Afroman wins defamation case over ‘Lemon Pound Cake’ raid video : NPR

A jury has sided with rapper Afroman, whose legal name is Joseph Foreman, in a defamation lawsuit brought by Ohio police who raided his home.

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

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USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

Afroman was just trying to turn lemons into “Lemon Pound Cake” when he began making music videos and social media posts mocking the law enforcement officers who conducted a brutal raid on his Ohio home.

Home surveillance video from the August 2022 raid shows a half-dozen gun-wielding law enforcement officers from the Adams County Sheriff’s Office breaking down his door, searching his CD collection, going through his suit pockets, thumbing through a wad of cash and, in one case, briefly distracted by a cake plate on the kitchen counter.

The search, suspected of drug trafficking and kidnapping, yielded no evidence or charges against the rapper, whose legal name is Joseph Foreman. But he says the officers broke his gate and surveillance cables, took $400 in cash and frightened his family. He was not home at the time, but his wife and children, then aged 10 and 12, were present.

“I asked myself, as a helpless black man in America, what can I do to the cops who broke down my door, tried to kill me in front of my children, stole my money, and unplugged my cameras?” Afroman told NPR in 2023. “And the only thing I could come up with was to do a funny rap song about them… use the money to pay for the damage they caused and move on.”

The rapper, best known for early hits like “Because I Got High” and “Crazy Rap (Colt 45 and 2 Zig-Zags),” made waves again with the 2023 release of Lemon pound cake. Its 14 songs have titles like “The Police Raid”, “Why You Disconnecting My Video Camera” and “Will You Help Me Repair My Door”, featuring home surveillance footage in the music videos.

He also posted memes and sold merchandise satirizing the incident and the people involved. Common themes range from mocking MPs’ appearance (comparing them to Family guys Peter Griffin and Quasimodo The Hunchback of Notre Dame) to more serious allegations of extramarital affairs and pedophilia among members of the department.

Afroman called his approach “the most intelligent and peaceful solution.” But sheriff’s deputies disagreed. The seven law enforcement officers sued him in 2023 for defamation and invasion of privacy, saying his unauthorized use of their likeness damaged their reputation and made it harder to do their jobs. They sought removal of the content and $3.9 million in damages.

That hasn’t stopped Afroman from releasing increasingly personal songs about the deputies involved, including one before his trial this week called “The Batteram Hymn of the Police Whistleblower.”

“They vandalized my property, my money wasn’t enough / They unplugged my cameras ’cause it’s a bad sport,” he sings, walking solemnly in a suit bearing the American flag. “They’re the predators and the victims and they’re suing me/my evidence is all over the internet.”

The three-day trial focused on heavy topics like policing and free speech, although there was no shortage of viral and sitcom-like exchanges. On Wednesday, after less than a day of deliberations, the jury squarely sided with the rapper.

“I didn’t win, America won,” Afroman, 51, told reporters outside court, dressed in his American flag-patterned suit, tie and aviators, topped with a white fur coat. “America still has freedom of speech. It’s still for the people, by the people.”

NPR reached out to the Adams County Sheriff’s Office and his attorney, but did not receive a response in time for publication.

A brief recap of a quick essay

Both sides clearly felt wronged by each other, but the main question before the jury was whether Afroman’s response to the raid counted as protected free speech. He and his lawyer argued that was the case.

“I have the right to throw a can in my backyard, to use my freedom of expression, to turn my bad times into good times,” the rapper said from the podium. “Yes, I do, and I think I’m a sport for doing it, because I don’t go to their house, I don’t break down their doors, I don’t turn them off on their surveillance cameras, and then I try to play the victim and sue them.”

He also said none of this would have happened if they hadn’t searched his house: “This is all their fault, and they’re suing me for their mistake.”

But Robert Klingler, representing the deputies, put it to the jury this way: “An execution of a search warrant that you believe is unfair … does not justify telling intentional lies intended to hurt people.” He said a verdict in their favor “would somehow make up for what they went through.”

Several law enforcement officers testified about how Afroman’s actions affected their personal and professional lives.

Shawn Cooley — the now-retired deputy who was filmed checking out the cake — said he received “hundreds of cakes at work from different people” and was even recognized by cops while working cases in other jurisdictions, in addition to members of his own community.

“A guy came out of a room after me, called me a thief and wanted to know why I stole Afroman’s money,” Cooley said. “It went from a nice, quiet community, a job where you felt safe, to a place where you had to look over your shoulder every second.”

Another, Brian Newland, said he was forced out of his “dream job” at the sheriff’s office because of Afroman’s claims he was a pedophile, which he denies. MP Lisa Phillips cried on the stand over one of Afroman’s most explicit songs that questioned her gender and sexuality.

When asked if he had seen this, Afroman acknowledged that Phillips was upset about the online trolling, “just like I was upset when she stood in front of my kids with an AR-15 in her hand around the trigger.”

“But I’m not a person, she is,” Afroman added. “So, I’m sorry to be a victim, let’s talk about predators.”

In addition to traumatizing his family and damaging his property, Afroman claimed the deputies stole money from him. They seized thousands of dollars in cash from his home, which Afroman said was payment for a concert, but returned $400 that was missing. The sheriff’s office explained the discrepancy by saying officers initially miscounted the money, for which Newland took responsibility on the stand.

The defense called only one witness: Rhonda Grooms, a teacher and ex-wife of Sheriff’s Deputy Cooley. She was asked if she and her students were familiar with Cardi B’s song “WAP,” which sparked controversy with its overtly sexual lyrics in 2020, and testified that none of them took the words literally.

Afroman’s lawyer, David Osborne, pointed to other explicit rap songs to argue that artists tend to exaggerate for the sake of it (at one point, he argued that no one listens to Lil Wayne’s song “P***y Monster” and says “there’s a monster in that song”).

He said that’s what Afroman was doing in his songs, and that many of the terms deputies found offensive were not facts but matters of opinion — like the one calling Sgt. Randy Walters is a “son of an ab***h,” which Osborne said there is no definitive way to prove or disprove.

“She’s been dead for years,” Walters replied matter-of-factly, drawing laughter and condolences from the defense attorney.

In his closing statements, Osborne highlighted rap as an established form of social commentary, saying police and public officials are constantly insulted online whether they like it or not. And he rephrased the plaintiff’s question about what a finding of liability would mean.

“What will this message send if we see that music and social commentary, while perhaps not the most tasteful things in the world, are being silenced because a public official [was] hurt?” Osborne asked.

Viral moments put the case in the public eye

Some of the trial’s most dreamlike moments took off in clips on social media: Afroman defiant in his American flag costume, deputies soberly discussing lemon pound cake, the defense attorney truncating Cardi B’s name.

Many commentators have noted that by taking the matter to court, MPs have brought it to public attention. Many noted the irony of a privacy breach case going viral online, calling it an example of the “Streisand effect” (named after Barbra Streisand’s 2003 lawsuit to remove a photo of her house from the Web that only attracted more attention).

The “Lemon Pound Cake” music video was viewed 3.8 million times on YouTube as of Thursday – and the top comments are about the trial.

“Thanks to the cops for making sure I saw this absolute bop!” reads one with over 8,000 likes.

Afroman, who said on the stand that he did about 250 shows last year, acknowledged that this attention has increased his following, which stands at nearly 600,000 on Instagram alone.

“All the publicity from the police case against me is driving my numbers up,” he said.