Two US congressmen introduced a bill that seeks limit the use of letters in "rap" as incriminating evidence during trials for violent crimes on the grounds that it discriminates against people of color.
Democrats Hank Johnson and Jamaal Bowman are authors of the bill called the Restoration of Arts Protection Act, or RAP for its acronym in English.
"our court system unequally criminalizes people of color, including their creativity"Bowman said in a statement. "We can’t jail our talented artists for expressing their experiences, and we won’t let their creativity be suppressed either."he added.
According to Billboard magazine, for years prosecutors have used the lyrical content of rap songs to strengthen the accusations and convictions of artists who are perpetrators, and the issue rose to more prominence when rapper Young Thug was indicted in June, along with 27 others in Georgia.
Young Thug, whose birth name is Jeffrey Lamar Williams, and Sergio Giavanni Kitchens, another rapper known as Gunna, have been charged by prosecutors with various crimes since 2012 for their alleged association with a gang called Young Slime Life (YLS).
Charging documents quote directly from Young Thug’s rap tracks including a 2018 video in which he recites "I never killed someone but I have something to do with that body".
To Young Thug and Gunna they were denied bail and his trial is expected to start next year.
Bowman and Johnson’s bill, the first at the federal level, would make it inadmissible in federal trials "creative or artistic expression" of the accused.
The New York State Legislature is considering, at the Senate level, a bill entitled "rap music on trial"and the California legislature has a similar one under the title of "Decriminalization of Artistic Expression".
Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason and Academy Black Music Collective President Rico Love said in a joint statement that the RAP Act "it’s a crucial step in the battle to stop the use of creative expression as a prosecution tactic".
"Bias against rap music has been present in our judicial system for far too long, and the time has come to end this unconstitutional practice"added the statement.
