Analyzing Tupac Shakur's 'Rap In The Courtroom'

Rap in the Courtroom: Rap Lyrics Misappropriated and Admitted into Evidence Certain modern rap music lyrics, like its gangsta rap precursors, express criminal themes including murder, assault, and drug possession. When listening to these criminal themes, the audience could interpret the intent of the rapper as fictional hyperbole, autobiographical admissions of guilt, or a mere song. However, in the courtroom, a judge’s determination of the lyrics’ admissibility and the jury’s determination of the evidentiary weight depends on their subjective interpretation of rap lyrics. Although criminal themes are not exclusive to the rap genre, during the past decade, the growing use of lyrics as incriminating evidence in criminal trials has disproportionately

However, one line, stanza, song, or even album is not enough to claim that criminal characteristics, acts, and themes that rappers express completely characterizes the rapper. There is no objective way to answer how much of a rapper’s discography requires consideration and interpretation for the legal system to conclude that the violent nature of a rapper’s lyrics genuinely reflects the rapper’s true nature. For example, artists like Tupac Shakur have a diverse discography that tackles themes besides crime. Although Tupac’s Hit Em Up—which explicitly threatens East Coast Rappers Biggie Smalls and Puff Diddy with gang violence—on its own portrays a violent Tupac, that portrayal would incompletely exhibit Tupac’s complex character. When courtrooms recite rap lyrics with depictions of violence in trial, prosecution counsels provide the lyrics without the full context of the rapper’s reason for producing the song and rap genre conventions and themes. In Tupac’s Hit Em Up, Tupac expresses his anger at East Coast rap after what Tupac believed was an organized shooting and robbery outside of Quad Studios in New York City in 1994. To add on, the rap genre characterizes Hit Em Up as a diss track with the depictions of violence being expressions of hyperbolic masculinity commonly found in gangsta rap. Without crucial information about gangsta rap conventions and the rapper's personal life, courtrooms are unable to decide if lyrics contain hyperbole or true threats. In addition, other Tupac songs like Brenda’s Got a Baby and Words of Wisdom serve as social commentary and advocacy against American interpersonal and systemic oppression that could change juries’ minds about his gangster persona. Since it is impossible to encapsulate the complexities of a rapper into a single verse or song, admitting rap lyrics as evidence misleads the