Seven years ago, middle of the day in Newport News, Virginia, and someone starts shooting. When local police arrived at the scene, they found two young victims. A twenty year-old was laying near death ...

At its core, rap music and hip-hop as a culture is rough, rugged and raw, and this is mainly due to it being born in hardscrabble conditions, where fighting to survive is a way of life. When ...

The first time Erik Nielson testified in the trial of an aspiring rapper, it was nearly a decade ago in Ventura County. An Ojai Valley teen named Alex Medina had been charged with first-degree murder ...

Prosecutors' use of rap lyrics at trial has come under scrutiny. A California judge vacated the murder convictions of two Black men on Monday after ruling that prosecutors "more likely than not" ...

Some MCs give us fun turns of phrases, others rap words that we live by to this day. We use lyrics to get pumped up, to remind ourselves everything is going to be OK or simply to write captions on ...

"The portrayal of rap lyrics as literal expressions of criminal intent ignores the longstanding tradition of adopting personas, exaggeration, and hyperbole for artistic effect," writes the NJLJ Young ...

A judge ruled Thursday that rap lyrics can be admitted as evidence in the trial of alleged members of the Young Slime Life (YSL) Gang, including rapper Young Thug, a practice some critics have called ...

Atlanta-area District Attorney Fani Willis is unabashed in using rap lyrics to help prosecute her cases, repeatedly defending the practice in recent months. It’s a tactic hip-hop artists have decried ...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a landmark bill into law restricting the use of rap lyrics as evidence in court. The move, made Friday, makes California the first state to have such a law. "CA ...

Many Vietnamese rap songs feature themes like drugs or sex, largely because some artists unthinkingly imitate their western counterparts. Once considered a niche genre, Vietnamese rap has grown ...

Federal prosecutors are pushing to use Bronx drill rapper Kay Flock’s lyrics as evidence, arguing his music serves as a direct confession to violent crimes. Kay Flock could spend the rest of his life ...

A GOP political action committee put up a hard-hitting TV ad Friday attacking what it called “offensive and sexist” lyrics of a former rapper turned Democratic candidate for Congress in the Hudson ...