Artistry and creative license secured one decisive win for NBA Youngboy after U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner dismissed the prosecution’s motion to use his violent rap lyrics as evidence against him during his upcoming gun possession case, Rolling Stone reports.
As AllHipHop.com has reported, the 22-year-old rapper, born Kentrell Gaulden, has been on house arrest in Utah until his two-felony gun trial started.
The artist stepped into the Los Angeles federal courtroom on Tuesday (July 12th) to defend the firearm allegations against him.
The rapper was arrested in March of 2021 in Los Angeles after being arrested on an outstanding federal warrant. The cops claim they found an unregistered firearm in the rap star’s possession.
Before the lawyers selected jurors or made opening statements, both sides wanted to clear up whether or not the lyrics of some of his songs could be entered as evidence.
The state wanted to use lyrics from the chart-topper’s songs “Gunsmoke,” “Life Support,” and “Lonely Child” to connect him to “a specific FN .45 caliber pistol” and ammo that authorities believed he had on him at the time of his arrest.
NBA Youngboy’s lawyers argued, “These lyrics are highly prejudicial as they discuss hardcore rap which has been empirically established to be more negatively received than other genres of music.”
“It would be one thing if the music described this arrest. But a song referencing a similar gun well before the gun in the indictment was purchased … offer[s] very minimal probative value and [is] substantially outweighed by the prejudice contained within the words of the songs.
“Even if Mr. Gaulden is familiar with various models of guns and sings about them, it does not mean that he knew this particular gun was secreted on the passenger floor of the Maybach when police attempted to pull his car over to arrest him,” the legal team continued.
The judge sided with NBA Youngboy’s team.
This case sets a precedent for several other cases across the country that aim to use rappers’ lyrics as evidence against them.
Most recently, prosecutors in a R.I.C.O. case in Georgia want to use Young Thug and Gunna’s lyrics to connect them to criminal activity, sparking record executives Kevin Liles and Julie Greenwald to launch the Protect Black Art Petition.
This year, in May, the New York State Senate voted on and approved a bill that limits the use of lyrics as evidence by prosecutors.
The bill would require D.A.s and their teams to prove that the lyrics are about a specific event.