September 12, 2023 • 55 mins
Prosecutors in the YSL trial cite lyrics from a dozen songs to help underscore the accusation that Young Thug is a dangerous kingpin running a criminal enterprise. We examine the controversial use of lyrics in court, potential changes in the law and explore how this trial could change music.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Kingslime is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Heirloom Media.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Can you do me a favor and give the Somber Court.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Educate the Somber Court on who you are.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Your background the court may not be familiar Joan.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
I'm a fifty four year old father for I'm kind
of emotional because how good this guy is.
Speaker 4 (00:24):
It's June second, twenty twenty two, three weeks after Young
Thug's arrest. His defense attorney Brian Steele, is trying to
demonstrate that Young Thug is a charitable person and a meaningful,
positive contributor to Atlanta and the music industry. He's brought
in three hundred entertainment CEO Kevin Lyles.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
I've also started a company with Jeffrey called Youngstone Life.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
And I remember what he said to me. We're not
just starting a company, We're.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Gonna change some lives. And that's what he's done, and
he's definitely changed mine.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Well. This is part of Young thugs first bond hearing.
It's when the defense argues its client is not a
flight or safety risk, but he deserves a chance to
pay bail and be released from jail while his trial
is carried out.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
Lyle says he will financially back Young Thugs Bond and
even help the rapper pay for a dozen off duty
police officers to supervise home confinement if he's released, a
cost that could creep into the millions.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I want to back him personally and professionally.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
After Steel is done making his case, then prosecutor Don
Gary steps up and starts his argument in an Atlanta
trial against one of the biggest hip hop stars in
the world by making reference to an old, dead news
radio host who started his career during the dust Bowl.
Speaker 5 (01:46):
Jeje, I'm going to rely on the statement of age
to say that.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I'm about to have a Paul Harvey moment.
Speaker 5 (01:54):
We're sitting here and you got the song and dance,
but now you're about to get the rest of the story.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
The bond hearing is in some ways a condensed version
of the trial itself. There's no seated jury, but the
prosecution is trying to convince the judge that Jeffrey Williams
is too dangerous to walk among the public, that he
needs to remain in jail or people could get hurt,
could even die.
Speaker 5 (02:18):
What I can tell the court is mister Williams is
the head of YSL, and the y S doesn't stand
for stoner, it stands for slime.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
It's young slime. Wife.
Speaker 5 (02:28):
Judge, this gang and I call it that because that's
what it is by definition of Georgia law. This criminal
street gang pre existed the label record, so as a spinoff,
he used YSIL again and substituted one of the words.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
Over the course of forty minutes, Gary lays out his case.
He talks about drugs and weapons being found in Young
Thug's home when he was arrested.
Speaker 5 (02:54):
Judge, there was a sought off shotgun or sought off
illegal dangerous weapon.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
He highlights Young thugs alleged connection to the death of
Donovan Thomas.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
It's the state's contention that the car used in that
murder was a car rented personally by mister Williams just
days before.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
And he leans on intel law enforcement claims to have
gathered from sources.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
Judge, I will also say that we have taken proffers
from fellow gang members from mister Williams. Some are on
this indictment, some are not. They have stated uniformally that
mister Williams is dangerous, They are afraid of him, that
if they cross him, he will kill.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Them and their family.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
Then Gary scoffs at the defense is offered to cover
the cost of a supervision.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
Mister Williams is said in his songs, it's all about
the money and there's no difference.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
That's exactly what it was today.
Speaker 5 (03:45):
It was I've got money, I can I can pay
for whatever you want me to.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Not a subtle slight is the first time Gary mentions
Young thugs lyrics in this hearing, but it's far from
the last. He starts pulling from the indictment, attempting to
demonstrate that Young Thug's own music provides evidence of his
criminal activity and character.
Speaker 5 (04:07):
Act nine on four twenty fourteen. It is a song.
The name is EWW.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
The name is actually Ill or sometimes Ill. Young Thug
released this song nearly a decade ago to build off
the hype he saw firm initial hits like Stoner and
Gary hones in on the song's final verse and.
Speaker 5 (04:28):
In it, basically the defendant says all I ever wanted
was the money. Basically, if you mess with me, you
go into a wheelchair. That's what that one says.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
Gary continues, the next one.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
Is going to be Act sixty of the indictment, which
is on three twenty five sixteen. It is a music
video entitled slime Shit and it talks about why sl
shit kill him well Ship twelve being a if mission
for police officers, fuck a Jao shit In that song
(05:07):
it goes again, fuck the police, fuck the Joe.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Geary sites more songs at one one.
Speaker 5 (05:17):
On four sixteen of twenty one, there's a video released
called Ski Ski with lyrics stating, I fuck with slats,
slacks being basic slang life forever we come to eat rats.
I came with some buranas Runner on Act ninety seven.
From nine to sixteen nineteen, mister Williams post a video.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Called just how it Is.
Speaker 5 (05:42):
There were lyrics in that one as well, and it said,
uh last n word tried me almost got popped at Lennox.
Asked the cops, asked the detectives. They know all the business,
asked the cops and the detective all the jurisdictions. Gave
the lawyer close to two mills a killers.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
He handles all the killings my business.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
We know to kill the biggest cats of all the kittens.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
We've known the kid our biggest cats of wild kiddies.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
Gary even connects a Young Thug song to a shooting
incident or Wife and Lucci's mother was hitting the leg.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
You're on Acts seventy eight from one fifteen to nineteen uh.
It's a video called bad Boy. Now understand. At a point,
mister Williams got.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Into a.
Speaker 5 (06:31):
Beef if you Will with another rapper by the name
of Rayshawn Bennett, also known as Wife and Lucci. At
some point Lucci's mother was shot at, and the song
comes out with bad Boy that says, you better watch
the way you breathe around me, for that breath be
your last. Boy Smith and Wesson forty five put a
(06:54):
hole in his heart. Better not play with me killers,
stay with me. I shot at his mommy. Now he
no longer mentioned me, that he no longer missed me again.
We believe that mister Williams doesn't sing about random theoretical acts.
He sings about gang acts that he's a part of
(07:15):
or his gang participates in.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Finally, Gary uses Young Thugs words to lay out the
prosecution's overarching theory. This next song is Anybody. His second
collaboration with Nicki Minaj.
Speaker 5 (07:29):
Acts seventy four is a music video on four twelve eighteen,
where mister Williams states or sings, I never kill.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Anybody, but I guess I'm doing it bad. But I
got something to do with that audist. And as would
be our.
Speaker 5 (07:45):
Position is that as the leader of this criminal street gang,
mister Williams probably has never killed anybody. I don't know
that to be true or not, but he probably gets
others do it for him.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
As as we understand the evidence, Judge.
Speaker 5 (07:59):
Judge, mister Williams essentially is everybody else is a follower.
There are leaders, we said, mister Kitchens, mister Greer, they
are also leaders. But the leader, the top doll, the
most dangerous man here is Jeffrey Williams because he doesn't
have to get.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
His hands dirty. He has others to do his business.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Gary argues that the man who calls himself King Slime
in records, who Gana calls King Slime, and who even
Drake knows to call King the slime, there is also
a king pin.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
This is the most of them. This is the one.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
That you see the shadow in the back of the room.
He's the one directing traffic. He is the one that
we're all afraid of. He's the one that's king slime.
He's pulling the shots.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
I'm Christina Lee and I'm George Chety. This says, indeed
king slime.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
The prosecution of Young Thug and Ysell.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Using lyrics in a criminal case rubs a lot of
people the wrong way. On the stand of that first
bond hearing, Young Thug's business partner, Kevin Lyles offered a
familiar critique.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
I've been fighting this battle for over forty years.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
It's not new, and it's funny.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
How were the number one music in the world now?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Anyone to bring this back up. We don't argue.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
About movies or other genres of music that talk about
I ran them over in my truck, or I got
drunk and I went and shot them.
Speaker 7 (09:56):
We don't bring.
Speaker 6 (09:58):
Those things to quip, but quote unquote our music.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
We been on trout and we constantly on trout about
who we are, what we.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Are, and nobody gave us nothing. The argument goes, Johnny
Cash didn't get arrested for singing I shot a man
in Reno just to watch him die. Bob Marley didn't
go to jail for bellowing out that he shot the sheriff.
But not the deputy, and Freddie Mercury didn't have to
worry about being prosecuted for the second verse of Bohemian Rhapsody,
(10:28):
Mama just killed a man, put a gun against his head,
pulled my trigger. Now he's dead. At this point, the
decades long debate Overwrapp being on trial, these are cliches.
They're easy points in which should be a hard conversation,
and they distract from the much more nuanced debate that
needs to happen. Virtually everyone we spoke with about lyrics said,
(10:53):
we believe there's a place for their use in prosecution
when their actual evidence of a crime. It's not that
prosecutors quote an artist's lyrics, it's how.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
There are extreme cases where lyrics have been used to
achieve nightmarish results, the most egregious perhaps being the case
of Mac Phipps, a twenty two year old rapper with
no criminal record who was wrongfully convicted by all white
jury on a manslaughter charge in Louisiana in two thousand
and one. Phipps spent twenty one years in prison for
(11:26):
a crime he didn't commit. Shoddy police work and coerced
witness testimony were a big part of the conviction and
without any physical evidence, prosecutors recited the lyrics of one
of Phipps's songs in court, or at least where prosecutors
wanted that jury to hear from phipps lyrics the hook
from Murder, Murder, Kill Kill, and what's actually a misquote
(11:50):
from his song shell shocked, He'll give you a bullet
in the brain, not i'le he is phips Dad, known
as Big Mac. Phipps lyrics were in part a reference
to Big Mack's experiences as a Vietnam War soldier. Stripped
of its context, the lyric implied something about phipps character
(12:12):
that simply had no facts to back it up.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
On top of the lack of evidence, someone else confessed
to the crime. Nevertheless, Phipps was locked up, and since
his release in twenty twenty.
Speaker 8 (12:25):
One, McKinley Phipps Junior could be released from prison soon.
This week, the former No Limit rapper received a letter
from Governor John Bell Edwards, who granted him clemency after
serving more than two decades from manslaughter.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
The now forty six year old has become the poster
child for how courts can wrongfully interpret artistic expression as
an outright confession and for how rap lyrics in particular
can introduce racial bias into a trial.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
In a study from nineteen ninety nine, lyrics by the
Kingson Trio, a folk and pop group, were presented to
one group as rap music and the other as country music.
The first group who believed the Kingston Trio lyrics were
rap lyrics were far more likely to believe that the
lyrics would incite violence and require regulation. That said, he
was conducted again in twenty sixteen, but this time they
(13:16):
also presented lyrics from a Boy named Sue by Johnny Cash. Specifically,
they included this excerpt that goes quote.
Speaker 5 (13:24):
I hit him hard, rot between the eyes, and he
went down.
Speaker 9 (13:27):
With my surprise.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
He come up with a knife and cut off a
piece of my ear. But I busted a chair right
across his.
Speaker 5 (13:35):
Teeth and through the wall and into the street, kicking
on a godget and the mud and the blood.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
And the beer.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
Despite how mainstream rap had become, how rap had essentially
become the new pop music, the results were damn near
the same. Those who believed a Boy Named Sue was
rap music had evaluated the song far more negatively. Adam
Dunbar helped conduct the twenty sixteen study. He also appeared
at the Fulton County Courthouse in April twenty twenty three,
(14:04):
called by the defense in an attempt to qualify him
for testimony in the Wisel trial.
Speaker 10 (14:09):
When the lyrics were represented as rap music compared to
country or having medaled, participants view the songwriter as having.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
A worse character and greater criminal propensity.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
There is also an entire book about the use of
lyrics and prosecution rap on Trial Race Lyrics and Guilt
in America. It features a foreword by Atlanta artist Killer Mike.
