: of healthcare, the lack of housing, the lack of opportunity

771
00:42:27,600 --> 00:42:32,399
Speaker 22: and access that creates these pathways for destruction that many

772
00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:35,760
Speaker 22: young black folk have to walk down. So you change

773
00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:39,160
Speaker 22: those conditions, then you change lyrics. So for me, I

774
00:42:39,239 --> 00:42:42,200
Speaker 22: can't stop at telling an artist change the lyrics, change

775
00:42:42,239 --> 00:42:43,239
Speaker 22: what you see when the.

776
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:45,040
Speaker 1: Reality is that that shit is real.

777
00:42:46,960 --> 00:42:51,560
Speaker 22: It's happening, like kids are not even kids are getting shot,

778
00:42:51,719 --> 00:42:54,760
Speaker 22: like these things are happening, women are being these values.

779
00:42:54,800 --> 00:42:56,719
Speaker 22: We are living in a society in which these things

780
00:42:56,800 --> 00:43:00,680
Speaker 22: are in fact happening. Yes, these are reflections society. It

781
00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:04,840
Speaker 22: grew out of his social injustice of being disenfranchised.

782
00:43:05,120 --> 00:43:21,840
Speaker 1: It is where the culture came from. We should be

783
00:43:21,920 --> 00:43:24,719
Speaker 1: clear that the Rap Act would not repeat, would not

784
00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:27,840
Speaker 1: bar the use of lyrics hypothetically of any genre in

785
00:43:27,960 --> 00:43:31,799
Speaker 1: core cases outright. Neither would California's new law, or even

786
00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:34,680
Speaker 1: the new law in Louisiana, which happens to be mac Phipps'

787
00:43:34,760 --> 00:43:38,040
Speaker 1: home state and the second in the country to enact

788
00:43:38,160 --> 00:43:42,480
Speaker 1: limitations we checked. The list of exception to the RAP

789
00:43:42,560 --> 00:43:45,719
Speaker 1: Act's rule is if a lyric is literal and can

790
00:43:45,800 --> 00:43:49,600
Speaker 1: be explicitly connected to a crime, then yes, it can

791
00:43:49,719 --> 00:43:51,520
Speaker 1: be introduced as evidence to a jury.

792
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:56,680
Speaker 20: Does the expression specifically refer to the alleged crime that

793
00:43:56,960 --> 00:44:01,520
Speaker 20: was a factor? Was the expression specifically refers to the

794
00:44:01,640 --> 00:44:03,719
Speaker 20: relevant facts that are in dispute?

795
00:44:04,360 --> 00:44:04,520
Speaker 4: You know?

796
00:44:04,800 --> 00:44:10,400
Speaker 20: Another element is the expression the only evidence available to

797
00:44:10,560 --> 00:44:11,840
Speaker 20: demonstrate facts.

798
00:44:12,120 --> 00:44:15,359
Speaker 4: The RAP Act would require a private hearing between prosecutors

799
00:44:15,480 --> 00:44:18,560
Speaker 4: and defense attorneys where a judge would make the final

800
00:44:18,640 --> 00:44:21,800
Speaker 4: call and whether those lyrics are indeed relevant to the case,

801
00:44:22,719 --> 00:44:26,000
Speaker 4: or whether those lyrics are quote creative and artistic expression

802
00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:30,640
Speaker 4: and therefore barred from being presented as evidence. Lyrics that

803
00:44:30,760 --> 00:44:34,480
Speaker 4: simply speak to a criminal mindset Georgia's third and final

804
00:44:34,520 --> 00:44:37,439
Speaker 4: criteria for its use in cases. Would it make the cut?

805
00:44:37,920 --> 00:44:39,360
Speaker 4: Here's Congressman Hank Johnson.

