Antwain Steward, AKA, Twain Gotti is a rising rap performer that was arrested in 2011 for a murder that occurred in 2007. The ?smoking gun? being used as evidence? A video on YouTube of Twain performing his song ?Ride Out?. ?But nobody saw when I smoked him, roped him, sharpened up the shank, then I poked him, 357 Smith & Wesson beam scoped him? was enough for his arrest.
In the past two years, there have been more than three dozen prosecutions in which rap lyrics have played a substantial role. In some instances, they’ve been cited as a criminal act in themselves,?as evidence of motive and intent,?and as a confession.
In the world of rap, specifically ?gangsta? rap, verisimilitude is valued and gives a performer street ?cred?. However, too often, rap lyrics portray where the artist comes from or grew up and should not be taken literally. One can wonder if the use of lyric content as an investigative tool is a double standard not applied to other genres of music. Why are prosecutors willing to equate rap lyrics with reality while acknowledging that other lyrics are fictional?
Would police investigate Dwight Yoakum for his lyrics ?In the dark morning silence, I placed the gun to her head. She wore red dresses, but now she lay dead.?? Or, the Dixie Chicks for ?Goodbye Earl? in which a man is poisoned, wrapped in a tarp and dumped into a lake? How about Miranda Lambert’s ?His fist is big, but my gun’s bigger. He’ll find out when I pull the trigger??
Erik Nielson, an assistant professor of Liberal Arts at the University of Richmond has stated
?What’s getting really unnerving is the amount of time it appears both police and prosecutors are spending over rap lyrics and videos on social media rather than using that time to go and gather more convincing, more conventional forms of evidence.?
I guess Johnny cash should’ve been arrested for having ?shot a man in Reno just to watch him die?.
Edited/Published by: SB
