Rappers need to realize that if they have one foot in the streets, every rhyme they recite is being listened to by law enforcement. Who needs a wiretap when you’re using a megaphone?

In 1998, I was a college student and aspiring emcee. I’d been performing all over the Washington, D.C., area. Most of all, I was deeply in love with hip-hop. Any opportunity to be near it, I took. Whether it was with nerdy white kids who had nostalgia for the era of b-boys and park jams that they missed or with working-class Black kids who related to the street side of hip-hop, I wanted to be there. I hung around college radio stations from early evenings until the sun came up. I would often rather bob my head to a new 12” single from an up-and-coming artist than hang out with my girlfriend. I read The Source for all the latest hip-hop news and imagined being a part of the friendships, the beefs, the groupies, and the money that came with the industry. In 1998, one piece of back page news was about a mid-level West Coast rapper C-Bo. You all may recognize the name from Tupac’s classic hit “War Stories.”  That year C-Bo, whose government name is Shawn Thomas, was arrested for performing gangsta rap lyrics. The terms of C-Bo’s parole required that he not make lyrics that “promote the gang lifestyle” or are “anti-law enforcement.” I recall being disturbed by his arrest. A judge in Ohio eventually gave the rapper probation, provided he performed a Public Service Announcement.

Today, rappers around the globe are finding themselves in law enforcement custody, with their lyrics being a big part of the cases made against them. A group of five emcees, called 1011, were banned from making music with violent lyrics in Great Britain. Officials have made a seemingly suspicious link between the group’s drill rap lyrics and the rise in violent crime in West London.  However, some of these indictments involve rappers admitting to actual crimes in their lyrics and videos. It’s as if criminal rappers learned nothing from the man accused of murdering Michael Jordan’s father, who was identified because he wore James Jordan’s Chicago Bulls championship ring that his son had gifted him in his homemade rap video. Today, from Fulton County, Georgia, to Boston, Massachusetts, district attorneys and federal prosecutors are using rappers' confessions on wax against them in a court of law. Boston’s NOB crew allegedly recreated murder scenes in their music videos.

Fulton County DA Fani Willis (yes, the one who is going after Trump) stated recently, “if you chose to admit to your crimes over a beat, I’m going to use it… I have some legal advice: don’t confess to crimes on rap lyrics if you do not want them used.”

I despise what happened to C-Bo. We have freedom of speech, and that constitutional right must not be infringed. You also have the right to tell on yourself, but the police have the right to listen and use your unprovoked confessions. We all remember Fat Joe’s ominous warning to Tekashi 69 that “they’re watching.” Rappers need to realize that if they have one foot in the streets, every rhyme they recite is being listened to by law enforcement. Who needs a wiretap when you’re using a megaphone? I can’t feel pity when you commit serious crimes and rat on yourself.