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A collective of lawyers, academics, activists and rappers are on a mission to fight for a fairer criminal justice system by advocating for a restriction on the use of creative and artistic expression as evidence in criminal trials. Art, including music, should be protected as a fundamental form of freedom of expression, and should not be used to unfairly implicate individuals in criminal charges.
We believe that rap music is being weaponised and criminalised in UK courts and the criminal legal system as a whole.
At the pre-charge stage, the genre has been sanctioned, for example, by the Gangs Matrix. Also known as the Trident Matrix or Gangs Violence Matrix, it was set up by the Metropolitan Police in the wake of the 2011 London riots and was only recently disbanded. People’s names were added to the matrix, based upon them being listeners of rap music or rappers. At one time, 78% of people on the matrix were Black.
Concerns were expressed in the Lammy Review (2017) about the high number of young Black men on the database – of the 3,621 names 86% were Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic (BAME) – compared with their likelihood of offending or chances of being a victim:
‘Surveillance informs both enforcement and interventions designed to divert individuals away from gang life. Both are necessary. However, care must be taken to ensure that information on such databases is accurate, up to date and used in the right way. It is not clear, for example, why the charge sheets passed by the police to the CPS detail whether or not an individual can be found on the Trident Matrix. The line between intelligence about people’s associations and evidence about their actions needs to be guarded carefully.’ (Lammy 2017)
After a successful legal challenge in 2022 from the charity Liberty, acting on behalf of musician Awate Suleiman and UNJUST UK, the Met Police agreed to remove the majority of names from the matrix and to inform those on the database (if they asked) about the data held and with whom it had been shared. In February 2024, the matrix was disbanded and replaced by an existing but adapted tool – the violence harm assessment.
Another surveillance method deployed by the Met Police is Project Alpha. Established in 2019, under this digital project officers process children’s data via social media – without their knowledge and consent – based on them being listeners of drill and rap music. This makes the genre of music you listen to a marker of criminality and monitoring.
Activists have dubbed these practices as ‘data weapons’ because they aggressively expand state surveillance efforts, exponentially increase the ability of the police and state actors to relentlessly punish and limit persons’ use of social media, and criminalise whole communities.
As part of the trial process, prosecutors have used rap videos and lyrics to aid in securing convictions, even where the music is not about, and has no specific connection to, the crime alleged. This not only creates a risk of erroneous decisions, but is also highly prejudicial and racially unjust.
Research by journalists and academics has identified nearly 70 trials across the UK between 2005 and 2021 where drill and rap was used in evidence (BBC 2021). More recently, University of Manchester research found that between 2020-23 alone, rap music was used as evidence for serious charges in 68 cases including murder, with 252 defendants having had their fate in court decided, at least in part, by their taste in music (Quinn 2024).
We also see the criminalisation of rap post-conviction through the use of criminal behaviour orders and gang injunctions. Draconian measures are placed on what rappers can say in their songs, where they can perform them, what they can wear in the music videos and with whom they can record etc. Failure to comply will lead to a prosecution.
Rappers Skengdo x AM, a hip-hop duo from South London, are the first persons in British legal history to have been handed down a suspended prison sentence for performing a song on tour. They were both prosecuted and convicted of breaching the terms of their three-year gang injunctions, i.e. not to incite violence.
The criminalisation of rap music is a human rights issue, an anti-Blackness issue and a linguistic injustice issue. Rap continues to play an important role in Black culture, Black language, youth culture and beyond:
‘It is important to emphasize that rap is an artistic expression – a form of poetry – that employs well-known literary and poetic techniques. For some, rappers represent “Black poets of the contemporary urban scene” who use music as a vehicle for telling the history of Black culture. Others have shown that rap serves as an expressive artistic outlet for a marginalized urban social bloc, and a contemporary response to joblessness, poverty, and disempowerment.’ (Smitherman 1997)
Hip-hop represents a form of Black cultural expression that ‘prioritizes Black voices from the margins of urban America’ and affirms the connections between race, culture, and status within society (Rose 1994). In fact, the emergence of rap from this hip-hop foundation – the other three core elements being breakdancing, graffiti and DJing – has led to the genre being termed an ‘act of resistance’ (Ibrahim 1999), one that allows artists to express sentiments of dissatisfaction and dissent on a global and local scale on a range of social and political issues. This is primarily because the emergence of the genre was an act of resistance in its own right. This is important contextual history from which rap as an art form needs to be viewed. Hip hop has also been found to be a powerful therapeutic tool in social, educational and clinical contexts (Hadley and Yancey 2011).