806
00:44:39,680 --> 00:44:43,040
Speaker 9: You just can't bring it in to show just a

807
00:44:43,239 --> 00:44:47,240
Speaker 9: general state of mind. A prosecutor would have to show

808
00:44:48,200 --> 00:44:52,400
Speaker 9: that the creative content is relevant and related to the

809
00:44:52,520 --> 00:44:59,600
Speaker 9: specific facts which the accused is charged with. And so

810
00:44:59,760 --> 00:45:03,960
Speaker 9: that way you don't just get rap lyrics or creative

811
00:45:04,040 --> 00:45:09,440
Speaker 9: content introduced into evidence against an artist, just to show

812
00:45:09,560 --> 00:45:15,120
Speaker 9: the bent of mind or the motive of a rapper

813
00:45:15,920 --> 00:45:17,120
Speaker 9: or of a defendant.

814
00:45:17,400 --> 00:45:20,480
Speaker 4: To be even more specific, we ask Congressman Johnson how

815
00:45:20,600 --> 00:45:24,000
Speaker 4: a judge would respond if a prosecutor presented a rap

816
00:45:24,120 --> 00:45:27,440
Speaker 4: lyric as a manifesto. In the words of Fannie Willis.

817
00:45:27,320 --> 00:45:30,680
Speaker 9: Well, it depends on the circumstances. You would have to

818
00:45:30,800 --> 00:45:37,120
Speaker 9: show to the judge certain prerequisites before introducing it as evidence.

819
00:45:37,760 --> 00:45:40,719
Speaker 9: And that's what the rap Act seeks to do, is

820
00:45:40,880 --> 00:45:47,279
Speaker 9: to put in some guardrails whenever a prosecutor seeks to

821
00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:54,879
Speaker 9: introduce creative content into evidence against a rapper. Now a manifesto,

822
00:45:55,040 --> 00:46:01,360
Speaker 9: Let's say Ted Kaczynski wrote a manifesto on uh, you know,

823
00:46:01,760 --> 00:46:09,120
Speaker 9: industrial industrialization and its impact on social behavior and and

824
00:46:09,560 --> 00:46:14,880
Speaker 9: you know and humanity. Uh, that's one thing I wouldn't

825
00:46:14,920 --> 00:46:22,320
Speaker 9: call that scholarly manifesto creative content, so that that's like

826
00:46:22,520 --> 00:46:25,680
Speaker 9: mixing apples and oranges.

827
00:46:26,200 --> 00:46:29,880
Speaker 4: Because those guardrails do not exist in Georgia law. Lyrics

828
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:34,000
Speaker 4: are already impacting the YSL trial. That starts with how

829
00:46:34,080 --> 00:46:36,680
Speaker 4: the trial as a whole is being covered. We have

830
00:46:36,800 --> 00:46:39,719
Speaker 4: profit to think for this moment of self awareness, like

831
00:46:39,920 --> 00:46:40,600
Speaker 4: I think there's been a.

832
00:46:40,640 --> 00:46:44,279
Speaker 22: Lot of focus on lyrics and and and and why

833
00:46:44,640 --> 00:46:47,200
Speaker 22: and this is my thing, even how al the media

834
00:46:47,280 --> 00:46:51,920
Speaker 22: address it. You know, Young Thug on trial. Jeffrey Williams

835
00:46:52,000 --> 00:46:58,320
Speaker 22: is on trial, so your Kitchens was on trial. Okay,

836
00:46:58,560 --> 00:47:01,480
Speaker 22: but but this this the narrative from the day one

837
00:47:01,719 --> 00:47:05,320
Speaker 22: was pushing his rap rap because you was trying to

838
00:47:05,400 --> 00:47:06,640
Speaker 22: demonize the culture.

839
00:47:07,440 --> 00:47:07,760
Speaker 1: Okay.

840
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:12,480
Speaker 22: Young Thug, as great as he is, do not represent

841
00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:14,480
Speaker 22: the totality of hip hop or rappers.

842
00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:20,800
Speaker 1: But that's what you do when you put that forth.

