A pair of legislators have introduced a bill that would tamp down on the decades-old practice of using rappers’ lyrics against them in court, convincing judges and juries that their music should be considered evidence, not art, Vice reports. The RAP Act, introduced by Georgia’s Hank Johnson and New York’s Jamaal Bowman, seeks to limit lyrics from being used as evidence in criminal and civil trials, amending the rules governing how evidence is used in federal court to prohibit that legal tactic, at least in large part. Exceptions included in the bill state that prosecutors could still use lyrics against a defendant if they were meant literally and if a given lyric “refers to the specific facts of the crime alleged;” is “relevant to an issue of fact that is disputed;” and “has distinct probative value not provided by other admissible evidence.”
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