One of the book's co authors, Eric Nielsen, has also
appeared at the Fulton County Corehouse as a potential witness.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Doctor Nielsen, good happening, Sure, come on up to the
witness stands, surf you wouldn't mind.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
When Prosecutor Adrian love Cross examined him, she essentially wondered
why a rap expert like Nielsen would be necessary. She
wondered why a jury shouldn't be able to take lyrics
literally at face value.
Speaker 11 (14:58):
Would it matter to you that this is something anyone
just simply listening to rap.
Speaker 7 (15:05):
Music would be able to figure out? On their own.
Speaker 10 (15:09):
Unfortunately, no, and that's kind of the entire point of
my book and a lot of my research is that's
just not how it works. Lyrics are highly inflammatory, prejudicial,
and subject to misinterpretation and mischaracterization. I would say it's
almost insulting to the art form to suggest that anybody
with a limited knowledge or experience with rap music would
(15:32):
just naturally understand all of these things. It's much more
complex than that, and it's really it's reverence to the
genre to acknowledge that it is as sophisticated and complex
as it is.
Speaker 7 (15:45):
So the short.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Answer is no.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
The whole issue is a lightning rod for criticism, a
softball for anyone who wants to declare discrimination or in fairness.
It's why Michael Carlson, Executive District Attorney in Fulton County,
is eager to challenge a song that the use of
lyrics in court only impacts black artists and rap music specifically.
Speaker 12 (16:06):
There are scores of cases from around the country, some
of them under state anti gang laws. Were white supremacist
groups and members have been prosecuted, and the lyrics not
necessarily of what they created, but just of what they
listened to. Was introduced against them, and it's interesting that
(16:31):
those cases don't seem to make it into the conversation.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
Although when we asked which other musical genres had been
examined in these cases, what.
Speaker 12 (16:41):
The particular background was to that type of music, I'd
have to go back and check the case law.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
So, given all the other evidence law enforcement claims to
have in the Wiseel indictment, why does the DA's office
even bother with lyrics? We asked Fannie Willis herself. We
assume that you must have known that the lyrical part
of this was going to be a lightning row for criticism.
But my question, I guess we should take a step back,
like did you know?
Speaker 13 (17:10):
I guess the better question is did I care? So
that's not my job is to care if criticism should come.
That's not what the people elected me for. I represent
one of the best communities in the United States of America,
and I've been telling juries that for years and I
(17:30):
mean it. And let me tell you why it's one
of the best one. It's one of the most diverse communities.
It has every ethnicity. You are allowed to come to
this county that I live in, and you are allowed
to be of any sexuality. There is opportunity in Atlanta.
(17:50):
You know, we're the city of Hope right here that
is just not present other places.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
And let me just talk to you as a black woman.
Speaker 13 (17:58):
It is the mecca of opportunity, unity right here in Atlanta.
That's worth salvaging and saving. And so I am not
going to allow people, no matter who they are, to
come into this community to not be held responsible and
to commit crime.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
And so if you.
Speaker 13 (18:15):
Ask me, if I make decisions because someone criticizes me
doing everything that I can to keep this community safe,
I have to be honest with you, I don't really care.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Okay, so the DA isn't worried about the criticism, But
what's the actual value in using lyrics in a gang trial?
The short answer is it's another tool in the toolbox,
and the District Attorney's office will use whatever legal tools
it has it its disposal to prosecute gangs. In fact,
Assistant District Attorney Chris Berry goes as far as saying,
(18:48):
because it's legal, it would be a miscarriage of justice
not to use them.
Speaker 14 (18:53):
Can I look a family member in the eye and
say that I did absolutely everything for their loved one?
Who is victim of a crime, and I'm not going
to go ahead and look the other way on potential
party admissions in relation to that crime.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Because that office is in Georgia, that toolbox is well equipped.
We mentioned before that Michael Carlson helps write the state's
current gang law, which he boasts is among the most
powerful in the United States, and he says there are
three basic criteria in Georgia for admitting lyrics as evidence.
Speaker 12 (19:25):
First, where the lyric forms the crime itself, and that
would be in the case of a threat. Secondly, where
the lyric demonstrates proof of an underlying crime where the
person is perhaps admitting to doing something. And three where
the lyric demonstrates something about the person's state of mind
(19:46):
related to the crime.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Chuck d of Public Enemy is famously called rep Black
America's TV Station. That sentiment has been rephrased several times over,
eventually evolving to Black America's CNN. The distinction to be
made there is that while rap has this reputation for
being autobiographical, the music could also serve as a broader
cultural commentary Reportage Willis says that she understands this distinction
(20:13):
as well.
Speaker 13 (20:15):
If you listen to my playlist, it's got rap music.
Now I'm old. Now I'll admit it. I'm listening to
Drake and jay Z and shoot, I'm still listening to NWA.
So I like the classics.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
I enjoy that music.
Speaker 13 (20:29):
And I don't want to say that just because someone
is making music, even if they're telling stories of their environment,
that that is a connection, because we can certainly tell
the stories.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
But she says that she can also distinguish reportage from
a true threat.
Speaker 13 (20:46):
This becomes the problem me and you got beef, and
I make a song with the purpose of intimidating you,
and then I carry it out.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
It's fair game. I'm gonna use it.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Several people from Atlanta Police and the DA's offices say
lyrics are being used as true threats. Atlanta Police detective Kimberly.
Speaker 11 (21:08):
Underwood, I think if you're bragging in a song about
something that really happened, and the police know it really happened,
then I think that should be used as evidence that
on crime was committed. You're actually bragging about shooting into
somebody's personal vehicle that you know that's the type of
vehicle that this did person own, and you put this
(21:29):
in your lyrics. That's a problem that should be a
problem to the family, like just like you rubbing it in.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Atlanta Police investigator Marissa Viverrito, who was in the room
with little Woody during his interrogation.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
It's another layer of victimization.
Speaker 15 (21:45):
Like I've spoken to families where they're just distraught or
enraged that the crime committed against their loved one is
being used for profit and it's stuff that maybe we
didn't catch and the family says to you, oh, have
you heard this like this is and it's just like heartbreaking.
I couldn't matter if something happened to one of my
loved ones, and to hear that over and over and
hear somebody bragging about it in such a public form
and just so flagrantly.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
Cara Convrey runs Georgia's new statewide Gang Prosecution Office. She's
a former prosecutor in Fulton County who's worked alongside and
then under Fannie Willis before moving to the state level.
She's familiar with the y cl case, and she says
there's yet another layer to the lyrics question.
Speaker 16 (22:25):
A big part of the gang culture and what is
really the currency in that world is this whole concept
of respect and disrespect, and of course pride and ego
and having the courage to put this out there, like
I'm out here doing this. Nobody can touch me to
the point where I'm not just talking about it with
my friends, like I'm putting it out here nationally, and look,
(22:46):
I have success as a result of it, because this
is how big I am. This is how untouchable I am.
I'm out here literally broadcasting evidence of these crimes and
here I am still untouchable. That's going to increase your
rank within your organization, and that's going to increase that
currency of respect. I mean, that's really everything.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
Convery believes that the way the gangs communicate with music
can lead to further recruitment and retaliation.
Speaker 16 (23:10):
Recently in Atlanta, sadly, there's been a bunch of young
kids that have been the victim of gang violence and
have associated themselves. We had a thirteen year old killed
at Atlantic Station earlier this year.
Speaker 17 (23:22):
Atlanta police arrested two teens on election Day and charged
them with murder in the shooting that occurred on seventeenth Street,
just feet away from a popular Atlantic station.
Speaker 16 (23:32):
And the response to that on social media, I mean,
his body is still out on the street, and people
are speaking and singing and putting it out there through
any medium they can the disrespect towards that set. Then
once you have this disrespect out there, there's a required
response from the other side or else all of a sudden,
you look like you don't have any respect.
Speaker 17 (23:54):
Police would not release the juvenile's names or talk about
a motive, but they have called the shooting that left
two youth dead and four others injured a gang related shooting.
Speaker 4 (24:04):
In this modern age, that true threat could end up
being as lengthy as a fifteen hundred word essay or
as brief as a tweet or even a bar or two.
Speaker 13 (24:15):
To me, one of the worst crimes that has been
committed in recent history is that massacred they did at
that grocery store where all those senior citizens were there,
and it targeted African Americans.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
She's talking about the twenty twenty two mass shooting at
a Buffalo, New York supermarket that killed ten people.
Speaker 18 (24:32):
Just moments ago, Buffalo police confirmed an eighteen year old
man opened fire at a supermarket, killing ten people and
wounding three others.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Prior to the attack, the shooter uploaded a nineteen page
document saying that he targeted black residents to undo what
has been called the Great Replacement Theory, which falsely states
that white Americans are being systemically replaced through birth, interracial marriage,
and violence by non white Americans.
Speaker 19 (25:00):
The alleged teenage gunman was planning his attack for years,
his young mind consumed with a racist, anti Semitic, and
anti immigrant messages he found on the internet.
Speaker 13 (25:10):
So often when we see crimes like that, we see manifestos. Right,
That's something that we've almost become common to know as manifestos.
Do you understand that a manifesto is a literary work,
That's all it is. It's a literary work. It is
no different than a lyric. Are you making the argument
that we should not be allowed to use that manifesto
(25:34):
to confix someone that did that crine? Because that's what
you're saying, and that's what people are saying, and they
have not took the time to step back. What I
tell you is, if you wrote a manifesto and then
did those acts, that's good evidence. There's no different because
he put a beat behind it.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
When Dina Lapoultz fo and rings in her Los Angeles
home late one Saturday night in February twenty nineteen. Her
heart sinks.
Speaker 20 (26:07):
I knew the minute she was calling me, this was
not a good call.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Shay, I've been Abraham Joseph is the rapper twenty one Savage,
and at the start of twenty nineteen, his career is
hitting new heights. The then twenty six year old scores
his first number one album and lands a guest spot
on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Performing a Lot from his number one album I Am
Greater Than I Was giving Up for twenty one Savage.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
In his song a Lot, twenty one Savage's lyrics contemplate
his biggest wins, how many Loyds You've got and losses?
Speaker 7 (26:40):
How many time you got you out of that?
Speaker 4 (26:42):
But on this particular night on the thirty Rock Stage,
he decides to add a new verse to his top
forty hit, He wraps.
Speaker 7 (26:50):
Through some things, but I can imagine my kids stuck
in the border, then a flat stale, the water thick.
It was anything Kennedy, Lord is.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
That been through some things, so I can't imagine my
care It stuck at the border, flints still need water.
People was innocent couldn't get lawyers. It's a nod to
the images that are swirling through the news at the time.
Speaker 19 (27:08):
Hundreds of people who are now facing this zero tolerance policy.
Speaker 4 (27:12):
Migrant's children being separated from their families at the US
border with Mexico during the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration.
Speaker 19 (27:19):
And the result of that is, in many cases, many
families have been separated.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
The changes to the song are so subtle and so
brief that many outlets reporting on the performance don't even
catch it or mention it. But that changes quickly and dramatically.
Speaker 20 (27:36):
I literally got tipped off, probably a week after his
performance that Ice was going to take him.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
I had advanced notice.
Speaker 20 (27:46):
It's like getting noticed that there's going to be an earthquake,
like amazing.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
By this time twenty one, Savage is back in Atlanta
for a Super Bowl weekend. The city is hosting the
Big Game and it's new two billion dollars stay and
a music fest and the days leading up to it
at State Farm Marina the next door.
Speaker 20 (28:05):
I called him and I said, sayan Ice is looking
to take you. But it was Super Bowl weekend in
Atlanta that weekend, and he was performing at the Pepsi
Arena with j Cole and he had press commitments the
next day, the super Bowl, and he really couldn't leave
because we would have some contractional issues.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has a field office not
even a mile away from the stadium complex.