The issue is not unique to the UK. In the USA, a campaign called Protect Black Art raised the alarm bells on this normalised trend of rap’s criminalisation and made creative headway in pushing back against this injustice. On 30 September 2022 the California Senate and Assembly unanimously approved The Decriminalizing Artistic Expression Act, which restricts the use of rap lyrics as evidence in court in California.
In the UK, more can be done by lawyers during the trial process to prevent reliance on unreliable, racialised and highly prejudicial evidence. The Crown’s reliance on rap music must be challenged routinely – often, the probative value of the video and songs relied upon is very low. Rap music, like many other genres, uses fictional stories to create art and, therefore, the court cannot presume that simply because a defendant wrote/performed about certain topics, or trends that do well within that genre of music, that this rapper has actually carried out the acts of which they speak.
Another way in which rap music is weaponised across UK courtrooms is through the prosecution tying rappers’ production of music to gang membership. This places an unfair and anti-Black association with music creation and plays on lazy and problematic racial stereotypes. As Fallon McClure, Deputy Director of Policy & Advocacy, American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, said:
‘Rappers should have the same allowances for artistic expression as artists of other music genres, and they should be free to share their creative lyrics without fear of prosecution.’
Due to the lack of legal training, awareness and pushback on the issue, the Art Not Evidence campaign is seeking legal reform via new legislation with a legal test on the admissibility of creative expression as evidence. This piece of legislation will have the starting point that creative expression (including rap lyrics, videos etc) is not admissible unless the Crown proves that it is literal, of direct relevance to the case, and necessary for the court to consider. This should be assessed with consideration for the artistic and linguistic conventions of the genre, and its social and cultural context. We believe that this new legal measure will aid in building a fairer and racially equitable criminal legal system.
To join us in our desire to revitalise our criminal legal system sign our open letter at Artnotevidence.org.
Ife Thompson practises criminal defence and inquiry law at Garden Court Chambers and is an Art Not Evidence team member.
A collective of lawyers, academics, activists and rappers are on a mission to fight for a fairer criminal justice system by advocating for a restriction on the use of creative and artistic expression as evidence in criminal trials. Art, including music, should be protected as a fundamental form of freedom of expression, and should not be used to unfairly implicate individuals in criminal charges.
We believe that rap music is being weaponised and criminalised in UK courts and the criminal legal system as a whole.
At the pre-charge stage, the genre has been sanctioned, for example, by the Gangs Matrix. Also known as the Trident Matrix or Gangs Violence Matrix, it was set up by the Metropolitan Police in the wake of the 2011 London riots and was only recently disbanded. People’s names were added to the matrix, based upon them being listeners of rap music or rappers. At one time, 78% of people on the matrix were Black.
Concerns were expressed in the Lammy Review (2017) about the high number of young Black men on the database – of the 3,621 names 86% were Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic (BAME) – compared with their likelihood of offending or chances of being a victim:
‘Surveillance informs both enforcement and interventions designed to divert individuals away from gang life. Both are necessary. However, care must be taken to ensure that information on such databases is accurate, up to date and used in the right way. It is not clear, for example, why the charge sheets passed by the police to the CPS detail whether or not an individual can be found on the Trident Matrix. The line between intelligence about people’s associations and evidence about their actions needs to be guarded carefully.’ (Lammy 2017)
After a successful legal challenge in 2022 from the charity Liberty, acting on behalf of musician Awate Suleiman and UNJUST UK, the Met Police agreed to remove the majority of names from the matrix and to inform those on the database (if they asked) about the data held and with whom it had been shared. In February 2024, the matrix was disbanded and replaced by an existing but adapted tool – the violence harm assessment.
Another surveillance method deployed by the Met Police is Project Alpha. Established in 2019, under this digital project officers process children’s data via social media – without their knowledge and consent – based on them being listeners of drill and rap music. This makes the genre of music you listen to a marker of criminality and monitoring.
Activists have dubbed these practices as ‘data weapons’ because they aggressively expand state surveillance efforts, exponentially increase the ability of the police and state actors to relentlessly punish and limit persons’ use of social media, and criminalise whole communities.
