Use of rap lyrics in criminal court cases to be debated in House of Lords this week

The use of rap lyrics as evidence by criminal prosecutors in the UK to prove gang association will be debated in the House of Lords this week.

Prosecutors are currently able to use lyrics and even appearances in music videos as evidence of gang activity and criminality in court cases, which campaign group Art Not Evidence claims "unfairly targets Black people" and "limits creative expression".

Read this next: Art Not Evidence share spoken word film opposing use of rap lyrics in court cases

Tabled by Baroness Shami Chakrabarti, with support from Baroness Doreen Lawrence, peers will debate an amendment to the Victims and Courts Bill, which would render lyrics "inadmissible" in court, unless they are “literal, rather than figurative or fictional”.

“We’re in a ridiculous position at present where somebody’s musical taste is somehow probative of their criminal intent," Baroness Chakrabarti told The Guardian. "It is like saying that my love of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather makes me a mobster. It’s extraordinary.”

Read this next: Giggs urges support for Art Not Evidence campaign to end the use of rap lyrics in court

Speaking on the use of lyrics within the amendment, Baroness Chakrabarti added: “It has to be very limited and it has to be particular to the facts of the case and not just a general interest in this music, which somehow demonstrates a general proclivity to dishonesty or violence." 

According to The Guardian, Chakrabarti is also calling for changes to how trials use witnesses in the use of rap music in court cases, who she claims are often “retired police officers enjoying a nice little side hustle as independent experts on rap and drill, which is where something that is abusive becomes positively absurd.”

[Via: The Guardian]

Megan Townsend is Mixmag's Deputy Editor, follow her on X