By: Jordan Taylor
Published: September 3, 2025
Johnny Cash famously sang about shooting a man in Reno just to watch him die.[1] Freddie Mercury confessed to putting a gun against a man’s head and pulling the trigger.[2] Taylor Swift even talks about murdering her best friend’s husband and then cleans up the scene.[3] None of these artists faced criminal charges. Yet, when a young Black rapper writes something similar, the stakes are drastically different. After all, the song “Cop Killer”[4] remains unavailable on all streaming services even thirty-three years after its release.[5]
For centuries, musicians have written songs about murder.[6] Far from being unique, they are found across musical genres, time periods, and cultures.[7] One thing they all have in common: they are fictional, artistic expressions. We often refer to these as murder ballads, but when rap artists do it, the courts sometimes call it evidence. In recent years, prosecutors have increasingly treated explicit rap lyrics as presumptively factual, and thus, highly probative trial evidence to suggest that the defendant has previously engaged in criminal activtities.[8] This trend has raised serious concerns about free speech, artistic expression, and racial bias within the criminal justice system.
“I never killed anybody, but I got something to do with that body. . . .”[9] is just one of the 17 sets of lyrics introduced as evidence in the highly publicized trial of rapper Jeffery “Young Thug” Williams.[10] The plain language of this sentence is obvious—the artist is admitting to being an accessory to murder. However, there are numerous issues with this literal interpretation, because rap as a musicial genre is a “sophisticated and poetic art form” that famously relies on “exaggeration, hyperbole, and clever manipulation of language.”[11]
Decades of research has proven that there are negative perceptions associated with rap music, and if rap lyrics are admitted as evidence in criminal trials, it may have the effect of unfairly influencing jurors and substantially prejudicing defendants of color.[12] Thus, to treat rap music literally, rather than as a form of art, has severe racial justice implications.[13] For example, in 2018, a study was conducted to determine whether “negative stereotypes about rap music shape jurors’ attitudes about [a] defendant.”[14] Here, different groups of participants were told that the genre of lyrics presented to them originated from heavy metal, country, or rap music.[15] All participants were asked to make judgments about the person who wrote the lyrics, and the findings revealed that participants who were told the lyrics came from a rap song were significantly “more likely to assume that the songwriter is a member of a gang, is involved in criminal activity, and has a criminal record.”[16] In short, based on this study and numerous others, it is irrefutable that the admission of rap lyrics in criminals trials comes with a high risk of unfair prejudice due to racial discrimination.[17] As there have now been over 500 instances where rap lyrics have been used as evidence in criminal trials, of which have disproportionately affected defendants, this evidentiary issue warrants a careful and thoughtful analysis.[18]
For lyrics to be admissible, they must first be relevant—a fairly easy hurdle to overcome.[19] Of course, this is subject to Rule 403 of the Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE), which provides that even if the evidence is deemed relevant, a court may exclude it if its probative value is substantially outweighed by unfair prejudice.[20] Typically, in making this determination, a judge will consider whether the evidence is directly related to the alleged crime committed or whether it is being introduced to suggest an unfavorable impression of the defendant to the jury.[21] The latter is impermissible character evidence.[22] Notably, many rap lyrics previously admitted at trial are character evidence, but are admitted under another exception.[23]
The cases of Mac Phipps and Vonte Skinner exemplify the potentially severe consequences of permitting rap lyrics as evidence. Mr. Phipps, a 22-year-old rapper, was convicted of murder despite overwhelming evidence ruling out his involvement.[24] Lyrics from his song, “Murda, Murda, Kill, Kill,”[25] was presented to the jury as evidence of his “violent and criminal lifestyle.”[26] Twenty-one years after maintaining his innonence, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards recognized Mr. Phipps’s conviction largely rested upon the use of his lyrics as evidence and granted him clemency.[27] Additionally, rapper Vonte Skinner was sentenced to 30 years after the prosecutor read aloud to the jury 13 pages of lyrics that were seized as evidence from Mr. Skinner’s notebook.[28] In a unanimous New Jersey Supreme Court decision in 2014, the court held that the evidence was improper as the lyrics contained “little to no probative value.”[29] When Mr. Skinner was re-tried in 2015 without the lyrics presented as evidence, he was acquitted of the attempted murder charge.[30] Although some courts have rightfully recognized the danger of permitting rap lyrics as evidence,[31] without explicit guidance from the FRE or the Supreme Court, judges’ approaches drastically vary throughout the nation.[32]
Because the admission of rap lyrics has the tendency to invoke implicit racial biases of jurors, rap lyrics should be treated differently and individually scrutinized before allowing them to be admitted at trial. In order to ensure justice and fairness to the defendant, judges must require that the lyrics have a significant nexus to the alleged crime in order to determine whether the probative value substantially outweighs the lyrics’ prejudicial effect. If this is the case and the lyrics are introduced as evidence, the judge should further be required to instruct the jury on how this evidence should be interpreted. Namely, that the lyrics are not evidence of the defendant’s character, but must be analyzed only in relation to the specific crime the defendant is charged with. Although this still runs the risk that jurors will nonetheless infer a poor moral character of the defendant or improperly assume that they engage in criminal activities due to the negative stereotypes surrounding rap music, this is a step in the right direction toward addressing jurors’ implicit racial biases.
