Document Type

Blog Post

Publication Date

9-18-2025

Abstract

Artists release music and write songs to create art, not to offer any sort of criminal confession. Yet, dating back to a 1996 criminal trial involving Snoop Dogg, artists’ lyrics have been admissible as evidence in criminal and civil trials. Most recently, rapper Young Thug, was accused of being the head of a violent gang based solely on lyrics from his songs as evidence. His case sparked nationwide controversy regarding the constitutionality of his lyrics being admitted as key evidence at trial. The rapper’s popular music collective known as “Young Stoner Life,” was posited by prosecutors to actually be a violent Atlanta gang known as “Young Slime Life.” Young Thug’s attorney proclaimed that prosecutors were “targeting the right to free speech, and that’s wrong.” To date, there have been more than 820 instances identified in which an artist’s creative works have been used in criminal trials.

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