Rap music has been criticized for decades due to its raw and unfiltered, real-life stories artists tell through their lyrics. Even in politics, rappers have used their freedom of speech to voice concerns in their communities. “Fight The Power” by #PublicEnemy, “F**k The Police” by #NWA, are both examples of rappers using their platform to make a bold statement. But where is the line drawn when it comes to personal grievances? When an artist makes a song targeting police officers that have arrested him before. Pittsburgh rapper, Mayhem Mal, did just that.
Jamal Knox, also known as #MayhemMal, wrote and recorded a song titled “F**ck The Police” in 2012, not only as an ode to the NWA classic but to let two Pittsburgh police officers know that he has no nice words for them.
Officers Daniel Zeltner and Michael Kosko arrested Knox and Rashee Beasley, another rapper on the song, in 2012 on drug and weapons charges and were scheduled to testify against them. According to #TheWashingtonPost, while the charges were pending, the two wrote, recorded the song and music video, then uploaded it to #YouTube by a third party and shared them on a public #Facebook page authorities connected to Beasley.
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Some of the song lyrics include, “I’ma jam this rusty knife all in his guts and chop his feet.” One line, “Like Poplawski, I’m strapped nasty,” references Richard Poplawski, a man on death row for the 2009 murder of three Pittsburgh police officers. “Well, your shift over at 3”, another lyric, indicating they knew the officer’s schedules and he also insinuated he knew where the officers lived. A lyric at the end of the song stated, “Let’s kill these cops ’cause they don’t do us no good.”
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In the ruling, the court ultimately found the song’s lyrics to be a “true threat,” which is a category of speech not protected by the #Constitution and upheld the conviction of Knox for terroristic threats and witness intimidation. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Knox’s attorney, Patrick Nightingale, argued that the song was “artistic.” “Knox did not intend it to be a threat, and because he and Beasley did not post the video themselves, there was no proof that they meant for the officers to hear it,” he said but the courts weren’t trying to hear that and dismissed his argument.
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Erik Nielson, a University of Richmond professor who studies rap lyrics and criminal proceedings, told #ThePost that “Rap music has long been a point of contention within the courts. While a majority of situations deal with prosecutors attempting to use a defendant’s rap lyrics as evidence that he or she committed a crime, there have been an increasing number of cases in which the crime itself is in the lyrics.”