843
00:47:24,320 --> 00:47:30,160
Speaker 5: Judge, he is dangerous. I normally don't do this, but

844
00:47:30,280 --> 00:47:34,800
Speaker 5: I don't hesitate in this case. I implore you not

845
00:47:35,080 --> 00:47:38,120
Speaker 5: to fret him a bond. Respectfully, Judge, I believe if

846
00:47:38,120 --> 00:47:40,239
Speaker 5: you give him a bond, we're going to have more

847
00:47:40,320 --> 00:47:42,120
Speaker 5: witnesses in danger or going to be missing.

848
00:47:42,280 --> 00:47:44,759
Speaker 2: I believe he's that dangerous. Judge, thank you.

849
00:47:46,880 --> 00:47:49,200
Speaker 1: At the end of that ten hour hearing on June second,

850
00:47:49,239 --> 00:47:53,360
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, Judge Hero Glanville denies Young Thug bond.

851
00:47:54,000 --> 00:47:56,239
Speaker 1: He cites evidence presented to the court that said Young

852
00:47:56,320 --> 00:47:58,879
Speaker 1: Thug was the leader of a gang and a danger

853
00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:02,120
Speaker 1: to gang members and their fan families. It's impossible to

854
00:48:02,280 --> 00:48:06,200
Speaker 1: know how Lyrics impacted his decision that time or the

855
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:14,319
Speaker 1: three other times Young Thug was denied bond. Prosecutors say

856
00:48:14,400 --> 00:48:17,440
Speaker 1: that they have volumes of evidence to prove that YSL

857
00:48:17,480 --> 00:48:20,480
Speaker 1: has been operating as a criminal street gang. They've told

858
00:48:20,560 --> 00:48:24,840
Speaker 1: us that their case does not rely entirely upon Lyrics. Instead,

859
00:48:25,080 --> 00:48:30,880
Speaker 1: they have recorded jailhouse phone calls, witnesses, phone company recordspinging

860
00:48:30,920 --> 00:48:33,440
Speaker 1: from cell phone towers that place some of the defendants

861
00:48:33,560 --> 00:48:37,480
Speaker 1: phones at the time and place of murders, police bodycam

862
00:48:37,560 --> 00:48:42,040
Speaker 1: footage from the scenes of arrests. But those volumes of evidence,

863
00:48:42,400 --> 00:48:45,200
Speaker 1: the most substantive proof that YSL Lyrics were in fact

864
00:48:45,360 --> 00:48:48,960
Speaker 1: true threats, won't be presented until the trial officially begins,

865
00:48:49,480 --> 00:48:53,240
Speaker 1: which leaves tax paying citizens like you, me and profit

866
00:48:54,000 --> 00:48:56,960
Speaker 1: to sit with ideas about how Young Thug's reputation as

867
00:48:56,960 --> 00:49:00,719
Speaker 1: a rap artist should precede him during how the rest

868
00:49:00,760 --> 00:49:02,560
Speaker 1: of the YSL case will that up. I mean, I

869
00:49:02,560 --> 00:49:04,359
Speaker 1: haven't seen physical evidence, because they're not going to show

870
00:49:04,360 --> 00:49:07,240
Speaker 1: anybody physical evidence untill they do. Thing Like, my understanding

871
00:49:07,320 --> 00:49:08,440
Speaker 1: is that they've got a lot of evidence.

872
00:49:09,360 --> 00:49:12,920
Speaker 22: Do see a lot of evidence? I mean, okay, let's

873
00:49:12,920 --> 00:49:14,800
Speaker 22: see let's get this, Let's get the party started.

874
00:49:14,960 --> 00:49:17,080
Speaker 1: Leave the coach out of it. If you got if

875
00:49:17,120 --> 00:49:19,120
Speaker 1: you have all of this evidence.

876
00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:22,320
Speaker 22: Leave rap out of it. Great, you shall have a

877
00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:24,560
Speaker 22: slam dunk. Here we are two years later. You're gonna

878
00:49:24,600 --> 00:49:26,160
Speaker 22: let half the people out of jail. You talking about

879
00:49:26,160 --> 00:49:28,080
Speaker 22: you got wow avidence. Come on, knock it off. I'm sorry,

880
00:49:28,239 --> 00:49:28,760
Speaker 22: I'm sorry.