Speaker 20 (28:32):
I flew a lawyer down to Atlanta who worked for me,
and I said, you know, stay with Savage. Do not
leave him until you're ready to get on the plane
Sunday after the super Bowl. And they were scheduled to
leave right after the super Bowl on Sunday.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
But it isn't exactly hard to track down a headlining
artist who was part of the city's biggest event in years.
Speaker 20 (28:54):
Saturday night at ten o'clock at night my time Pacific,
because I'm in La, you know, she called me and
I knew the minute she was calling.
Speaker 7 (29:02):
Me this was not a good call.
Speaker 20 (29:05):
And she said ICE had taken him, and thus it
began us trying to get am out of air.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
On February third, twenty nineteen twenty one, Savage is arrested
and when ICE calls a targeted operation.
Speaker 7 (29:20):
He is up for two Grammy Awards. But instead of
preparing for this moment in the spotlight.
Speaker 18 (29:24):
Wrapper twenty one Savage is in custody after he was
detained by ice.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
Here's what the rapper told Good Morning America.
Speaker 7 (29:31):
I was just driving and I just seen guns and
blue lights, and then I was in the back of
a car and I was gone.
Speaker 18 (29:37):
They felt you're under arrest, so.
Speaker 7 (29:40):
They didn't say nothing. They just said, we got Savage.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
They said we got Savage.
Speaker 18 (29:45):
Yeah, sounds like this was potentially something they set out
to do. This would have been targeted and not just
a random traffic stop.
Speaker 7 (29:53):
It was definitely targeted.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Why I set out to do that at this time
was up for debate. A huge part of rap in
general is about how artists establish and represent where they're from.
To listen to the music is to learn that NWA
straight out of Compton, Low Wayne, hails from Holly Grove
in New Orleans, and that outcas origin story begins at
the southwest Atlanta intersection of Headland and the Low.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Twenty one Savages music and origin story had been firmly
rooted in Atlanta's de Caab County, just east of Fulton.
In the twenty sixteen song No Heart, his first song
to be certified platinum, he remembers getting caught with a
pistol as a student at Stone Mountain Middle School. Yet
Ice suspected that twenty one Savage was a UK national
who entered the United States legally in two thousand and
(30:41):
five when he was twelve years old, old enough to
attend to middle school, and over state his visa when
it expired a year later.
Speaker 18 (30:47):
Many fans were stunned to learn the rapper was born
in Britain but lived in Atlanta, and.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
ICE spokesman told CNN that quote his whole public persona
is false. Twenty one Savage is held in confinement at
a South Georgia immigration detention facility.
Speaker 20 (31:02):
Also, it's important to note to Christina that the Grammys
were the following weekend.
Speaker 7 (31:08):
My Goodness and MC grammy goes too.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
He misses the schedule performance at the award show, where
the song he appears on with Childish Gambino and Young
Thug wins Record of the Year.
Speaker 7 (31:18):
This is America.
Speaker 20 (31:20):
Childish Gambino.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
Donald Glover skips the ceremony, but the song's co producer
make sure to note twenty one's absence.
Speaker 10 (31:29):
We want to thank all the rappers that are featured
on his song twenty one Savage, it should be here
tonight young Thug.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Twenty one Savage would confirm his immigration status, though he
says he wasn't twelve when he entered the country.
Speaker 7 (31:41):
I was seven when I first came here.
Speaker 21 (31:43):
I knew I wasn't born here, but I didn't know
what that meant as far as when I transition into adult,
how it was going to affect my life.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
That qualifies him as one of three and a half
million Dreamers living in the States at the time. Lapoulte
says that Ice has held his sup on twenty one
Savage for years, yet she thinks that twenty one Savage
was arrested when he was arrested because of that Tonight
Show performance. How did y'all know that lyrics were the
(32:14):
reason that he was being targeted by Ice?
Speaker 11 (32:16):
I did not know that.
Speaker 20 (32:18):
However, it's because that happened. Everything is about connection, right,
so it just was somebody was connected to that.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
Drawing that connection from his Tonight Show performance to his
arrest may seem like a stretch to some At the time,
twenty one Savage would have actually agreed with you.
Speaker 18 (32:39):
You have a line in there where you say went
through some things, but I couldn't imagine my kids stuck
at the border.
Speaker 7 (32:44):
Right?
Speaker 18 (32:44):
Do you feel like you were targeted as a result
of that basically being critical of the immigration system.
Speaker 7 (32:50):
Here, my lawyers think that, what do you think? I
don't really know.
Speaker 21 (32:56):
I can't really say. I think he's I will see
why people would think that, but I really can't say.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
What we can say is that in Georgia, twenty one
Savage's arrest sparked a much broader conversation, starting with a
phone call that Lapoult made right away to Hank Johnson.
Speaker 9 (33:12):
Greetings everyone, I'm Congressman Hank Johnson, representing Georgia's fourth congressional
district for the last This is my seventeenth year.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
A former lawyer and judge turned nine time Georgia Democratic
representative from twenty one's congressional district. Lapault asks the congressman
if you can help twenty one Savage out of jail.
Speaker 9 (33:31):
He was released on bund after being held at the
Irwin County Detention Facility in South Georgia.
Speaker 7 (33:39):
For a few days. Before he was released, She.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Also asks him to consider the larger issues at hand.
Speaker 9 (33:45):
That was thought to have been a targeting of twenty
one Savage based on his lyrics, and thus began discussions
about the need for federal legislation to protect artists for
their creative content being used against them inappropriately.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
What has since become called the RAP Act. The Restoring
Artistic Protections Act reflects a larger debate within the justice
system over bry lyrics should or shouldn't be presented as
evidence in criminal cases, and in Georgia, as twenty one
Savages frequent collaborator Young Thug gets taken to trial on
the basis of his own lyrics, that debate has gotten
(34:28):
louder between those at the District Attorney's office.
Speaker 12 (34:32):
There are several statutes out there that have been proposed
around the country that say, well, we want to carve
out a special rule to exclude this sort of evidence. Well,
if a special rule is needed to exclude a certain
type of evidence, well isn't that an admission in ways
that the current structure allows it in?
Speaker 1 (34:51):
And those who are pushing back against such historic precedents
on Capitol Hill.
Speaker 22 (34:56):
Look, there has been a very strategic, deliberate plan on
how young black men, young Black America is portrayed in
mass media. That narrative of criminals guilt before innocence. There
has been something that, through mass media, has been a
(35:18):
jacket that Black America has worn for a very long time.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
In this country.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
Willie Stiggers, an artist manager better known as Prophet, spend
childhood summers with his father in Scottsdale, Georgia. He has
since lived in Atlanta for eighteen years. But he's from
the South Bronx, where the birth of hip hop became
a necessary outlet to diffuse gain violence. You can tell
that Prophet is from the South Bronx not just from
(35:43):
his voice, but from his ability to trace the lineage
of a single rap lyric from Biggie Small's and Bedstye
to Ti and Bankhead jay Z.
Speaker 22 (35:53):
He say, when I said big verse, I'm only bigging
up my brother. I'm big enough to do it. I'm
at tholl plus, I know my whole flow is foolish.
On them rings and things you sing about, bring them out.
It's hard to yell when the barrels in your mouth.
Speaker 5 (36:05):
Right.
Speaker 22 (36:06):
That was a Biggie lyric that jay Z then incorporated
too his song. Then Swiss Beats takes that sample of
Jay's voice and incorporate that into a beat that becomes
the hook with one of TI's biggest records. Bring them out,
Bring them out. It's hard to yell when the barrels
in your mouth. So who's going to jail for the
(36:26):
battle of someone's mouth?
Speaker 7 (36:27):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Ti?
Speaker 4 (36:29):
Is it?
Speaker 5 (36:29):
Is it?
Speaker 7 (36:29):
Biggie?
Speaker 5 (36:30):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Jay Z.
Speaker 4 (36:31):
Prophet has also been an advocate for hip hop since
he was a teenager. In nineteen ninety three, when Reverin
Calvin Butts the Third was trying to steamroll CDs and
cassettes in front of his church in Harlem, pushing back
against rap's explicit content we will not.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Stand for the viral, ugly long rhyme.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
A Prophet who was an aspiring artist himself stood up
to the steamroller to stop it.
Speaker 22 (36:57):
I remember telling Reverend Buts, you know these are your
sons and daughters, your nephews and nieces that you're steamrolling here.
These are their dreams.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
What are you doing today? The artist manager is still
asking hard questions. Prophet is also co founder and co
chair of the Black Music Action Coalition or b MAC,
which advocates for racial justice issues in music.
Speaker 22 (37:20):
It came our attention about over five hundred cases where
black men were being prosecuted for lyrics, so that prompted
b mac one hour executive board members Diana La Poe
to write an op ed, and that op ed.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Went Why that op ed was for Variety Magazine. On
a judicial opinion found in December twenty twenty, Maryland's Court
of Appeals have just upheld rap lyrics as quote substantive
evidence of a defendant's guilt when the lyrics bear a
close nexus to the details of an alleged crime. And
the basis of this opinion was Lawrence Montague versus State
(37:59):
of Maryland.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Lawrence Montacue is wanted an Annapolis plase.
Speaker 5 (38:02):
Montague shot and killed George Foster last week on Newtown Drive.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
A two thousand dollars reward is being offered for information
leading to his arrest. Lawrence Montague had been indicted for
the twenty seventeen shooting death of George Forrester in a
botched drug deal. During his trial, a jail house recording
of Montague rapping a verse including the words I'll give
you a dream a couple shots snitch, became grounds for
sentencing him to a combined fifty years in prison. Lapolte
(38:31):
wrote that the Maryland decision set a dangerous president, but
the responses she received suggested that there were antecedent events too.
Speaker 20 (38:40):
Everybody contacted me, I mean, oh my god, Ben Crump, Okay,
the renown seed rights attorney, college professors that had been
working on this issue for years and years and years,
defense attorneys from all over the country.
Speaker 4 (38:58):
B Mack brought these people together to craft legislation that
would rein in this problem. Profit remembers how researchers identified
over five hundred cases, and he remembers reading some of
these cases himself, thinking this.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Is fucked up.
Speaker 22 (39:13):
As I began to read some of these cases where
you know, in one instance, the judge allowed lyrics to
be read in the courtroom and it wasn't even from
the person that was being prosecuted, and it was to
paint and illustrate a narrative. And some of these guys
had like two hundred views, so they wasn't even like artists,
(39:33):
for no disrespect, everyone's an artists at heart, but like
to categorize it like rap artists. And some of these guys,
you know, emerging to say the best and there was
no other physical evidence, and I'm like, what whoa WHOA?
Speaker 1 (39:46):
WHOA, WHOA, what are we doing here?
Speaker 4 (39:48):
In twenty twenty two, the New York Senate passed the
Rap Music on trialbilm.
Speaker 18 (39:52):
Jay Z, one of several artists teaming up to block
rap lyrics from being used in court.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
That's the act or Artists like ja Z, Meek Mill,
and Killer Mike signed a letter of support. That same year,
Governor Gavin Newsom signed the Decriminalizing Artistic Expression Act into
California law.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Bill this band's prosecutors from using an artist's lyrics and
music videos against them in court unless they can prove
it directly is relevant.
Speaker 4 (40:18):
To the case, but the working group realized that it
help set a federal precedent. Lapoult suggested that Congressman Hank
Johnson introduce that president back when twenty one Savage was arrested,
and to.
Speaker 9 (40:28):
Be quite frank with you, I took a while to
really think and ponder about the legal implications of her request,
and I didn't act until probably a year later.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
But once he did start drafting that legislation, it felt
like a good fit for him and his legacy as
a politician.
