Miami’s Rolling Loud festival calls to end using rap artists’ lyrics as evidence

Johnny Cash never faced prosecution for singing “I shot a man in Reno.” Neither did Willie Nelson for singing about shooting a woman. Nor did Ashley McBryde for singing about burying a mistress alive.

Yet there have been more than 500 indictments of Black artists based solely on their lyrics, Black Music Action Collation (BMAC) co-founder Willie “Prophet” Stiggers told the Miami Herald early Friday evening. For that reason, as the sun began to set on the grounds of Hard Rock Stadium and fans began to trickle into the first day of Miami’s hip-hop festival Rolling Loud, Stiggers — alongside festival co-founder Tariq Cherif and Congressmen Hank Johnson of Georgia and Jamaal Bowman of New York — hosted a townhall to educate attendees about the Restoring Artistic Protection Act (RAP Act).

“We have to change protests into policy,” Stiggers told the audience.

Initially introduced by the two Democratic congressmen in July 2022 and again this past April, the Rap Act is designed to guard artists from prosecutors who seek to use their lyrics against them in a court of law. The legislation is especially important now as prosecutors seek to use the lyrics of Young Thug and his Young Stoner Life (YSL) crew against them in a RICO case. In the indictment, prosecutors characterized song lyrics crafted by Young Thug and other YSL members as “overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy” to violate the RICO Act.

“Young Thug is locked up right now and I don’t like it,” Cherif said to the crowd. “I want Young Thug free. I want him back on my stage. I want the people to be able to enjoy his performances.”

“We have a social responsibility to take care of those who are being treated unfairly,” added Cherif, who sits on the board of BMAC.

As a small crowd gathered at the BMAC activation near the main entrance of the festival, the panelists talked about the importance of hip-hop and how it has grown globally. Hours later, they would take this message to the main stage, encouraging tens of thousands of people to call their legislators and encourage them to vote in favor of the RAP Act.

“Freedom of speech should not be criminalized,” Bowman told the audience. “Art should not be criminalized. Creativity should not be criminalized. And that’s what’s happening with rap across the country way more than other genres of music.”

Why this criminalization of Black creativity has persisted, says Bowman, is twofold: racism and ageism.

“It’s racism because the majority of rap artists are Black men and America is masterful at figuring out new ways to throw Black men in jail,” Bowman said. “It’s ageism because hip-hop has always been music for young people to inspire the creativity and innovation and social justice of young people. If you attack Black men and Black people and young people, you suppress any kind of revolution that could push back against our political and economic capitalist system.”

At one point in the discussion, the conversation shifted to the Florida Board of Education’s recent approval of a curriculum that, among many other things, suggests that enslaved people benefited from their bondage. Both issues deserve people to “speak up” because what may be happening to Black Americans now, could happen to anybody, Johnson explained.

“What we see in Florida is not removed from what’s happening with criminal prosecutions of people based on their creative content,” Johnson continued.

Although hip-hop was birthed from Black culture, the audience isn’t only Black Americans. The crowds of Rolling Loud attest to that, making Hard Rock Stadium the perfect place to issue a call to action, according to Johnson.

“This crowd enjoys Black culture, Black music but there’s a heavy price to pay for their entertainment,” Johnson told the Miami Herald.

Stiggers too acknowledged this, telling the audience that “this festival represents what this country can and should be.”

“We’re watching young people come together under hip-hop music,” Stiggers told the crowd. “White, Black, gay, straight, tall, short – we’re watching hip-hop unite all of us. This festival is the promise of America.”