Judge rules, rapper BG must show song lyrics to the government

When New Orleans rapper BG returned home in September after serving an 11-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to two counts of weapons possession and conspiracy to obstruct justice, the rap community rejoiced. After all, he’s the man who introduced the term “bling-bling” into the pop culture vocabulary.

But nearly a year later, the founding member of the ’90s rap group Hot Boys is facing an unusual legal challenge: On Friday (June 28), a U.S. district judge in Louisiana ruled that the New Orleans rapper must submit a copy of the lyrics of his upcoming songs to the U.S. Parole Board for approval before he can produce or promote them.

The decision of the US District Judge Susie Morgancame several months after BG (real name Christopher Dorsey) was arrested in March for performing at a concert in Las Vegas alongside rapper Lil Boosie; apparently BG needed prior permission from the court to associate with acts who were also convicted of a crime, as is the case with Lil Boosie. The probation officer in the case also pointed to BG’s collaboration with Gucci Mane, another rapper/convicted felon with whom BG released a joint mixtape, Choppers and bricksIn December.

BG was subsequently released on bail pending the judge’s decision. Shortly after, the rapper expressed his frustration in an Instagram post, saying in part: “It’s crazy that after 12.5 years of my life paying my debt to society, I come home and I’m still not free… I did everything right and it seems like that’s not enough.”

At a court hearing on June 18, BG and the prosecutor’s office confirmed that they had agreed to change the conditions of the rapper’s supervised release following his arrest in March. However, they “did not agree” with the prosecutor’s demand to prohibit the rapper from “promoting and glorifying gun violence/murder in his music and at his concerts in the future,” according to the June 28 ruling.

“The defendant argues that the government’s proposed additional condition constitutes an unconstitutional prior restraint on free speech that is an overly broad condition for supervised release,” the ruling states.

The judge ultimately found that the prosecution’s request was “not clear and specific enough to serve as a guide for the conduct of the defendant and those entrusted with his supervision,” and instead imposed a specific requirement that BG provide the probation service with “a copy of the lyrics of all the songs he has written,” according to the ruling. Any lyrics BG provides to the probation service will be forwarded to the U.S. government, which can then decide whether his “conduct is inconsistent with the goals of rehabilitation,” the ruling continues.

A representative of BG did not immediately respond to BillboardPlease leave a comment.

The ruling is sure to stir controversy at a time when the practice of using song lyrics against rappers in criminal courts has become a sensitive issue. In November, a judge ruled that Young Thug’s lyrics could be used during his YSL RICO case, arguing that “the First Amendment is not at issue.” Bobby Shmurda and the late Drakeo the Ruler have also had their lyrics used against them in criminal cases. Since then, laws have been passed and proposed at the state and federal levels to stop the criminalization of rap lyrics; in September, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law restricting the practice, while similar laws have been proposed in New York and in the U.S. House of Representatives.