Speaker 9 (40:48):
As I get older, I get more conservative, and I
have to fight that sometimes It takes me a little
while to get over the urge to be safe, the
urge to the law in order, urge to be traditional,
the urge to not push the envelope.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
And so, in July twenty twenty two, in an effort
to continue pushing that envelope, Hank Johnson introduced the Wrap
Act to Congress, and in April twenty twenty three, he
reintroduced the Wrap Act.
Speaker 23 (41:21):
This legislation is a common sense measure that is long overdue.
For too long, artists have been unfairly targeted by prosecutors
who use their lyrics as evidence of guilt, even though
there's no evidence that the lyrics are anything more than
just simply creative expression.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Well, this time, he's backed by about two dozen supporters
in front of the Capitol Building, including three hundred Entertainment
CEO Kevin Lyles and wearing sunglasses and a magic Navy tracksuit,
profit a frontline advocate, just as he was in New York.
Speaker 22 (41:56):
My argument, then, is the argument now that when I
listen to certain rap music through I like everything I hear,
absolutely not. But what I hate is the reality that
a lot of that music is representing. So I need
to address those I need to address policies to address
(42:16):
povity that leads to criminal behavior. I need to address
policy that leads to the lack of education, the lack
of healthcare, the lack of housing, the lack of opportunity
and access that creates these pathways for destruction that many
young black folk have to walk down. So you change
those conditions, then you change lyrics. So for me, I
(42:39):
can't stop at telling an artist change the lyrics, change
what you see when the.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Reality is that that shit is real.
Speaker 22 (42:46):
It's happening, like kids are not even kids are getting shot,
like these things are happening, women are being these values.
We are living in a society in which these things
are in fact happening. Yes, these are reflections society. It
grew out of his social injustice of being disenfranchised.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
It is where the culture came from. We should be
clear that the Rap Act would not repeat, would not
(43:25):
bar the use of lyrics hypothetically of any genre in
core cases outright. Neither would California's new law, or even
the new law in Louisiana, which happens to be mac Phipps'
home state and the second in the country to enact
limitations we checked. The list of exception to the RAP
Act's rule is if a lyric is literal and can
(43:45):
be explicitly connected to a crime, then yes, it can
be introduced as evidence to a jury.
Speaker 20 (43:52):
Does the expression specifically refer to the alleged crime that
was a factor? Was the expression specifically refers to the
relevant facts that are in dispute?
Speaker 4 (44:04):
You know?
Speaker 20 (44:04):
Another element is the expression the only evidence available to
demonstrate facts.
Speaker 4 (44:12):
The RAP Act would require a private hearing between prosecutors
and defense attorneys where a judge would make the final
call and whether those lyrics are indeed relevant to the case,
or whether those lyrics are quote creative and artistic expression
and therefore barred from being presented as evidence. Lyrics that
simply speak to a criminal mindset Georgia's third and final
(44:34):
criteria for its use in cases. Would it make the cut?
Here's Congressman Hank Johnson.
Speaker 9 (44:39):
You just can't bring it in to show just a
general state of mind. A prosecutor would have to show
that the creative content is relevant and related to the
specific facts which the accused is charged with. And so
(44:59):
that way you don't just get rap lyrics or creative
content introduced into evidence against an artist, just to show
the bent of mind or the motive of a rapper
or of a defendant.
Speaker 4 (45:17):
To be even more specific, we ask Congressman Johnson how
a judge would respond if a prosecutor presented a rap
lyric as a manifesto. In the words of Fannie Willis.
Speaker 9 (45:27):
Well, it depends on the circumstances. You would have to
show to the judge certain prerequisites before introducing it as evidence.
And that's what the rap Act seeks to do, is
to put in some guardrails whenever a prosecutor seeks to
(45:48):
introduce creative content into evidence against a rapper. Now a manifesto,
Let's say Ted Kaczynski wrote a manifesto on uh, you know,
industrial industrialization and its impact on social behavior and and
(46:09):
you know and humanity. Uh, that's one thing I wouldn't
call that scholarly manifesto creative content, so that that's like
mixing apples and oranges.
Speaker 4 (46:26):
Because those guardrails do not exist in Georgia law. Lyrics
are already impacting the YSL trial. That starts with how
the trial as a whole is being covered. We have
profit to think for this moment of self awareness, like
I think there's been a.
Speaker 22 (46:40):
Lot of focus on lyrics and and and and why
and this is my thing, even how al the media
address it. You know, Young Thug on trial. Jeffrey Williams
is on trial, so your Kitchens was on trial. Okay,
but but this this the narrative from the day one
(47:01):
was pushing his rap rap because you was trying to
demonize the culture.
Speaker 1 (47:07):
Okay.
Speaker 22 (47:08):
Young Thug, as great as he is, do not represent
the totality of hip hop or rappers.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
But that's what you do when you put that forth.
Speaker 5 (47:24):
Judge, he is dangerous. I normally don't do this, but
I don't hesitate in this case. I implore you not
to fret him a bond. Respectfully, Judge, I believe if
you give him a bond, we're going to have more
witnesses in danger or going to be missing.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
I believe he's that dangerous. Judge, thank you.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
At the end of that ten hour hearing on June second,
twenty twenty two, Judge Hero Glanville denies Young Thug bond.
He cites evidence presented to the court that said Young
Thug was the leader of a gang and a danger
to gang members and their fan families. It's impossible to
know how Lyrics impacted his decision that time or the
three other times Young Thug was denied bond. Prosecutors say
(48:14):
that they have volumes of evidence to prove that YSL
has been operating as a criminal street gang. They've told
us that their case does not rely entirely upon Lyrics. Instead,
they have recorded jailhouse phone calls, witnesses, phone company recordspinging
from cell phone towers that place some of the defendants
phones at the time and place of murders, police bodycam
(48:37):
footage from the scenes of arrests. But those volumes of evidence,
the most substantive proof that YSL Lyrics were in fact
true threats, won't be presented until the trial officially begins,
which leaves tax paying citizens like you, me and profit
to sit with ideas about how Young Thug's reputation as
a rap artist should precede him during how the rest
(49:00):
of the YSL case will that up. I mean, I
haven't seen physical evidence, because they're not going to show
anybody physical evidence untill they do. Thing Like, my understanding
is that they've got a lot of evidence.
Speaker 22 (49:09):
Do see a lot of evidence? I mean, okay, let's
see let's get this, Let's get the party started.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
Leave the coach out of it. If you got if
you have all of this evidence.
Speaker 22 (49:18):
Leave rap out of it. Great, you shall have a
slam dunk. Here we are two years later. You're gonna
let half the people out of jail. You talking about
you got wow avidence. Come on, knock it off. I'm sorry,
I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (49:30):
We don't know when we'll be able to see that
physical evidence for ourselves, but one thing we do know
is that every single perspective juror in this trial sits
through a full reading of the YSL indictment read by
Judge UROL. Clanville.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
Hey, this is that slim shit.
Speaker 22 (49:45):
Hey, YSL shit, Hey killing twelve shit, Hey fuck I
jail shit?
Speaker 4 (49:52):
Hey, an indictment that features lyrics from twelve songs. A
rapper who is famous for his nearly indecipherable style suddenly
critiqued for every unclear syllable.
Speaker 22 (50:02):
Hey, I'm gonna put a whole slime of one hundred
lips slime or get slime.
Speaker 4 (50:11):
But young thug doesn't even wrap some of the lyrics
attributed to him.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
Mister Williams got into a.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Beef.
Speaker 5 (50:17):
If you will with another rapper by the name of
Raysheawn Bennett, also known as Wyth and Lucci. At some
point Lucci's mother was shot at and the song comes
out with bad Boy that says, Uh, you.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
Better watch the way you breathe around me for that
breath be your last.
Speaker 4 (50:37):
Boy that's wrapped by the late Chicago wrapper Juice World.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
So is this one Smith and Wesson forty five put
a hole in his heart? Better not played with me? Killers,
stay with me?
Speaker 4 (51:00):
Given the stakes, who said what matters?
Speaker 1 (51:04):
Courts want to interpret lyrics literally when the music is
thrived off double meaning in the reuse of beats and
phrases and sentiments over and over throughout its fifty year history,
which makes subjecting lyrics to a legal process so fraught.
Everybody gets pissed off because we want to interpret the
lyrics the way we want to interpret them, either as
(51:26):
a war cry on the streets of South Atlantic calling
for violence, or a news report set to music telling
a story that happens even when no one is listening.
Speaker 4 (51:38):
As of this taping, the jury selection process for the
Yasoul trial has finally reached the stage known as warder
to determine whether prospective jurors could be unbiased enough to
serve on this trial. We saw the list of over
two hundred and fifty questions that prospective jurors were being asked,
including do you listen to hip hop or rap? Are
you familiar with the rapper's wife and Lucci Young Thuh
(52:00):
Gunner or Birdman?
Speaker 1 (52:02):
How much attention do you pay to the lyrics?
Speaker 4 (52:04):
And do you believe rap lyrics are usually autobiographical?
Speaker 1 (52:07):
That last question is a direct quote. It's also the
hardest one to answer. The court is asking jurors and
us to make up our minds about that is rap real?
And it speaks to the question Fanny Willis presented to us.
Should rap lyrics be considered a manifesto? We wanted to
know prophets answer to.
Speaker 4 (52:28):
That question, and to quote Fannie Willis, the better question
might have been whether he cared.
Speaker 22 (52:34):
Again, Fanny, We are saying to limit the use of lyrics.
You can use them a connection with other evidence.
Speaker 1 (52:45):
I think this shit is clear.
Speaker 22 (52:47):
But how about the fact that all this other evidence
that you say that you know about or harry about
the fact that she talking about the manifesto here? You
have yet to tell us where's the evidence though all
of this where it could be it could it be
or not be? Where are the guns, the witnesses, the
(53:07):
the forensic experts, where are the fingerprints, where the where's.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
The cop shit? Where's the cop work at? And where's
the detective homicide?
Speaker 7 (53:16):
The ship?
Speaker 22 (53:16):
We don't watch it on TV all our lives. Where's
some of that shit? That right, that's what we're looking for.
You got that, do your thing. But if you think
you're gonna use a cheat code of a lyric, it
didn't come with this manifesto. Bullshit, you're tripping use it,
but bring the physical evidence with that and now we could.
Speaker 1 (53:33):
Talk next time on King Slime.
Speaker 7 (53:41):
The judge said, you know, get this filled out of
my courtroom. You'll never see the light of day. You'll
never see the.
Speaker 1 (53:47):
Light of day.
Speaker 22 (53:48):
You don't need concealed carriers permit to move around the
landing with guns anymore, Sonwii, and everybody's just walking freely
with pistols with arshould be for disaster.
Speaker 7 (54:01):
Does it concern you at all?
Speaker 4 (54:02):
The unconvicted men's lives may be at risk?
Speaker 7 (54:06):
Am I concerned?
Speaker 1 (54:07):
Yes? I saw this social media freak out of oh
my y'ad.
Speaker 7 (54:13):
They're gonna go after a little baby.
Speaker 1 (54:15):
Or something like that, or name your rapper. There was
this whole moment where there was a Who's next conversation?
Should rappers be looking around?
Speaker 4 (54:24):
Like?
Speaker 1 (54:25):
Are they coming for me? King Slime is a production
of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 4 (54:33):
And Airboom Media, written and produced by George Cheaty, Christina Lee,
and Tommy Andres.
Speaker 1 (54:39):
Mixing sound design and original music by Evan Tyer and
Taylor's are Coin.
Speaker 4 (54:44):
The executive producer and editor is Tommy Andres.
Speaker 1 (54:47):
Fact checking by King Lena Lynch.
Speaker 4 (54:49):
Our theme music is by Dunn.
Speaker 1 (54:51):
Deal Special thanks to Carl Catle and to.
