Scholarship Library
The Culture Not Evidence Scholarship Library is a curated collection of research, articles, and legal scholarship at the intersection of rap, criminal law, evidence, and racial justice.
The goal of the Scholarship Library is threefold:
- to support defense lawyers by providing authoritative sources to cite and ideas to develop strategies in cases where prosecutors are using their clients’ rap expression as evidence;
- to support academics, journalists, and students in advancing the conversation about race, hip-hop, art, evidence, and criminal law; and
- to amplify the voices of scholars and practitioners who are fighting against the criminalization of hip-hop expression.
Schoolhouse Rap (Andrea L. Dennis)
Rap on Trial, the treatment of rap music as evidence in the American criminal legal process, is well- documented and increasingly scrutinized. Research has shown that – with little restraint – police, prosecutors, probation officers and judges use rap lyrics to investigate, prosecute and punish individuals. Less noticed is that a similar phenomenon is occurring in the American K–12 educational system, which disciplines school-age youth who participate in rap culture and sometimes refers them to the juvenile or criminal legal systems for additional punishment. This article describes and analyses a small set of identified cases of this scenario, demonstrating that rap music is used to funnel youth, including vulnerable Black and Brown youth, into what has been coined the school-to-prison pipeline and exposing the extreme dissonance between hip hop and the educational system.
Much Respect: Toward A Hip-Hop Theory of Punishment (Paul Butler)
This article “imagines the institution of punishment in the hip-hop nation.” Professor Butler’s thesis is that “hip-hop can be used to inform a theory of punishment that is coherent, that enhances public safety, and that treats lawbreakers with respect.”
Poetic (In)Justice? Rap Music Lyrics as Art, Life, and Criminal Evidence (Andrea L. Dennis)
What happens, however, when the court admits as criminal evidence statements the defendant made in an artistic context rather than as a result of everyday conversation or speech? This Article tackles this question in the context of defendant-authored rap music lyrics. Part I documents the admission of rap music lyrics composed by defendants as substantive evidence in criminal cases. Part II seeks to debunk the judicial assumptions revealed in Part I by discussing the commercialization of the rap music industry, notions of authenticity in rap music, and the poetics (i.e., artistic conventions) of rap music lyrics. Part III applies the information from Parts I and II to demonstrate that defendant-authored rap music lyrics are of questionable evidentiary quality. Finally, Part IV suggests a framework that may be employed when evaluating the admissibility and credibility of lyrical evidence.
The Threatening Nature of “Rap” Music (Adam Dunbar, Charis E. Kubrin, and Nicholas Scurich)
Rap lyrics have been introduced by prosecutors to establish guilt in criminal trials. Some fear this form of artistic expression will be inappropriately interpreted as literal and threatening, perhaps because of stereotypes. This article reports on three experiments that examined the impact of genre-specific stereotypes on the evaluation of violent song lyrics by manipulating the musical genre (rap vs. country) while holding constant the actual lyrics. Collectively, the studies’ results and findings highlight the possibility that rap lyrics could inappropriately impact jurors when admitted as evidence to prove guilt.
Imagining violent criminals: an experimental investigation of music stereotypes and character judgments (Adam Dunbar & Charis Kubrin)
In rap on trial cases, prosecutors treat defendant-authored rap lyrics as an admission of guilt rather than as art or entertainment. Do negative stereotypes about rap music shape jurors’ attitudes about the defendant, unfairly influencing outcomes? This Article reports on experiments where the authors found that writers of violent “rap” lyrics are perceived more negatively than writers who pen identical country and heavy metal lyrics.
Rap Music, Race, and Perceptions of Crime (Adam Dunbar)
This article reviews how scholars have typically challenged seemingly racialized concerns about rap music before surveying the handful of studies that empirically examine attitudes related to rap music, race, and crime.