881
00:49:30,080 --> 00:49:31,840
Speaker 4: We don't know when we'll be able to see that

882
00:49:31,880 --> 00:49:35,040
Speaker 4: physical evidence for ourselves, but one thing we do know

883
00:49:35,400 --> 00:49:38,200
Speaker 4: is that every single perspective juror in this trial sits

884
00:49:38,239 --> 00:49:41,000
Speaker 4: through a full reading of the YSL indictment read by

885
00:49:41,080 --> 00:49:42,200
Speaker 4: Judge UROL. Clanville.

886
00:49:42,640 --> 00:49:44,839
Speaker 1: Hey, this is that slim shit.

887
00:49:45,000 --> 00:49:51,000
Speaker 22: Hey, YSL shit, Hey killing twelve shit, Hey fuck I

888
00:49:51,239 --> 00:49:51,919
Speaker 22: jail shit?

889
00:49:52,160 --> 00:49:56,320
Speaker 4: Hey, an indictment that features lyrics from twelve songs. A

890
00:49:56,440 --> 00:50:00,360
Speaker 4: rapper who is famous for his nearly indecipherable style suddenly

891
00:50:00,440 --> 00:50:02,400
Speaker 4: critiqued for every unclear syllable.

892
00:50:02,960 --> 00:50:06,720
Speaker 22: Hey, I'm gonna put a whole slime of one hundred

893
00:50:06,800 --> 00:50:09,560
Speaker 22: lips slime or get slime.

894
00:50:11,000 --> 00:50:13,000
Speaker 4: But young thug doesn't even wrap some of the lyrics

895
00:50:13,040 --> 00:50:13,879
Speaker 4: attributed to him.

896
00:50:14,080 --> 00:50:15,680
Speaker 2: Mister Williams got into a.

897
00:50:17,200 --> 00:50:17,480
Speaker 1: Beef.

898
00:50:17,640 --> 00:50:20,279
Speaker 5: If you will with another rapper by the name of

899
00:50:20,520 --> 00:50:24,680
Speaker 5: Raysheawn Bennett, also known as Wyth and Lucci. At some

900
00:50:24,960 --> 00:50:29,520
Speaker 5: point Lucci's mother was shot at and the song comes

901
00:50:29,560 --> 00:50:32,640
Speaker 5: out with bad Boy that says, Uh, you.

902
00:50:32,719 --> 00:50:36,120
Speaker 2: Better watch the way you breathe around me for that

903
00:50:36,360 --> 00:50:37,400
Speaker 2: breath be your last.

904
00:50:37,520 --> 00:50:43,840
Speaker 4: Boy that's wrapped by the late Chicago wrapper Juice World.

905
00:50:44,440 --> 00:50:46,920
Speaker 2: So is this one Smith and Wesson forty five put

906
00:50:46,960 --> 00:50:49,800
Speaker 2: a hole in his heart? Better not played with me? Killers,

907
00:50:50,160 --> 00:50:50,800
Speaker 2: stay with me?

908
00:51:00,400 --> 00:51:03,760
Speaker 4: Given the stakes, who said what matters?

909
00:51:04,920 --> 00:51:08,080
Speaker 1: Courts want to interpret lyrics literally when the music is

910
00:51:08,200 --> 00:51:10,759
Speaker 1: thrived off double meaning in the reuse of beats and

911
00:51:10,840 --> 00:51:14,640
Speaker 1: phrases and sentiments over and over throughout its fifty year history,

912
00:51:15,160 --> 00:51:18,480
Speaker 1: which makes subjecting lyrics to a legal process so fraught.