Speaker 4 (54:54):
The Alanta News outlets eleven Alive, WSBTV and Lanta News
First and Box five.
Speaker 1 (55:01):
For more shows from iHeart Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Kingslime is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Heirloom Media.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Can you do me a favor and give the Somber Court.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Educate the Somber Court on who you are.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Your background the court may not be familiar Joan.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
I'm a fifty four year old father for I'm kind
of emotional because how good this guy is.
Speaker 4 (00:24):
It's June second, twenty twenty two, three weeks after Young
Thug's arrest. His defense attorney Brian Steele, is trying to
demonstrate that Young Thug is a charitable person and a meaningful,
positive contributor to Atlanta and the music industry. He's brought
in three hundred entertainment CEO Kevin Lyles.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
I've also started a company with Jeffrey called Youngstone Life.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
And I remember what he said to me. We're not
just starting a company, We're.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Gonna change some lives. And that's what he's done, and
he's definitely changed mine.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Well. This is part of Young thugs first bond hearing.
It's when the defense argues its client is not a
flight or safety risk, but he deserves a chance to
pay bail and be released from jail while his trial
is carried out.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
Lyle says he will financially back Young Thugs Bond and
even help the rapper pay for a dozen off duty
police officers to supervise home confinement if he's released, a
cost that could creep into the millions.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I want to back him personally and professionally.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
After Steel is done making his case, then prosecutor Don
Gary steps up and starts his argument in an Atlanta
trial against one of the biggest hip hop stars in
the world by making reference to an old, dead news
radio host who started his career during the dust Bowl.
Speaker 5 (01:46):
Jeje, I'm going to rely on the statement of age
to say that.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I'm about to have a Paul Harvey moment.
Speaker 5 (01:54):
We're sitting here and you got the song and dance,
but now you're about to get the rest of the story.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
The bond hearing is in some ways a condensed version
of the trial itself. There's no seated jury, but the
prosecution is trying to convince the judge that Jeffrey Williams
is too dangerous to walk among the public, that he
needs to remain in jail or people could get hurt,
could even die.
Speaker 5 (02:18):
What I can tell the court is mister Williams is
the head of YSL, and the y S doesn't stand
for stoner, it stands for slime.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
It's young slime. Wife.
Speaker 5 (02:28):
Judge, this gang and I call it that because that's
what it is by definition of Georgia law. This criminal
street gang pre existed the label record, so as a spinoff,
he used YSIL again and substituted one of the words.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
Over the course of forty minutes, Gary lays out his case.
He talks about drugs and weapons being found in Young
Thug's home when he was arrested.
Speaker 5 (02:54):
Judge, there was a sought off shotgun or sought off
illegal dangerous weapon.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
He highlights Young thugs alleged connection to the death of
Donovan Thomas.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
It's the state's contention that the car used in that
murder was a car rented personally by mister Williams just
days before.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
And he leans on intel law enforcement claims to have
gathered from sources.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
Judge, I will also say that we have taken proffers
from fellow gang members from mister Williams. Some are on
this indictment, some are not. They have stated uniformally that
mister Williams is dangerous, They are afraid of him, that
if they cross him, he will kill.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Them and their family.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
Then Gary scoffs at the defense is offered to cover
the cost of a supervision.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
Mister Williams is said in his songs, it's all about
the money and there's no difference.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
That's exactly what it was today.
Speaker 5 (03:45):
It was I've got money, I can I can pay
for whatever you want me to.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Not a subtle slight is the first time Gary mentions
Young thugs lyrics in this hearing, but it's far from
the last. He starts pulling from the indictment, attempting to
demonstrate that Young Thug's own music provides evidence of his
criminal activity and character.
Speaker 5 (04:07):
Act nine on four twenty fourteen. It is a song.
The name is EWW.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
The name is actually Ill or sometimes Ill. Young Thug
released this song nearly a decade ago to build off
the hype he saw firm initial hits like Stoner and
Gary hones in on the song's final verse and.
Speaker 5 (04:28):
In it, basically the defendant says all I ever wanted
was the money. Basically, if you mess with me, you
go into a wheelchair. That's what that one says.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
Gary continues, the next one.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
Is going to be Act sixty of the indictment, which
is on three twenty five sixteen. It is a music
video entitled slime Shit and it talks about why sl
shit kill him well Ship twelve being a if mission
for police officers, fuck a Jao shit In that song
(05:07):
it goes again, fuck the police, fuck the Joe.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Geary sites more songs at one one.
Speaker 5 (05:17):
On four sixteen of twenty one, there's a video released
called Ski Ski with lyrics stating, I fuck with slats,
slacks being basic slang life forever we come to eat rats.
I came with some buranas Runner on Act ninety seven.
From nine to sixteen nineteen, mister Williams post a video.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Called just how it Is.
Speaker 5 (05:42):
There were lyrics in that one as well, and it said,
uh last n word tried me almost got popped at Lennox.
Asked the cops, asked the detectives. They know all the business,
asked the cops and the detective all the jurisdictions. Gave
the lawyer close to two mills a killers.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
He handles all the killings my business.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
We know to kill the biggest cats of all the kittens.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
We've known the kid our biggest cats of wild kiddies.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
Gary even connects a Young Thug song to a shooting
incident or Wife and Lucci's mother was hitting the leg.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
You're on Acts seventy eight from one fifteen to nineteen uh.
It's a video called bad Boy. Now understand. At a point,
mister Williams got.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Into a.
Speaker 5 (06:31):
Beef if you Will with another rapper by the name
of Rayshawn Bennett, also known as Wife and Lucci. At
some point Lucci's mother was shot at, and the song
comes out with bad Boy that says, you better watch
the way you breathe around me, for that breath be
your last. Boy Smith and Wesson forty five put a
(06:54):
hole in his heart. Better not play with me killers,
stay with me. I shot at his mommy. Now he
no longer mentioned me, that he no longer missed me again.
We believe that mister Williams doesn't sing about random theoretical acts.
He sings about gang acts that he's a part of
(07:15):
or his gang participates in.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Finally, Gary uses Young Thugs words to lay out the
prosecution's overarching theory. This next song is Anybody. His second
collaboration with Nicki Minaj.
Speaker 5 (07:29):
Acts seventy four is a music video on four twelve eighteen,
where mister Williams states or sings, I never kill.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Anybody, but I guess I'm doing it bad. But I
got something to do with that audist. And as would
be our.
Speaker 5 (07:45):
Position is that as the leader of this criminal street gang,
mister Williams probably has never killed anybody. I don't know
that to be true or not, but he probably gets
others do it for him.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
As as we understand the evidence, Judge.
Speaker 5 (07:59):
Judge, mister Williams essentially is everybody else is a follower.
There are leaders, we said, mister Kitchens, mister Greer, they
are also leaders. But the leader, the top doll, the
most dangerous man here is Jeffrey Williams because he doesn't
have to get.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
His hands dirty. He has others to do his business.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Gary argues that the man who calls himself King Slime
in records, who Gana calls King Slime, and who even
Drake knows to call King the slime, there is also
a king pin.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
This is the most of them. This is the one.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
That you see the shadow in the back of the room.
He's the one directing traffic. He is the one that
we're all afraid of. He's the one that's king slime.
He's pulling the shots.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
I'm Christina Lee and I'm George Chety. This says, indeed
king slime.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
The prosecution of Young Thug and Ysell.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Using lyrics in a criminal case rubs a lot of
people the wrong way. On the stand of that first
bond hearing, Young Thug's business partner, Kevin Lyles offered a
familiar critique.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
I've been fighting this battle for over forty years.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
It's not new, and it's funny.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
How were the number one music in the world now?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Anyone to bring this back up. We don't argue.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
About movies or other genres of music that talk about
I ran them over in my truck, or I got
drunk and I went and shot them.
Speaker 7 (09:56):
We don't bring.
Speaker 6 (09:58):
Those things to quip, but quote unquote our music.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
We been on trout and we constantly on trout about
who we are, what we.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Are, and nobody gave us nothing. The argument goes, Johnny
Cash didn't get arrested for singing I shot a man
in Reno just to watch him die. Bob Marley didn't
go to jail for bellowing out that he shot the sheriff.
But not the deputy, and Freddie Mercury didn't have to
worry about being prosecuted for the second verse of Bohemian Rhapsody,
(10:28):
Mama just killed a man, put a gun against his head,
pulled my trigger. Now he's dead. At this point, the
decades long debate Overwrapp being on trial, these are cliches.
They're easy points in which should be a hard conversation,
and they distract from the much more nuanced debate that
needs to happen. Virtually everyone we spoke with about lyrics said,
(10:53):
we believe there's a place for their use in prosecution
when their actual evidence of a crime. It's not that
prosecutors quote an artist's lyrics, it's how.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
There are extreme cases where lyrics have been used to
achieve nightmarish results, the most egregious perhaps being the case
of Mac Phipps, a twenty two year old rapper with
no criminal record who was wrongfully convicted by all white
jury on a manslaughter charge in Louisiana in two thousand
and one. Phipps spent twenty one years in prison for
(11:26):
a crime he didn't commit. Shoddy police work and coerced
witness testimony were a big part of the conviction and
without any physical evidence, prosecutors recited the lyrics of one
of Phipps's songs in court, or at least where prosecutors
wanted that jury to hear from phipps lyrics the hook
from Murder, Murder, Kill Kill, and what's actually a misquote
(11:50):
from his song shell shocked, He'll give you a bullet
in the brain, not i'le he is phips Dad, known
as Big Mac. Phipps lyrics were in part a reference
to Big Mack's experiences as a Vietnam War soldier. Stripped
of its context, the lyric implied something about phipps character
(12:12):
that simply had no facts to back it up.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
On top of the lack of evidence, someone else confessed
to the crime. Nevertheless, Phipps was locked up, and since
his release in twenty twenty.
Speaker 8 (12:25):
One, McKinley Phipps Junior could be released from prison soon.
This week, the former No Limit rapper received a letter
from Governor John Bell Edwards, who granted him clemency after
serving more than two decades from manslaughter.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
The now forty six year old has become the poster
child for how courts can wrongfully interpret artistic expression as
an outright confession and for how rap lyrics in particular
can introduce racial bias into a trial.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
In a study from nineteen ninety nine, lyrics by the
Kingson Trio, a folk and pop group, were presented to
one group as rap music and the other as country music.
The first group who believed the Kingston Trio lyrics were
rap lyrics were far more likely to believe that the
lyrics would incite violence and require regulation. That said, he
was conducted again in twenty sixteen, but this time they
(13:16):
also presented lyrics from a Boy named Sue by Johnny Cash. Specifically,
they included this excerpt that goes quote.
Speaker 5 (13:24):
I hit him hard, rot between the eyes, and he
went down.
Speaker 9 (13:27):
With my surprise.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
He come up with a knife and cut off a
piece of my ear. But I busted a chair right
across his.
Speaker 5 (13:35):
Teeth and through the wall and into the street, kicking
on a godget and the mud and the blood.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
And the beer.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
Despite how mainstream rap had become, how rap had essentially
become the new pop music, the results were damn near
the same. Those who believed a Boy Named Sue was
rap music had evaluated the song far more negatively. Adam
Dunbar helped conduct the twenty sixteen study. He also appeared
at the Fulton County Courthouse in April twenty twenty three,
(14:04):
called by the defense in an attempt to qualify him
for testimony in the Wisel trial.
Speaker 10 (14:09):
When the lyrics were represented as rap music compared to
country or having medaled, participants view the songwriter as having.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
A worse character and greater criminal propensity.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
There is also an entire book about the use of
lyrics and prosecution rap on Trial Race Lyrics and Guilt
in America. It features a foreword by Atlanta artist Killer Mike.
