Crown Prosecution Service to review use of drill lyrics in criminal trials

nme.com:

Research conducted by the BBC suggests that drill music is increasingly being used as evidence in criminal trials.Nick Federici, a youth worker who is taking part in the listening exercise told BBC News about the issues.“Drill is just the youth expressing themselves. [It] doesn’t cause crime in deprived areas.

It’s poverty, it’s envy, it’s so many other things going on, underlying issues.”He went on to say that drill videos can sometimes “speed up a process” when they are loaded onto social media.

He explained: “Obviously if somebody gets on a song and calls my name out and tells me this and that, it’s going to provoke me.“I don’t believe it can start and cause violence, but it can definitely speed up a process, just through pure embarrassment.“It might make someone feel like they need to react because they’ve been spoken about on the internet.”Drill music has been used as evidence in inciting gang violence as the CPS explains and that it is only used when it is “important” and “relevant”.Earlier this month, JAY-Z, Meek Mill, Big Sean and came together to support a proposed New York state law that would limit prosecutors’ ability to use defendants’ rap lyrics as evidence of alleged crimes.As Rolling Stone reports, the rap giants added their names to a letter calling on lawmakers to pass Senate Bill S7527 – which was first revealed in November and which passed through the Senate Codes committee earlier this week – into state law.