[1] Johnny Cash, Folsom Prison Blues (Sun Records 1955) (“I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.”).
[2] Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody (EMI Records 1975) (“I just killed a man, put a gun against his head, pulled my trigger, now he’s dead.”).
[3] Taylor Swift feat. haim, no body, no crime (Republic Records 2020) (“No, no body, no crime. I wasn’t lettin’ up until the day he died.”).
[4] Body Count, Cop Killer (Warner Bros. Records 1992) (“I’m a cop killer, better you than me. Cop killer, f—k police brutality!”).
[5] Kory Grow, Ice-T and the Controversial History of Body Count’s ‘Cop Killer,’ Rolling Stone (Nov. 24, 2023), https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/body-count-cop-killer-ice-t-book-excerpt-1234876409/ (quoting band member, Tracy Lauren Marrow (“Ice-T”), saying “I ain’t never killed no cop. . . I’m singing in the first person as a character who is fed up with police brutality.”).
[6] Cyrus Moulton, Young Thug — and His Rap Lyrics — are on Trial. Northeastern Experts Say the Case Raises Legal and Ethical Concerns, ne. glob. news (June 21, 2024),
https://news.northeastern.edu/2024/06/21/young-thug-trial-lyrics/.
[7] Courtney E. Smith, What We Lose When We Ignore the Real Roots of Murder Ballads, Esquire (July 21, 2021, 10:00 AM), https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a37078255/history-of-murder-ballads-stagger-lee-true-story/.
[8] See Mae Zeitouni, Exclusion On My Mind: The Admissibility of Rap Lyrics as Evidence in Criminal Proceedings, Wake Forest L. Rev. Blog (Mar. 16, 2024), https://www.wakeforestlawreview.com/2024/03/exclusion-on-my-mind-the-admissibility-of-rap-lyrics-as-evidence-in-criminal-proceedings/ (highlighting recent high-profile cases dealing with the admissibility of rap lyrics in criminal trials).
[9] Young Thug feat. Nicki Minaj, Anybody (300 Entertainment 2018).
[10] See Emily Pecot, Using Rap Lyrics as Evidence in Court, New Jersey State Bar Found. (Feb. 15, 2023), https://njsbf.org/2023/02/15/using-rap-lyrics-as-evidence-in-court/ (discussing the Young Thug case).
[11] Brief for the ACLU & ACLU of Iowa as Amici Curiae Supporting Defendant-Appellant, State v. Canady, 4 N.W.3d 661 (Iowa 2024) No. 22-0397, at 21, 22.
[12] Id. at 35.
[13] Id. at 23.
[14] See Adam Dunbar & Charis E. Kubrin, Imagining Violent Criminals: An Experimental Investigation of Music Stereotypes and Character Judgements, 14 J. Experimental Criminology 507, at *1 (2018), https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3x71s6rz.
[15] Id.