One of the book's co authors, Eric Nielsen, has also
appeared at the Fulton County Corehouse as a potential witness.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Doctor Nielsen, good happening, Sure, come on up to the
witness stands, surf you wouldn't mind.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
When Prosecutor Adrian love Cross examined him, she essentially wondered
why a rap expert like Nielsen would be necessary. She
wondered why a jury shouldn't be able to take lyrics
literally at face value.
Speaker 11 (14:58):
Would it matter to you that this is something anyone
just simply listening to rap.
Speaker 7 (15:05):
Music would be able to figure out? On their own.
Speaker 10 (15:09):
Unfortunately, no, and that's kind of the entire point of
my book and a lot of my research is that's
just not how it works. Lyrics are highly inflammatory, prejudicial,
and subject to misinterpretation and mischaracterization. I would say it's
almost insulting to the art form to suggest that anybody
with a limited knowledge or experience with rap music would
(15:32):
just naturally understand all of these things. It's much more
complex than that, and it's really it's reverence to the
genre to acknowledge that it is as sophisticated and complex
as it is.
Speaker 7 (15:45):
So the short.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Answer is no.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
The whole issue is a lightning rod for criticism, a
softball for anyone who wants to declare discrimination or in fairness.
It's why Michael Carlson, Executive District Attorney in Fulton County,
is eager to challenge a song that the use of
lyrics in court only impacts black artists and rap music specifically.
Speaker 12 (16:06):
There are scores of cases from around the country, some
of them under state anti gang laws. Were white supremacist
groups and members have been prosecuted, and the lyrics not
necessarily of what they created, but just of what they
listened to. Was introduced against them, and it's interesting that
(16:31):
those cases don't seem to make it into the conversation.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
Although when we asked which other musical genres had been
examined in these cases, what.
Speaker 12 (16:41):
The particular background was to that type of music, I'd
have to go back and check the case law.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
So, given all the other evidence law enforcement claims to
have in the Wiseel indictment, why does the DA's office
even bother with lyrics? We asked Fannie Willis herself. We
assume that you must have known that the lyrical part
of this was going to be a lightning row for criticism.
But my question, I guess we should take a step back,
like did you know?
Speaker 13 (17:10):
I guess the better question is did I care? So
that's not my job is to care if criticism should come.
That's not what the people elected me for. I represent
one of the best communities in the United States of America,
and I've been telling juries that for years and I
(17:30):
mean it. And let me tell you why it's one
of the best one. It's one of the most diverse communities.
It has every ethnicity. You are allowed to come to
this county that I live in, and you are allowed
to be of any sexuality. There is opportunity in Atlanta.
(17:50):
You know, we're the city of Hope right here that
is just not present other places.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
And let me just talk to you as a black woman.
Speaker 13 (17:58):
It is the mecca of opportunity, unity right here in Atlanta.
That's worth salvaging and saving. And so I am not
going to allow people, no matter who they are, to
come into this community to not be held responsible and
to commit crime.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
And so if you.
Speaker 13 (18:15):
Ask me, if I make decisions because someone criticizes me
doing everything that I can to keep this community safe,
I have to be honest with you, I don't really care.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Okay, so the DA isn't worried about the criticism, But
what's the actual value in using lyrics in a gang trial?
The short answer is it's another tool in the toolbox,
and the District Attorney's office will use whatever legal tools
it has it its disposal to prosecute gangs. In fact,
Assistant District Attorney Chris Berry goes as far as saying,
(18:48):
because it's legal, it would be a miscarriage of justice
not to use them.
Speaker 14 (18:53):
Can I look a family member in the eye and
say that I did absolutely everything for their loved one?
Who is victim of a crime, and I'm not going
to go ahead and look the other way on potential
party admissions in relation to that crime.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Because that office is in Georgia, that toolbox is well equipped.
We mentioned before that Michael Carlson helps write the state's
current gang law, which he boasts is among the most
powerful in the United States, and he says there are
three basic criteria in Georgia for admitting lyrics as evidence.
Speaker 12 (19:25):
First, where the lyric forms the crime itself, and that
would be in the case of a threat. Secondly, where
the lyric demonstrates proof of an underlying crime where the
person is perhaps admitting to doing something. And three where
the lyric demonstrates something about the person's state of mind
(19:46):
related to the crime.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Chuck d of Public Enemy is famously called rep Black
America's TV Station. That sentiment has been rephrased several times over,
eventually evolving to Black America's CNN. The distinction to be
made there is that while rap has this reputation for
being autobiographical, the music could also serve as a broader
cultural commentary Reportage Willis says that she understands this distinction
(20:13):
as well.
Speaker 13 (20:15):
If you listen to my playlist, it's got rap music.
Now I'm old. Now I'll admit it. I'm listening to
Drake and jay Z and shoot, I'm still listening to NWA.
So I like the classics.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
I enjoy that music.
Speaker 13 (20:29):
And I don't want to say that just because someone
is making music, even if they're telling stories of their environment,
that that is a connection, because we can certainly tell
the stories.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
But she says that she can also distinguish reportage from
a true threat.
Speaker 13 (20:46):
This becomes the problem me and you got beef, and
I make a song with the purpose of intimidating you,
and then I carry it out.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
It's fair game. I'm gonna use it.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Several people from Atlanta Police and the DA's offices say
lyrics are being used as true threats. Atlanta Police detective Kimberly.
Speaker 11 (21:08):
Underwood, I think if you're bragging in a song about
something that really happened, and the police know it really happened,
then I think that should be used as evidence that
on crime was committed. You're actually bragging about shooting into
somebody's personal vehicle that you know that's the type of
vehicle that this did person own, and you put this
(21:29):
in your lyrics. That's a problem that should be a
problem to the family, like just like you rubbing it in.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Atlanta Police investigator Marissa Viverrito, who was in the room
with little Woody during his interrogation.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
It's another layer of victimization.
Speaker 15 (21:45):
Like I've spoken to families where they're just distraught or
enraged that the crime committed against their loved one is
being used for profit and it's stuff that maybe we
didn't catch and the family says to you, oh, have
you heard this like this is and it's just like heartbreaking.
I couldn't matter if something happened to one of my
loved ones, and to hear that over and over and
hear somebody bragging about it in such a public form
and just so flagrantly.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
Cara Convrey runs Georgia's new statewide Gang Prosecution Office. She's
a former prosecutor in Fulton County who's worked alongside and
then under Fannie Willis before moving to the state level.
She's familiar with the y cl case, and she says
there's yet another layer to the lyrics question.
Speaker 16 (22:25):
A big part of the gang culture and what is
really the currency in that world is this whole concept
of respect and disrespect, and of course pride and ego
and having the courage to put this out there, like
I'm out here doing this. Nobody can touch me to
the point where I'm not just talking about it with
my friends, like I'm putting it out here nationally, and look,
(22:46):
I have success as a result of it, because this
is how big I am. This is how untouchable I am.
I'm out here literally broadcasting evidence of these crimes and
here I am still untouchable. That's going to increase your
rank within your organization, and that's going to increase that
currency of respect. I mean, that's really everything.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
Convery believes that the way the gangs communicate with music
can lead to further recruitment and retaliation.
Speaker 16 (23:10):
Recently in Atlanta, sadly, there's been a bunch of young
kids that have been the victim of gang violence and
have associated themselves. We had a thirteen year old killed
at Atlantic Station earlier this year.
Speaker 17 (23:22):
Atlanta police arrested two teens on election Day and charged
them with murder in the shooting that occurred on seventeenth Street,
just feet away from a popular Atlantic station.
Speaker 16 (23:32):
And the response to that on social media, I mean,
his body is still out on the street, and people
are speaking and singing and putting it out there through
any medium they can the disrespect towards that set. Then
once you have this disrespect out there, there's a required
response from the other side or else all of a sudden,
you look like you don't have any respect.
Speaker 17 (23:54):
Police would not release the juvenile's names or talk about
a motive, but they have called the shooting that left
two youth dead and four others injured a gang related shooting.
Speaker 4 (24:04):
In this modern age, that true threat could end up
being as lengthy as a fifteen hundred word essay or
as brief as a tweet or even a bar or two.
Speaker 13 (24:15):
To me, one of the worst crimes that has been
committed in recent history is that massacred they did at
that grocery store where all those senior citizens were there,
and it targeted African Americans.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
She's talking about the twenty twenty two mass shooting at
a Buffalo, New York supermarket that killed ten people.
Speaker 18 (24:32):
Just moments ago, Buffalo police confirmed an eighteen year old
man opened fire at a supermarket, killing ten people and
wounding three others.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Prior to the attack, the shooter uploaded a nineteen page
document saying that he targeted black residents to undo what
has been called the Great Replacement Theory, which falsely states
that white Americans are being systemically replaced through birth, interracial marriage,
and violence by non white Americans.
Speaker 19 (25:00):
The alleged teenage gunman was planning his attack for years,
his young mind consumed with a racist, anti Semitic, and
anti immigrant messages he found on the internet.
Speaker 13 (25:10):
So often when we see crimes like that, we see manifestos. Right,
That's something that we've almost become common to know as manifestos.
Do you understand that a manifesto is a literary work,
That's all it is. It's a literary work. It is
no different than a lyric. Are you making the argument
that we should not be allowed to use that manifesto
(25:34):
to confix someone that did that crine? Because that's what
you're saying, and that's what people are saying, and they
have not took the time to step back. What I
tell you is, if you wrote a manifesto and then
did those acts, that's good evidence. There's no different because
he put a beat behind it.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
When Dina Lapoultz fo and rings in her Los Angeles
home late one Saturday night in February twenty nineteen. Her
heart sinks.
Speaker 20 (26:07):
I knew the minute she was calling me, this was
not a good call.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Shay, I've been Abraham Joseph is the rapper twenty one Savage,
and at the start of twenty nineteen, his career is
hitting new heights. The then twenty six year old scores
his first number one album and lands a guest spot
on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Performing a Lot from his number one album I Am
Greater Than I Was giving Up for twenty one Savage.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
In his song a Lot, twenty one Savage's lyrics contemplate
his biggest wins, how many Loyds You've got and losses?
Speaker 7 (26:40):
How many time you got you out of that?
Speaker 4 (26:42):
But on this particular night on the thirty Rock Stage,
he decides to add a new verse to his top
forty hit, He wraps.
Speaker 7 (26:50):
Through some things, but I can imagine my kids stuck
in the border, then a flat stale, the water thick.
It was anything Kennedy, Lord is.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
That been through some things, so I can't imagine my
care It stuck at the border, flints still need water.
People was innocent couldn't get lawyers. It's a nod to
the images that are swirling through the news at the time.
Speaker 19 (27:08):
Hundreds of people who are now facing this zero tolerance policy.
Speaker 4 (27:12):
Migrant's children being separated from their families at the US
border with Mexico during the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration.
Speaker 19 (27:19):
And the result of that is, in many cases, many
families have been separated.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
The changes to the song are so subtle and so
brief that many outlets reporting on the performance don't even
catch it or mention it. But that changes quickly and dramatically.
Speaker 20 (27:36):
I literally got tipped off, probably a week after his
performance that Ice was going to take him.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
I had advanced notice.
Speaker 20 (27:46):
It's like getting noticed that there's going to be an earthquake,
like amazing.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
By this time twenty one, Savage is back in Atlanta
for a Super Bowl weekend. The city is hosting the
Big Game and it's new two billion dollars stay and
a music fest and the days leading up to it
at State Farm Marina the next door.
Speaker 20 (28:05):
I called him and I said, sayan Ice is looking
to take you. But it was Super Bowl weekend in
Atlanta that weekend, and he was performing at the Pepsi
Arena with j Cole and he had press commitments the
next day, the super Bowl, and he really couldn't leave
because we would have some contractional issues.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has a field office not
even a mile away from the stadium complex.
