The use of lyrics, music videos and audio recordings in court to prosecute people raises issues of prejudice and free expression
In the past three years, the courtroom fate of more than 240 people in the UK – almost all young black men – has been decided, partly, by their taste in music, namely the genres of rap, grime and drill. This trend raises troubling questions of freedom of expression, racial prejudice and the place of art in court.
The data was uncovered by the University of Manchester’s Prosecuting Rap project, which has identified more than 70 trials since 2020 in which rap evidence including lyrics, music videos and audio recordings has been used to build prosecution cases. This was five times the rate recorded in the previous 15 years of rap music being introduced to secure convictions, apparently without much unease over the conflation of fiction with real-life crime.
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