Mac shell shocked album trial#
Rap on Trial is required reading for anyone who cares about justice and racial equity.” -Robin D.G. “An illuminating, powerful, and disturbing exposé of how hip hop’s often raw, fantastical lyrics are taken out of context to criminalize black and brown youth. It provides not only a rousing call to action but also a compelling blueprint for necessary change.” -Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness “ Rap on Trial offers captivating insight on how police, prosecutors, and judges silence and penalize Black music artists. It’s a gripping, timely exploration at the crossroads of contemporary hip hop and mass incarceration. Rap on Trial places this disturbing practice in the context of hip hop history and exposes what’s at stake. No other form of creative expression is treated this way in the courts. Now, an alarming number of aspiring rappers are imprisoned. Detectives have reopened cold cases on account of rap lyrics and videos alone, and prosecutors have secured convictions by presenting such lyrics and videos of rappers as autobiography.
Over the last three decades, as rap became increasingly popular, prosecutors saw an opportunity: they could present the sometimes violent, crime-laden lyrics of amateur rappers as confessions to crimes, threats of violence, evidence of gang affiliation, or revelations of criminal motive-and judges and juries would go along with it. And his case is just one of many nationwide. Mac was sentenced to thirty years in prison, where he remains. Yet in 2001, a rapper named Mac whose music had gained national recognition was convicted of manslaughter after the prosecutor quoted liberally from his album Shell Shocked. Should Johnny Cash have been charged with murder after he sang, “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die”? Few would seriously subscribe to this notion of justice.