Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Hugh McIntyre covers music, with a focus on the global charts. Hip-hop is bigger than ever, as it’s the most-consumed genre of ...

There are almost 700 cases in which rap lyrics have been quoted in courtrooms since the 1990s, according to professor Erik Nielson, who has led the Rap on Trial project for a decade. The documented ...

SALEM — Should music, specifically rap lyrics, be considered evidence in a court of law? This is a question jurors nationally and in the Salem Superior Court are grappling with. Unique evidence in the ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about the business and law of music. Two men were convicted in federal court on Tuesday in Brooklyn of murdering Jason ...

This year marks 50 years since hip-hop began, and today, one element of the genre seems to be on trial. In recent years, many rappers — both mainstream artists and those in their mixtape era — are ...

The man accused of killing Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay can’t have his rap lyrics used against him at trial, a Brooklyn judge decided Tuesday in a ruling that doubled as a history-filled paean to hip-hop ...

No, that defendant is not former President Donald Trump (though tricky First Amendment issues swirl around his case brought by District Attorney Fani Willis’s office, as well). The defendant, Jeffery ...

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the Decriminalizing Artistic Expression Act into law on Friday. The bill will limit the use of lyrics as evidence in legal proceedings. Advocates of the bill say using lyrics ...

Opening statements for the trial of Young Thug and Young Stoner Life Records (YSL) began on Nov. 27, over a year and a half after Young Thug’s May 2022 Georgia indictment. The prosecution alleges that ...

The racial bias of courts using rap lyrics to criminalize artists of color. California is the first state to prevent courts from criminalizing Black and Brown artistic expression, after passing ...

NEW YORK (AP) — The man accused of killing Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay can’t have his rap lyrics used against him at trial, a Brooklyn judge decided Tuesday in a ruling that doubled as a history-filled ...

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — The man accused of killing Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay can’t have his rap lyrics used against him at trial, a Brooklyn judge decided Tuesday in a ruling that doubled as a history-filled ...