[16] Brief for the ACLU & ACLU of Iowa as Amici Curiae Supporting Defendant-Appellant, State v. Canady, 4 N.W.3d 661 (Iowa 2024) No. 22-0397, at 37.
[17] See e.g., Stuart P. Fischoff, Gangsta’ Rap and a Murder in Bakersfield, 29 J. Applied. Soc. Psych. 795 (1999) (detailing a study where all participants were given a description of an 18-year-old Black man accused of murder, but only some were shown sexually explicit rap lyrics that he had written. The results indicated that those who were exposed to the lyrics were more likely to believe he had committed the murder than those who were not); Carrie B. Fried, Who’s Afraid of Rap: Differential Reactions to Music Lyrics, 29 J. Applied Soc. Pysch. 705 (1999) (concluding that participants who were told the lyrics were from a rap song were significantly more likely to say “the song was offensive, dangerous, likely to incite violence, and in need of regulation” than the participants who thought the lyrics were from a country song); Dunbar et al., The Threatening Nature of “Rap” Music, 22 Pysch. Public Pol’y & the Law 280 (2016) (replicating Dr. Fried’s 1999 study which reiterated that labeling violent lyrics as “rap” resulted in them being judged as more literal and autobiographical compared to when they are labeled as “country.”).
[18] See Brief for ACLU as Amicus Curiae, Canady, No. 22-0397, at 23 (referencing Erik Nielson and Andrea L. Dennis, Rap on Trial: Race, Lyrics and Guilt in America (2019) (noting that despite years of searching, they were unable to find examples of prosecutors introducing country music lyrics evidence but did locate at least 500 instances where rap lyrics were used as evidence and a handful of cases involving heavy metal lyrics).
[19] See Fed. R. Evid. 401 (“Evidence is relevant if: (a) it has any tendency to make a fact more or less probable than it would be without the evidence; and (b) the fact is of consequence in determining the action.”).
[20] Fed. R. Evid. 403.
[21] Kevin Goldberg, Can Rap Lyrics Be Used as Evidence in Court?, Freedom F., https://www.freedomforum.org/rap-lyrics-evidence-in-court/ (last visited July 20, 2025) (explaining how judges balance probative versus prejudicial evidence).
[22] Fed R. Evid. 404(a) (defining character evidence as “evidence of a person’s character or character trait to prove that on a particular occasion, the person acted in accordance with the character or trait.”).
[23] Fed. R. Evid. 404(b)(2) (“This evidence may be admissible for another purpose, such as proving motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, or lack of accident.”).
[24] See Pecot, supra note 6 (discussing the Phipps case).
[25] Mac Phipps, Murda, Murda, Kill, Kill (No Limit Records 1998).
[26] See Dunbar & Kubrin, supra note 10, at 6 (noting that the lyrics included lines such as “you f—k with me, you get a bullet in your brain,” however, Phipps always maintained how these lyrics were about his father’s experience during the Vietnam War rather than the shooting incident at his show).
[27] See Pecot, supra note 6.
[28] Id. (noting that the lyrics admitted as evidence were written years before the alleged incident and were completely unrelated to the crime Mr. Skinner was charged with).
[29] Id. (detailing that when writing for the New Jersey Supreme Court in Mr. Skinner’s case, Justice Jaynee LaVecchia stated, “[T]he admission of defendant’s inflammatory rap verses, a genre that certain members of society view as art and others view as distasteful and descriptive of a mean-spirited culture, risked poisoning the jury against [the] defendant.”).
[30] Id.
[31] See Moulton, supra note 4 (noting that the Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court in Commonwealth v. Correia held that rap lyrics must be closely scrutinized before admitting them as evidence because they are likely to be more prejudicial than probative).
[32] Vidhaath Sripathi, Bar Behind Bars: Rap Lyrics, Character Evidence, and State v. Skinner, 24 J. Gender, Race & Just. 207, 223-24 (2021) (noting that some federal circuits and state courts have adopted the inclusionary approach to Rule 404(b) and have admitted rap lyrics as character evidence under the various exceptions, whereas in California, Indiana, and Delaware, these courts have admitted rap lyrics as character evidence but only require the lyrics and the alleged crime to be “sufficiently similar.”).