Speaker 20 (28:32):
I flew a lawyer down to Atlanta who worked for me,
and I said, you know, stay with Savage. Do not
leave him until you're ready to get on the plane
Sunday after the super Bowl. And they were scheduled to
leave right after the super Bowl on Sunday.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
But it isn't exactly hard to track down a headlining
artist who was part of the city's biggest event in years.
Speaker 20 (28:54):
Saturday night at ten o'clock at night my time Pacific,
because I'm in La, you know, she called me and
I knew the minute she was calling.
Speaker 7 (29:02):
Me this was not a good call.
Speaker 20 (29:05):
And she said ICE had taken him, and thus it
began us trying to get am out of air.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
On February third, twenty nineteen twenty one, Savage is arrested
and when ICE calls a targeted operation.
Speaker 7 (29:20):
He is up for two Grammy Awards. But instead of
preparing for this moment in the spotlight.
Speaker 18 (29:24):
Wrapper twenty one Savage is in custody after he was
detained by ice.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
Here's what the rapper told Good Morning America.
Speaker 7 (29:31):
I was just driving and I just seen guns and
blue lights, and then I was in the back of
a car and I was gone.
Speaker 18 (29:37):
They felt you're under arrest, so.
Speaker 7 (29:40):
They didn't say nothing. They just said, we got Savage.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
They said we got Savage.
Speaker 18 (29:45):
Yeah, sounds like this was potentially something they set out
to do. This would have been targeted and not just
a random traffic stop.
Speaker 7 (29:53):
It was definitely targeted.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Why I set out to do that at this time
was up for debate. A huge part of rap in
general is about how artists establish and represent where they're from.
To listen to the music is to learn that NWA
straight out of Compton, Low Wayne, hails from Holly Grove
in New Orleans, and that outcas origin story begins at
the southwest Atlanta intersection of Headland and the Low.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Twenty one Savages music and origin story had been firmly
rooted in Atlanta's de Caab County, just east of Fulton.
In the twenty sixteen song No Heart, his first song
to be certified platinum, he remembers getting caught with a
pistol as a student at Stone Mountain Middle School. Yet
Ice suspected that twenty one Savage was a UK national
who entered the United States legally in two thousand and
(30:41):
five when he was twelve years old, old enough to
attend to middle school, and over state his visa when
it expired a year later.
Speaker 18 (30:47):
Many fans were stunned to learn the rapper was born
in Britain but lived in Atlanta, and.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
ICE spokesman told CNN that quote his whole public persona
is false. Twenty one Savage is held in confinement at
a South Georgia immigration detention facility.
Speaker 20 (31:02):
Also, it's important to note to Christina that the Grammys
were the following weekend.
Speaker 7 (31:08):
My Goodness and MC grammy goes too.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
He misses the schedule performance at the award show, where
the song he appears on with Childish Gambino and Young
Thug wins Record of the Year.
Speaker 7 (31:18):
This is America.
Speaker 20 (31:20):
Childish Gambino.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
Donald Glover skips the ceremony, but the song's co producer
make sure to note twenty one's absence.
Speaker 10 (31:29):
We want to thank all the rappers that are featured
on his song twenty one Savage, it should be here
tonight young Thug.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Twenty one Savage would confirm his immigration status, though he
says he wasn't twelve when he entered the country.
Speaker 7 (31:41):
I was seven when I first came here.
Speaker 21 (31:43):
I knew I wasn't born here, but I didn't know
what that meant as far as when I transition into adult,
how it was going to affect my life.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
That qualifies him as one of three and a half
million Dreamers living in the States at the time. Lapoulte
says that Ice has held his sup on twenty one
Savage for years, yet she thinks that twenty one Savage
was arrested when he was arrested because of that Tonight
Show performance. How did y'all know that lyrics were the
(32:14):
reason that he was being targeted by Ice?
Speaker 11 (32:16):
I did not know that.
Speaker 20 (32:18):
However, it's because that happened. Everything is about connection, right,
so it just was somebody was connected to that.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
Drawing that connection from his Tonight Show performance to his
arrest may seem like a stretch to some At the time,
twenty one Savage would have actually agreed with you.
Speaker 18 (32:39):
You have a line in there where you say went
through some things, but I couldn't imagine my kids stuck
at the border.
Speaker 7 (32:44):
Right?
Speaker 18 (32:44):
Do you feel like you were targeted as a result
of that basically being critical of the immigration system.
Speaker 7 (32:50):
Here, my lawyers think that, what do you think? I
don't really know.
Speaker 21 (32:56):
I can't really say. I think he's I will see
why people would think that, but I really can't say.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
What we can say is that in Georgia, twenty one
Savage's arrest sparked a much broader conversation, starting with a
phone call that Lapoult made right away to Hank Johnson.
Speaker 9 (33:12):
Greetings everyone, I'm Congressman Hank Johnson, representing Georgia's fourth congressional
district for the last This is my seventeenth year.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
A former lawyer and judge turned nine time Georgia Democratic
representative from twenty one's congressional district. Lapault asks the congressman
if you can help twenty one Savage out of jail.
Speaker 9 (33:31):
He was released on bund after being held at the
Irwin County Detention Facility in South Georgia.
Speaker 7 (33:39):
For a few days. Before he was released, She.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Also asks him to consider the larger issues at hand.
Speaker 9 (33:45):
That was thought to have been a targeting of twenty
one Savage based on his lyrics, and thus began discussions
about the need for federal legislation to protect artists for
their creative content being used against them inappropriately.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
What has since become called the RAP Act. The Restoring
Artistic Protections Act reflects a larger debate within the justice
system over bry lyrics should or shouldn't be presented as
evidence in criminal cases, and in Georgia, as twenty one
Savages frequent collaborator Young Thug gets taken to trial on
the basis of his own lyrics, that debate has gotten
(34:28):
louder between those at the District Attorney's office.
Speaker 12 (34:32):
There are several statutes out there that have been proposed
around the country that say, well, we want to carve
out a special rule to exclude this sort of evidence. Well,
if a special rule is needed to exclude a certain
type of evidence, well isn't that an admission in ways
that the current structure allows it in?
Speaker 1 (34:51):
And those who are pushing back against such historic precedents
on Capitol Hill.
Speaker 22 (34:56):
Look, there has been a very strategic, deliberate plan on
how young black men, young Black America is portrayed in
mass media. That narrative of criminals guilt before innocence. There
has been something that, through mass media, has been a
(35:18):
jacket that Black America has worn for a very long time.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
In this country.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
Willie Stiggers, an artist manager better known as Prophet, spend
childhood summers with his father in Scottsdale, Georgia. He has
since lived in Atlanta for eighteen years. But he's from
the South Bronx, where the birth of hip hop became
a necessary outlet to diffuse gain violence. You can tell
that Prophet is from the South Bronx not just from
(35:43):
his voice, but from his ability to trace the lineage
of a single rap lyric from Biggie Small's and Bedstye
to Ti and Bankhead jay Z.
Speaker 22 (35:53):
He say, when I said big verse, I'm only bigging
up my brother. I'm big enough to do it. I'm
at tholl plus, I know my whole flow is foolish.
On them rings and things you sing about, bring them out.
It's hard to yell when the barrels in your mouth.
Speaker 5 (36:05):
Right.
Speaker 22 (36:06):
That was a Biggie lyric that jay Z then incorporated
too his song. Then Swiss Beats takes that sample of
Jay's voice and incorporate that into a beat that becomes
the hook with one of TI's biggest records. Bring them out,
Bring them out. It's hard to yell when the barrels
in your mouth. So who's going to jail for the
(36:26):
battle of someone's mouth?
Speaker 7 (36:27):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Ti?
Speaker 4 (36:29):
Is it?
Speaker 5 (36:29):
Is it?
Speaker 7 (36:29):
Biggie?
Speaker 5 (36:30):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Jay Z.
Speaker 4 (36:31):
Prophet has also been an advocate for hip hop since
he was a teenager. In nineteen ninety three, when Reverin
Calvin Butts the Third was trying to steamroll CDs and
cassettes in front of his church in Harlem, pushing back
against rap's explicit content we will not.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Stand for the viral, ugly long rhyme.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
A Prophet who was an aspiring artist himself stood up
to the steamroller to stop it.
Speaker 22 (36:57):
I remember telling Reverend Buts, you know these are your
sons and daughters, your nephews and nieces that you're steamrolling here.
These are their dreams.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
What are you doing today? The artist manager is still
asking hard questions. Prophet is also co founder and co
chair of the Black Music Action Coalition or b MAC,
which advocates for racial justice issues in music.
Speaker 22 (37:20):
It came our attention about over five hundred cases where
black men were being prosecuted for lyrics, so that prompted
b mac one hour executive board members Diana La Poe
to write an op ed, and that op ed.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Went Why that op ed was for Variety Magazine. On
a judicial opinion found in December twenty twenty, Maryland's Court
of Appeals have just upheld rap lyrics as quote substantive
evidence of a defendant's guilt when the lyrics bear a
close nexus to the details of an alleged crime. And
the basis of this opinion was Lawrence Montague versus State
(37:59):
of Maryland.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Lawrence Montacue is wanted an Annapolis plase.
Speaker 5 (38:02):
Montague shot and killed George Foster last week on Newtown Drive.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
A two thousand dollars reward is being offered for information
leading to his arrest. Lawrence Montague had been indicted for
the twenty seventeen shooting death of George Forrester in a
botched drug deal. During his trial, a jail house recording
of Montague rapping a verse including the words I'll give
you a dream a couple shots snitch, became grounds for
sentencing him to a combined fifty years in prison. Lapolte
(38:31):
wrote that the Maryland decision set a dangerous president, but
the responses she received suggested that there were antecedent events too.
Speaker 20 (38:40):
Everybody contacted me, I mean, oh my god, Ben Crump, Okay,
the renown seed rights attorney, college professors that had been
working on this issue for years and years and years,
defense attorneys from all over the country.
Speaker 4 (38:58):
B Mack brought these people together to craft legislation that
would rein in this problem. Profit remembers how researchers identified
over five hundred cases, and he remembers reading some of
these cases himself, thinking this.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Is fucked up.
Speaker 22 (39:13):
As I began to read some of these cases where
you know, in one instance, the judge allowed lyrics to
be read in the courtroom and it wasn't even from
the person that was being prosecuted, and it was to
paint and illustrate a narrative. And some of these guys
had like two hundred views, so they wasn't even like artists,
(39:33):
for no disrespect, everyone's an artists at heart, but like
to categorize it like rap artists. And some of these guys,
you know, emerging to say the best and there was
no other physical evidence, and I'm like, what whoa WHOA?
Speaker 1 (39:46):
WHOA, WHOA, what are we doing here?
Speaker 4 (39:48):
In twenty twenty two, the New York Senate passed the
Rap Music on trialbilm.
Speaker 18 (39:52):
Jay Z, one of several artists teaming up to block
rap lyrics from being used in court.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
That's the act or Artists like ja Z, Meek Mill,
and Killer Mike signed a letter of support. That same year,
Governor Gavin Newsom signed the Decriminalizing Artistic Expression Act into
California law.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Bill this band's prosecutors from using an artist's lyrics and
music videos against them in court unless they can prove
it directly is relevant.
Speaker 4 (40:18):
To the case, but the working group realized that it
help set a federal precedent. Lapoult suggested that Congressman Hank
Johnson introduce that president back when twenty one Savage was arrested,
and to.
Speaker 9 (40:28):
Be quite frank with you, I took a while to
really think and ponder about the legal implications of her request,
and I didn't act until probably a year later.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
But once he did start drafting that legislation, it felt
like a good fit for him and his legacy as
a politician.
Speaker 9 (40:48):
As I get older, I get more conservative, and I
have to fight that sometimes It takes me a little
while to get over the urge to be safe, the
urge to the law in order, urge to be traditional,
the urge to not push the envelope.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
And so, in July twenty twenty two, in an effort
to continue pushing that envelope, Hank Johnson introduced the Wrap
Act to Congress, and in April twenty twenty three, he
reintroduced the Wrap Act.
