Column: Rap lyrics shouldn't add to rap sheet

By Frank Cerabino

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Saturday, August 01, 2009

Can you really go to prison in America for posting a song with offensive lyrics on a MySpace page?

It happened last week in Florida to Antavio Johnson, a 20-year-old Lakeland man.

A Polk County sheriff's detective found Johnson's rap song, Kill Me a Cop, on the Internet social networking site. Johnson's lyrics were a rant against the Lakeland Police Department, mentioning the jailing of one of his friends.

"Im'ma kill me a cop one day," he raps, "cause I'm tired of 'em playin' with my life."

The song mentions an officer by name, saying, "Get my timing wrong, Im'ma be puttin' one in his dome." And in another verse, it repeats those words with the name of a female SWAT officer.

Polk County detectives tracked down Johnson, who was in jail for violating his probation on a cocaine possession charge. Johnson told the detective it was an old rap he came up with when he was 16.

"He stated he felt he was harassed by those particular officers and was expressing his feeling for them at the time he recorded the song," the arrest report states. "Mr. Johnson also stated he knew he was 'dead wrong' when he recorded the song and stated he never meant for the song to be released."

A road well traveled

Prosecutors charged Johnson with two counts of "corruption by threat of a public servant" and Johnson pleaded no contest, receiving a two-year state prison sentence.

Thought police, anyone?

We've been down this road of rap lyrics before. In 1990, Ice-T wrote a rap song called Cop Killer, which was distributed by a major record label.

The song mentioned the Los Angeles police chief by name and repeated a fantasy of killing police officers:

"I got my 12-gauge sawed off / I got my headlights turned off / I'm 'bout to bust some shots off / I'm 'bout to dust some cops off."

The song created a national uproar. Warner Bros. Records rereleased the album without the song. Ice-T defended it as a protest song.

"I ain't never killed no cop," he said. "I felt like it a lot of times. But I never did it. If you believe that I'm a cop killer, you believe David Bowie is an astronaut."

Charges will just stoke anger

Ice-T was never charged with a crime. He went on to portray a gang-fighting police officer in the movie New Jack City.

Antavio Johnson's just the latest in a long line of young black men who have used rap music to express rage. It certainly wasn't pretty, clever or subtle. But songs aren't reality. They're caricatures of reality, and lyrics that talk about what might happen if certain officers "try me on the wrong day" strikes me as the typical rap bravado meant for an audience that doesn't include those allegedly threatened.

http://www.supload.com/listen?s=YBWMjl
(if you havent heard the song here it is)

this guy should just stay in Polk county jail!!!!!