A.D. Amorosi It’s good to be Ludacris. Twenty years after his first appearance in the “Fast and Furious” action-adventure franchise, 2003’s “2 Fast 2 Furious,” the Atlanta rapper and actor is set to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame the same week “Fast X” premieres. Such attention is nothing new to Chris “Ludacris” Bridges. As an artist, he’s sold more than 24 million albums worldwide since he began making music with 1999’s independent “Incognegro.” From there, it was on to a Def Jam contract and mainstream fame with such hits as “Act a Fool” and “Stand Up,” plus collaborations such as his 2004 feature alongside Lil Jon on Usher’s “Yeah!” For a guy who hasn’t made a new album since 2015, the “Dirty South” rapper is jump-starting his schedule with just-booked music gigs in Miami Beach in May, and Kevin Hart’s Hartbeat Weekend at the Resorts World Las Vegas in July. Bridges talked with Variety about his start in radio, how Timbaland discovered him, and the way that business school has helped guide him through a long career in the hip-hop game.
RAP Act returns to House floor
28.04.2023 - 14:33 / thefader.com
Last July, Reps. Hank Johnson and Jamaal Bowman (Democratic congressmen from Georgia and New York, respectively) brought a bill to the House of Representatives that would severely limit prosecutors’ ability to use rap lyrics as evidence of criminality.
If passed, the Restoring Artist Protection (RAP) Act would seal similar statewide efforts such as New York’s Rap Music On Trial bill and California’s AB 2799 into federal law, adding (per a press release issued alongside the bill’s initial introduction to Congress) “a presumption to the Federal Rules of Evidence that would limit the admissibility of evidence of an artist’s creative or artistic expression against that artist in court.” The RAP Act stagnated after a referral to the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security in November. But today (Thursday, April 27), Johnson and Bowman have reintroduced the bill, holding a press conference along with representatives of Black Music Action Coalition (BMAC), the Recording Academy, the Black Music Collective, SAG-AFTRA, and other First Amendment groups, Pitchfork reports.
In courts across America, rap lyrics are used more damningly than any art form. This long-running phenomenon returns to the national news cycle periodically and is currently experiencing renewed scrutiny due to the Georgia RICO indictment of high-profile Atlanta rappers Young Thug and Gunna along with 26 other alleged members of the Young Slime Life crew.
In a speech at today’s press conference, BMAC co-founder and chairman Willie “Prophet” Stiggers pointed to lesser-known examples of rap on trial. According to Pitchfork, Stiggers cited the cases of Derek Foster, who was convicted on drug charges in 1991 after federal prosecutors used
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