913
00:51:19,640 --> 00:51:22,920
Speaker 1: Everybody gets pissed off because we want to interpret the

914
00:51:23,000 --> 00:51:26,719
Speaker 1: lyrics the way we want to interpret them, either as

915
00:51:26,760 --> 00:51:29,399
Speaker 1: a war cry on the streets of South Atlantic calling

916
00:51:29,440 --> 00:51:33,640
Speaker 1: for violence, or a news report set to music telling

917
00:51:33,719 --> 00:51:36,920
Speaker 1: a story that happens even when no one is listening.

918
00:51:38,560 --> 00:51:41,520
Speaker 4: As of this taping, the jury selection process for the

919
00:51:41,640 --> 00:51:44,680
Speaker 4: Yasoul trial has finally reached the stage known as warder

920
00:51:45,480 --> 00:51:48,680
Speaker 4: to determine whether prospective jurors could be unbiased enough to

921
00:51:48,760 --> 00:51:51,520
Speaker 4: serve on this trial. We saw the list of over

922
00:51:51,560 --> 00:51:54,520
Speaker 4: two hundred and fifty questions that prospective jurors were being asked,

923
00:51:55,320 --> 00:51:57,799
Speaker 4: including do you listen to hip hop or rap? Are

924
00:51:57,840 --> 00:52:00,719
Speaker 4: you familiar with the rapper's wife and Lucci Young Thuh

925
00:52:00,920 --> 00:52:02,040
Speaker 4: Gunner or Birdman?

926
00:52:02,200 --> 00:52:04,200
Speaker 1: How much attention do you pay to the lyrics?

927
00:52:04,320 --> 00:52:07,080
Speaker 4: And do you believe rap lyrics are usually autobiographical?

928
00:52:07,760 --> 00:52:10,920
Speaker 1: That last question is a direct quote. It's also the

929
00:52:11,080 --> 00:52:14,719
Speaker 1: hardest one to answer. The court is asking jurors and

930
00:52:15,080 --> 00:52:18,719
Speaker 1: us to make up our minds about that is rap real?

931
00:52:19,800 --> 00:52:22,640
Speaker 1: And it speaks to the question Fanny Willis presented to us.

932
00:52:23,000 --> 00:52:27,360
Speaker 1: Should rap lyrics be considered a manifesto? We wanted to

933
00:52:27,480 --> 00:52:28,480
Speaker 1: know prophets answer to.

934
00:52:28,520 --> 00:52:32,200
Speaker 4: That question, and to quote Fannie Willis, the better question

935
00:52:32,360 --> 00:52:34,440
Speaker 4: might have been whether he cared.

936
00:52:34,960 --> 00:52:40,520
Speaker 22: Again, Fanny, We are saying to limit the use of lyrics.

937
00:52:41,560 --> 00:52:45,520
Speaker 22: You can use them a connection with other evidence.

938
00:52:45,600 --> 00:52:46,759
Speaker 1: I think this shit is clear.

939
00:52:47,480 --> 00:52:49,880
Speaker 22: But how about the fact that all this other evidence

940
00:52:49,960 --> 00:52:52,320
Speaker 22: that you say that you know about or harry about

941
00:52:53,080 --> 00:52:56,400
Speaker 22: the fact that she talking about the manifesto here? You

942
00:52:56,560 --> 00:53:00,160
Speaker 22: have yet to tell us where's the evidence though all

943
00:53:00,200 --> 00:53:02,160
Speaker 22: of this where it could be it could it be

944
00:53:02,400 --> 00:53:07,000
Speaker 22: or not be? Where are the guns, the witnesses, the

945
00:53:07,719 --> 00:53:12,160
Speaker 22: the forensic experts, where are the fingerprints, where the where's.

946
00:53:11,880 --> 00:53:14,560
Speaker 1: The cop shit? Where's the cop work at? And where's

947
00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:15,960
Speaker 1: the detective homicide?

948
00:53:16,080 --> 00:53:16,359
Speaker 7: The ship?

949
00:53:16,440 --> 00:53:18,560
Speaker 22: We don't watch it on TV all our lives. Where's

950
00:53:18,600 --> 00:53:21,000
Speaker 22: some of that shit? That right, that's what we're looking for.