As part of the trial process, prosecutors have used rap videos and lyrics to aid in securing convictions, even where the music is not about, and has no specific connection to, the crime alleged. This not only creates a risk of erroneous decisions, but is also highly prejudicial and racially unjust.
Research by journalists and academics has identified nearly 70 trials across the UK between 2005 and 2021 where drill and rap was used in evidence (BBC 2021). More recently, University of Manchester research found that between 2020-23 alone, rap music was used as evidence for serious charges in 68 cases including murder, with 252 defendants having had their fate in court decided, at least in part, by their taste in music (Quinn 2024).
We also see the criminalisation of rap post-conviction through the use of criminal behaviour orders and gang injunctions. Draconian measures are placed on what rappers can say in their songs, where they can perform them, what they can wear in the music videos and with whom they can record etc. Failure to comply will lead to a prosecution.
Rappers Skengdo x AM, a hip-hop duo from South London, are the first persons in British legal history to have been handed down a suspended prison sentence for performing a song on tour. They were both prosecuted and convicted of breaching the terms of their three-year gang injunctions, i.e. not to incite violence.
The criminalisation of rap music is a human rights issue, an anti-Blackness issue and a linguistic injustice issue. Rap continues to play an important role in Black culture, Black language, youth culture and beyond:
‘It is important to emphasize that rap is an artistic expression – a form of poetry – that employs well-known literary and poetic techniques. For some, rappers represent “Black poets of the contemporary urban scene” who use music as a vehicle for telling the history of Black culture. Others have shown that rap serves as an expressive artistic outlet for a marginalized urban social bloc, and a contemporary response to joblessness, poverty, and disempowerment.’ (Smitherman 1997)
Hip-hop represents a form of Black cultural expression that ‘prioritizes Black voices from the margins of urban America’ and affirms the connections between race, culture, and status within society (Rose 1994). In fact, the emergence of rap from this hip-hop foundation – the other three core elements being breakdancing, graffiti and DJing – has led to the genre being termed an ‘act of resistance’ (Ibrahim 1999), one that allows artists to express sentiments of dissatisfaction and dissent on a global and local scale on a range of social and political issues. This is primarily because the emergence of the genre was an act of resistance in its own right. This is important contextual history from which rap as an art form needs to be viewed. Hip hop has also been found to be a powerful therapeutic tool in social, educational and clinical contexts (Hadley and Yancey 2011).
The issue is not unique to the UK. In the USA, a campaign called Protect Black Art raised the alarm bells on this normalised trend of rap’s criminalisation and made creative headway in pushing back against this injustice. On 30 September 2022 the California Senate and Assembly unanimously approved The Decriminalizing Artistic Expression Act, which restricts the use of rap lyrics as evidence in court in California.
In the UK, more can be done by lawyers during the trial process to prevent reliance on unreliable, racialised and highly prejudicial evidence. The Crown’s reliance on rap music must be challenged routinely – often, the probative value of the video and songs relied upon is very low. Rap music, like many other genres, uses fictional stories to create art and, therefore, the court cannot presume that simply because a defendant wrote/performed about certain topics, or trends that do well within that genre of music, that this rapper has actually carried out the acts of which they speak.
Another way in which rap music is weaponised across UK courtrooms is through the prosecution tying rappers’ production of music to gang membership. This places an unfair and anti-Black association with music creation and plays on lazy and problematic racial stereotypes. As Fallon McClure, Deputy Director of Policy & Advocacy, American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, said:
‘Rappers should have the same allowances for artistic expression as artists of other music genres, and they should be free to share their creative lyrics without fear of prosecution.’
Due to the lack of legal training, awareness and pushback on the issue, the Art Not Evidence campaign is seeking legal reform via new legislation with a legal test on the admissibility of creative expression as evidence. This piece of legislation will have the starting point that creative expression (including rap lyrics, videos etc) is not admissible unless the Crown proves that it is literal, of direct relevance to the case, and necessary for the court to consider. This should be assessed with consideration for the artistic and linguistic conventions of the genre, and its social and cultural context. We believe that this new legal measure will aid in building a fairer and racially equitable criminal legal system.
To join us in our desire to revitalise our criminal legal system sign our open letter at Artnotevidence.org.
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