Art or Confession?: Evaluating Rap Lyrics as Evidence in Criminal Cases (Adam Dunbar)
This article reports on a study that examined how rap lyrics are evaluated when presented in a trial context and determines how individuals change their evaluations of the lyrics to support their verdict. Study participants were tasked with evaluating evidence, including rap lyrics, independently and in the context of a trial and then rendering a verdict. Results indicate that rap lyrics are viewed as interdependent with other evidence when presented at trial. Furthermore, although evaluations of lyrics did not predict determinations of guilt, verdict affected whether the lyrics were evaluated as a confession, and this effect was stronger for participants who believed the defendant was guilty. These findings highlight how introducing rap lyrics might disproportionately advantage prosecutors and contribute to our understanding of racial disparities in the criminal justice system.
Rap on Trial (Charis Kubrin & Erik Nielson)
This article explores “rap on trial” – prosecutors using rap lyrics as criminal evidence. The article first offers historical context, and then offer examples of cases in which rap music has been used as evidence in trials against amateur rappers, almost all of whom are young men of color, in order to illustrate the specific ways that prosecutors present the music to judges and juries, as well as to highlight the devastating effects it can have on defendants. In the final section, the article considers the elements of rap music that leave it vulnerable to judicial abuse and the artistic, racial, and legal ramifications of using this particular genre of music to put people in jail, and concludes with recommendations for further research in this area.
Rap Rhyme, Prison Time: How Prosecutors Use Rap Evidence in Gang Cases (Charis Kubrin and Kyle Winnen)
This article calls for “greater nuance and careful treatment” of rap-related evidence in the courtroom, which includes recognizing rap’s history, conventions, and practices generally, and acknowledging rap’s complicated and complex intersection with gangs specifically. The article advocates that “greater nuance and more careful treatment” will enable courtroom members, including judges and jurors, to make better informed evaluations regarding whether rap evidence, despite being prejudicial, is sufficiently probative and if so, what relevance it may have to the case.
When Music Takes The Stand: A Content Analysis of How Courts Use and Misuse Rap Lyrics in Criminal Cases (Erin Lutes, James Purdon, Henry Fradella)
This article study examines how rap lyrics were used in 160 state and federal criminal cases over a five-year period of time. Using qualitative content analysis, this study found that rap evidence was proffered in these cases in one or more of five distinct ways: (1) to prove gang affiliation or sentencing enhancement purposes; (2) as circumstantial evidence of the commission of a crime; (3) as direct evidence of having communicated a threat; (4) to prove motive, knowledge, intent, identity, or character, or (5) to establish what incited the commission of a crime. Each of these themes was examined and analyzed with respect to the function of rap evidence within each case. The analyses demonstrate that rap evidence is routinely admitted against defendants in criminal proceedings, even in cases in which the prejudicial effect of such evidence clearly outweighs its probative value.
Rap on Trial: A Brief History (Jack Lerner)
The Rap on Trial tactic has been around since at least 1991; hundreds of courts have issued judicial opinions permitting the use of rap evidence, despite a steady stream of peer-reviewed empirical studies demonstrating that the tactic introduces a substantial risk of unfair prejudice. In this Article, the author reflects on his work on this issue, identifies important moments in the history of the tactic, explores why it has become more well-known in recent years, and what this new prominence suggests about the state of the Rap on Trial tactic. The author concludes by offering suggestions for policymakers and courts.
Art as the Prosecutor’s Weapon: the Use of Rap Lyrics Evidence at Trial (Mikah Thompson)
Are rap lyrics worthy of the same protections that other forms of creative expression enjoy, or is there something inherent to rap lyrics that renders them autobiographical, confessional, and reflective of the author’s true intentions and desires? This Article attempts to answer this question by taking the reader on a voyage through a history that is not widely known among the attorneys, judges, expert witnesses, and jurors who are frequently called upon to interpret the art form known as Hip Hop. This history reveals that Hip Hop music is the latest cultural product of the Black Oral Tradition, a tradition that utilizes linguistic devices for figurative rather than literal purposes. By placing rap lyrics in their proper historical context, this article demonstrates that such lyrics are of poor probative value when used to determine an artist’s true conduct and intentions.