951
00:53:21,320 --> 00:53:24,480
Speaker 22: You got that, do your thing. But if you think

952
00:53:24,520 --> 00:53:26,920
Speaker 22: you're gonna use a cheat code of a lyric, it

953
00:53:27,000 --> 00:53:30,600
Speaker 22: didn't come with this manifesto. Bullshit, you're tripping use it,

954
00:53:30,880 --> 00:53:33,800
Speaker 22: but bring the physical evidence with that and now we could.

955
00:53:33,680 --> 00:53:41,200
Speaker 1: Talk next time on King Slime.

956
00:53:41,800 --> 00:53:44,160
Speaker 7: The judge said, you know, get this filled out of

957
00:53:44,200 --> 00:53:47,080
Speaker 7: my courtroom. You'll never see the light of day. You'll

958
00:53:47,120 --> 00:53:47,640
Speaker 7: never see the.

959
00:53:47,640 --> 00:53:48,040
Speaker 1: Light of day.

960
00:53:48,560 --> 00:53:52,440
Speaker 22: You don't need concealed carriers permit to move around the

961
00:53:52,480 --> 00:53:56,760
Speaker 22: landing with guns anymore, Sonwii, and everybody's just walking freely

962
00:53:57,040 --> 00:54:01,000
Speaker 22: with pistols with arshould be for disaster.

963
00:54:01,920 --> 00:54:02,920
Speaker 7: Does it concern you at all?

964
00:54:02,960 --> 00:54:05,520
Speaker 4: The unconvicted men's lives may be at risk?

965
00:54:06,120 --> 00:54:07,000
Speaker 7: Am I concerned?

966
00:54:07,840 --> 00:54:13,440
Speaker 1: Yes? I saw this social media freak out of oh

967
00:54:13,520 --> 00:54:13,919
Speaker 1: my y'ad.

968
00:54:13,920 --> 00:54:15,600
Speaker 7: They're gonna go after a little baby.

969
00:54:15,520 --> 00:54:18,920
Speaker 1: Or something like that, or name your rapper. There was

970
00:54:19,000 --> 00:54:23,000
Speaker 1: this whole moment where there was a Who's next conversation?

971
00:54:23,360 --> 00:54:24,680
Speaker 1: Should rappers be looking around?

972
00:54:24,760 --> 00:54:24,800
Speaker 4: Like?

973
00:54:25,000 --> 00:54:32,680
Speaker 1: Are they coming for me? King Slime is a production

974
00:54:32,760 --> 00:54:34,520
Speaker 1: of iHeart Podcasts.

975
00:54:33,960 --> 00:54:37,560
Speaker 4: And Airboom Media, written and produced by George Cheaty, Christina Lee,

976
00:54:37,760 --> 00:54:39,200
Speaker 4: and Tommy Andres.

977
00:54:39,239 --> 00:54:42,719
Speaker 1: Mixing sound design and original music by Evan Tyer and

978
00:54:42,800 --> 00:54:43,520
Speaker 1: Taylor's are Coin.

979
00:54:44,080 --> 00:54:47,440
Speaker 4: The executive producer and editor is Tommy Andres.

980
00:54:47,440 --> 00:54:49,439
Speaker 1: Fact checking by King Lena Lynch.

981
00:54:49,840 --> 00:54:51,560
Speaker 4: Our theme music is by Dunn.

982
00:54:51,360 --> 00:54:54,160
Speaker 1: Deal Special thanks to Carl Catle and to.

983
00:54:54,200 --> 00:54:58,399
Speaker 4: The Alanta News outlets eleven Alive, WSBTV and Lanta News

984
00:54:58,480 --> 00:54:59,640
Speaker 4: First and Box five.

985
00:55:01,560 --> 00:55:05,680
Speaker 1: For more shows from iHeart Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app,

986
00:55:06,040 --> 00:55:09,200
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.