Speaker 23 (41:21):
This legislation is a common sense measure that is long overdue.
For too long, artists have been unfairly targeted by prosecutors
who use their lyrics as evidence of guilt, even though
there's no evidence that the lyrics are anything more than
just simply creative expression.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Well, this time, he's backed by about two dozen supporters
in front of the Capitol Building, including three hundred Entertainment
CEO Kevin Lyles and wearing sunglasses and a magic Navy tracksuit,
profit a frontline advocate, just as he was in New York.
Speaker 22 (41:56):
My argument, then, is the argument now that when I
listen to certain rap music through I like everything I hear,
absolutely not. But what I hate is the reality that
a lot of that music is representing. So I need
to address those I need to address policies to address
(42:16):
povity that leads to criminal behavior. I need to address
policy that leads to the lack of education, the lack
of healthcare, the lack of housing, the lack of opportunity
and access that creates these pathways for destruction that many
young black folk have to walk down. So you change
those conditions, then you change lyrics. So for me, I
(42:39):
can't stop at telling an artist change the lyrics, change
what you see when the.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Reality is that that shit is real.
Speaker 22 (42:46):
It's happening, like kids are not even kids are getting shot,
like these things are happening, women are being these values.
We are living in a society in which these things
are in fact happening. Yes, these are reflections society. It
grew out of his social injustice of being disenfranchised.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
It is where the culture came from. We should be
clear that the Rap Act would not repeat, would not
(43:25):
bar the use of lyrics hypothetically of any genre in
core cases outright. Neither would California's new law, or even
the new law in Louisiana, which happens to be mac Phipps'
home state and the second in the country to enact
limitations we checked. The list of exception to the RAP
Act's rule is if a lyric is literal and can
(43:45):
be explicitly connected to a crime, then yes, it can
be introduced as evidence to a jury.
Speaker 20 (43:52):
Does the expression specifically refer to the alleged crime that
was a factor? Was the expression specifically refers to the
relevant facts that are in dispute?
Speaker 4 (44:04):
You know?
Speaker 20 (44:04):
Another element is the expression the only evidence available to
demonstrate facts.
Speaker 4 (44:12):
The RAP Act would require a private hearing between prosecutors
and defense attorneys where a judge would make the final
call and whether those lyrics are indeed relevant to the case,
or whether those lyrics are quote creative and artistic expression
and therefore barred from being presented as evidence. Lyrics that
simply speak to a criminal mindset Georgia's third and final
(44:34):
criteria for its use in cases. Would it make the cut?
Here's Congressman Hank Johnson.
Speaker 9 (44:39):
You just can't bring it in to show just a
general state of mind. A prosecutor would have to show
that the creative content is relevant and related to the
specific facts which the accused is charged with. And so
(44:59):
that way you don't just get rap lyrics or creative
content introduced into evidence against an artist, just to show
the bent of mind or the motive of a rapper
or of a defendant.
Speaker 4 (45:17):
To be even more specific, we ask Congressman Johnson how
a judge would respond if a prosecutor presented a rap
lyric as a manifesto. In the words of Fannie Willis.
Speaker 9 (45:27):
Well, it depends on the circumstances. You would have to
show to the judge certain prerequisites before introducing it as evidence.
And that's what the rap Act seeks to do, is
to put in some guardrails whenever a prosecutor seeks to
(45:48):
introduce creative content into evidence against a rapper. Now a manifesto,
Let's say Ted Kaczynski wrote a manifesto on uh, you know,
industrial industrialization and its impact on social behavior and and
(46:09):
you know and humanity. Uh, that's one thing I wouldn't
call that scholarly manifesto creative content, so that that's like
mixing apples and oranges.
Speaker 4 (46:26):
Because those guardrails do not exist in Georgia law. Lyrics
are already impacting the YSL trial. That starts with how
the trial as a whole is being covered. We have
profit to think for this moment of self awareness, like
I think there's been a.
Speaker 22 (46:40):
Lot of focus on lyrics and and and and why
and this is my thing, even how al the media
address it. You know, Young Thug on trial. Jeffrey Williams
is on trial, so your Kitchens was on trial. Okay,
but but this this the narrative from the day one
(47:01):
was pushing his rap rap because you was trying to
demonize the culture.
Speaker 1 (47:07):
Okay.
Speaker 22 (47:08):
Young Thug, as great as he is, do not represent
the totality of hip hop or rappers.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
But that's what you do when you put that forth.
Speaker 5 (47:24):
Judge, he is dangerous. I normally don't do this, but
I don't hesitate in this case. I implore you not
to fret him a bond. Respectfully, Judge, I believe if
you give him a bond, we're going to have more
witnesses in danger or going to be missing.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
I believe he's that dangerous. Judge, thank you.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
At the end of that ten hour hearing on June second,
twenty twenty two, Judge Hero Glanville denies Young Thug bond.
He cites evidence presented to the court that said Young
Thug was the leader of a gang and a danger
to gang members and their fan families. It's impossible to
know how Lyrics impacted his decision that time or the
three other times Young Thug was denied bond. Prosecutors say
(48:14):
that they have volumes of evidence to prove that YSL
has been operating as a criminal street gang. They've told
us that their case does not rely entirely upon Lyrics. Instead,
they have recorded jailhouse phone calls, witnesses, phone company recordspinging
from cell phone towers that place some of the defendants
phones at the time and place of murders, police bodycam
(48:37):
footage from the scenes of arrests. But those volumes of evidence,
the most substantive proof that YSL Lyrics were in fact
true threats, won't be presented until the trial officially begins,
which leaves tax paying citizens like you, me and profit
to sit with ideas about how Young Thug's reputation as
a rap artist should precede him during how the rest
(49:00):
of the YSL case will that up. I mean, I
haven't seen physical evidence, because they're not going to show
anybody physical evidence untill they do. Thing Like, my understanding
is that they've got a lot of evidence.
Speaker 22 (49:09):
Do see a lot of evidence? I mean, okay, let's
see let's get this, Let's get the party started.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
Leave the coach out of it. If you got if
you have all of this evidence.
Speaker 22 (49:18):
Leave rap out of it. Great, you shall have a
slam dunk. Here we are two years later. You're gonna
let half the people out of jail. You talking about
you got wow avidence. Come on, knock it off. I'm sorry,
I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (49:30):
We don't know when we'll be able to see that
physical evidence for ourselves, but one thing we do know
is that every single perspective juror in this trial sits
through a full reading of the YSL indictment read by
Judge UROL. Clanville.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
Hey, this is that slim shit.
Speaker 22 (49:45):
Hey, YSL shit, Hey killing twelve shit, Hey fuck I
jail shit?
Speaker 4 (49:52):
Hey, an indictment that features lyrics from twelve songs. A
rapper who is famous for his nearly indecipherable style suddenly
critiqued for every unclear syllable.
Speaker 22 (50:02):
Hey, I'm gonna put a whole slime of one hundred
lips slime or get slime.
Speaker 4 (50:11):
But young thug doesn't even wrap some of the lyrics
attributed to him.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
Mister Williams got into a.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Beef.
Speaker 5 (50:17):
If you will with another rapper by the name of
Raysheawn Bennett, also known as Wyth and Lucci. At some
point Lucci's mother was shot at and the song comes
out with bad Boy that says, Uh, you.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
Better watch the way you breathe around me for that
breath be your last.
Speaker 4 (50:37):
Boy that's wrapped by the late Chicago wrapper Juice World.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
So is this one Smith and Wesson forty five put
a hole in his heart? Better not played with me? Killers,
stay with me?
Speaker 4 (51:00):
Given the stakes, who said what matters?
Speaker 1 (51:04):
Courts want to interpret lyrics literally when the music is
thrived off double meaning in the reuse of beats and
phrases and sentiments over and over throughout its fifty year history,
which makes subjecting lyrics to a legal process so fraught.
Everybody gets pissed off because we want to interpret the
lyrics the way we want to interpret them, either as
(51:26):
a war cry on the streets of South Atlantic calling
for violence, or a news report set to music telling
a story that happens even when no one is listening.
Speaker 4 (51:38):
As of this taping, the jury selection process for the
Yasoul trial has finally reached the stage known as warder
to determine whether prospective jurors could be unbiased enough to
serve on this trial. We saw the list of over
two hundred and fifty questions that prospective jurors were being asked,
including do you listen to hip hop or rap? Are
you familiar with the rapper's wife and Lucci Young Thuh
(52:00):
Gunner or Birdman?
Speaker 1 (52:02):
How much attention do you pay to the lyrics?
Speaker 4 (52:04):
And do you believe rap lyrics are usually autobiographical?
Speaker 1 (52:07):
That last question is a direct quote. It's also the
hardest one to answer. The court is asking jurors and
us to make up our minds about that is rap real?
And it speaks to the question Fanny Willis presented to us.
Should rap lyrics be considered a manifesto? We wanted to
know prophets answer to.
Speaker 4 (52:28):
That question, and to quote Fannie Willis, the better question
might have been whether he cared.
Speaker 22 (52:34):
Again, Fanny, We are saying to limit the use of lyrics.
You can use them a connection with other evidence.
Speaker 1 (52:45):
I think this shit is clear.
Speaker 22 (52:47):
But how about the fact that all this other evidence
that you say that you know about or harry about
the fact that she talking about the manifesto here? You
have yet to tell us where's the evidence though all
of this where it could be it could it be
or not be? Where are the guns, the witnesses, the
(53:07):
the forensic experts, where are the fingerprints, where the where's.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
The cop shit? Where's the cop work at? And where's
the detective homicide?
Speaker 7 (53:16):
The ship?
Speaker 22 (53:16):
We don't watch it on TV all our lives. Where's
some of that shit? That right, that's what we're looking for.
You got that, do your thing. But if you think
you're gonna use a cheat code of a lyric, it
didn't come with this manifesto. Bullshit, you're tripping use it,
but bring the physical evidence with that and now we could.
Speaker 1 (53:33):
Talk next time on King Slime.
Speaker 7 (53:41):
The judge said, you know, get this filled out of
my courtroom. You'll never see the light of day. You'll
never see the.
Speaker 1 (53:47):
Light of day.
Speaker 22 (53:48):
You don't need concealed carriers permit to move around the
landing with guns anymore, Sonwii, and everybody's just walking freely
with pistols with arshould be for disaster.
Speaker 7 (54:01):
Does it concern you at all?
Speaker 4 (54:02):
The unconvicted men's lives may be at risk?
Speaker 7 (54:06):
Am I concerned?
Speaker 1 (54:07):
Yes? I saw this social media freak out of oh
my y'ad.
Speaker 7 (54:13):
They're gonna go after a little baby.
Speaker 1 (54:15):
Or something like that, or name your rapper. There was
this whole moment where there was a Who's next conversation?
Should rappers be looking around?
Speaker 4 (54:24):
Like?
Speaker 1 (54:25):
Are they coming for me? King Slime is a production
of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 4 (54:33):
And Airboom Media, written and produced by George Cheaty, Christina Lee,
and Tommy Andres.
Speaker 1 (54:39):
Mixing sound design and original music by Evan Tyer and
Taylor's are Coin.
Speaker 4 (54:44):
The executive producer and editor is Tommy Andres.
Speaker 1 (54:47):
Fact checking by King Lena Lynch.
Speaker 4 (54:49):
Our theme music is by Dunn.
Speaker 1 (54:51):
Deal Special thanks to Carl Catle and to.
Speaker 4 (54:54):
The Alanta News outlets eleven Alive, WSBTV and Lanta News
First and Box five.
Speaker 1 (55:01):
For more shows from iHeart Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.