Rap Music and Censorship

`DEFINITION: Style of popular music that evolved from an improvised fusion of dance music and disc jockey calls featuring electronically woven segments of songs and sounds with spoken lyrics that often describe aspects of urban life.

SIGNIFICANCE: The lyrical content of some rap songs has attracted protests from anti-obscenity, anti-violence, and anti-sexism groups.

Since the early 1980s, the style and content of rap music have alarmed many listeners. Although most rap songs deal with subjects familiar to pop music fans in general, some songs have depicted explicitly sexual or violent subjects. Many of these more controversial songs and acts have fallen under the umbrella known as “gangsta rap,” an ill-defined epithet that often excludes them from radio playlists.

Although defenders of rap music have applauded its realism and frankness, and claimed that it is an authentic expression of the experiences of disaffected youth, opponents have denounced it as an unwelcome addition to the cultural scene. Many have argued that some lyrics cross over the line of acceptable speech and qualify as obscenity.

Among the harshest critics of rap lyrics have been cultural conservatives, such as former education secretary William Bennett, who led an effort in 1996 to encourage the Time Warner corporation to divest itself of holdings in Interscope Records, a producer of “gangsta rap” records. Some public figures with more liberal leanings, such as Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and C. DeLores Tucker, head of the National Political Congress of Black Women, joined Bennett. They specifically castigated Time Warner, Sony, Thorn EMI, Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG), and PolyGram for selling rap music containing “degrading and indefensible” lyrics. The goal of their campaign was not directly to censor controversial music, but to delegitimize it by encouraging major recording companies to drop offensive artists and let smaller companies take them on.

Other efforts, however, have tried direct legal action to discourage the production and sale of offensive rap music. Despite such attempts, no rap or rock song was ever found legally obscene, according to the test established in the US Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Miller v. California. According to that definition, obscenity is sexually explicit art and entertainment that lacks any serious artistic or other values, is patently offensive, and appeals to prurient interests, as judged by the standards of a particular community. To be found legally obscene, material must meet all three criteria.

Pop music groups charged with obscenity have occasionally lost in trial courts, but have triumphed on appeal. For example, the group 2 Live Crew’s album As Nasty as They Wanna Be was ruled as obscene by a federal judge in Broward County, Florida, in 1990, following one of their live performances. A local record store owner was also convicted for selling the album. But this decision was reversed two years later by a federal appeals court, which found that the album’s music possessed inherent artistic value and the charges were ultimately dropped. The charges against the store owner were also overturned. The US Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

Eric Nielson, a professor from the University of Richmond specializing in hip-hop culture and the law, has been studying how rap lyrics have been used in the courts in the United States as evidence in criminal trials, and reported that between the late twentieth century and the mid-2020s, in more than 800 criminal cases, prosecutors have used rap song lyrics similar to diary entries to establish intent or motive or affiliation with particular gangs. In 2022, California passed the Decriminalizing Artistic Expression Act, limiting how prosecutors can use lyrics as evidence, reflecting growing concern about potential bias against rap artists.

Despite courtroom victories for freedom of expression in rap, rappers and their music continued to be subject to restrictions and censorship. In 2006, the artist Snoop Dogg was banned from the United Kingdom after a confrontation on a British Airways airplane, reportedly resulting in the loss of millions of dollars in ticket sales. The ban was later lifted in 2010 following a series of appeals. He was later banned from Norway for two years after trying to bring marijuana through customs. In 2008, the rapper Nas was forced to change the title of an album he intended to name after a racial slur for Black people after record stores complained; the album went untitled, but its cover art featured an image of the rapper’s back with a letter “N” formed by scars. Rapper Eminem had a bloody commercial for his 2009 album Relapse banned from television. The cover art for the album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye West featured a cartoon of West naked and straddled by a white female with wings; it was rejected by many stores and replaced with a version featuring a ballerina. In 2010, the Grammy Awards ceremony featuring Eminem, Drake, and Lil Wayne was heavily edited for television broadcast, with some viewers complaining that unoffensive language was bleeped along with swears. Artist Kendrick Lamar self-censored his music at the 2025 Super Bowl to avoid some of his most controversial lyrics. In extreme cases, some artists have been ordered to have their music approved before releasing anything new. A federal judge in 2024 ordered Rapper B.G. (legal name Christopher Dorsey), a rap artist, to send all future songs to the federal government for authorization before publication. The artist’s previous music caught the interest of probation officers as it featured collaborations with other convicted felons and did not align with his rehabilitation goals.

Bibliography

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McKee, Andrew. “Rapper’s Music Must Now Be Approved by the US Government.” WKRC. 3 July 2024. Accessed 2 May 2026.

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Pilkington, editor. “Prosecutors Used Hip-Hop Lyrics to Help Sentence a Man to Death: ‘This Only Happens to Rap Music’” The Guardian, 1 Apr. 2026, www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/apr/01/capital-punishment-hip-hop-rap-lyrics. Accessed 2 May 2026.

Savage, Mark. “Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl Show Was One Big Tease.” BBC, 9 Feb. 2025. Accessed 2 May 2026.

Vargas, Ramon Antonio. “Rapper BG Ordered to Have All Future Songs Approved by US Government.” The Guardian, 2 July 2024, www.theguardian.com/music/article/2024/jul/02/rapper-bg-government-song-approval. Accessed 2 May 2026.