Anglais

Rap lyrics are increasingly coming to play at criminal trials. Are they getting a bad rap?

Published

5 années ago

décembre 26, 2018

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When I was just a baby

My mama told me, “Son

Jermaine Dunkley had 10 of his rap videos excluded from evidence in a trial that found him guilty of first-degree murder. (YouTube/MSWIncVideos)

Always be a good boy

Don’t ever play with guns,”

But I shot a man in Reno

Just to watch him die

Johnny Cash wrote that in his classic country hit, “Folsom Prison Blues,” recorded in 1955. The man in black. Self-styled outlaw. Sex symbol. Shot a man just to watch him die. The line made him famous and anchored a storied career.

When N.W.A. released “F– tha Police” in 1989, the gangsta rap protest song brought fame as well, but also bans from airwaves and a letter from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The difference underscores the scrutiny rap lyrics and hip hop in general continue to endure, compared to other genres where artistic expression is rarely interpreted as actual criminal intent and deeds — past, present and future.

Add to this today’s vast and easily accessible social media ocean for aspiring rap artists to post their work and express hip hop culture, and everything is a click or swipe away. And it is presenting a challenge in courtrooms in the United States and Canada, where a growing area of study examines the complex and controversial intersection of crime, rap lyrics as evidence, expert witnesses and the courts.

Google “rap on trial” and plenty pops up. Rap lyrics are being used in court cases as proof of intent, confessions and threats, and as character evidence, at times without the benefit of experts who can provide judges and juries with context and history. In other words, taking them to the school of rap.

“There is this tendency for outsiders in the justice system and police to view the word and the lyrics and stories that are coming out of the mouths of rappers, especially Black rappers, as if they are autobiographical portraits of their lives,” says Jooyoung Lee, associate professor of sociology at the University of Toronto.

“But that’s been roundly disproved and there’s quite a bit of stuff, both in academia and also just popular writing and documentaries, that really poke holes in this presumption that the kinds of identities and lyrics that people present in their music are actually authentic representations of who they are,” says Lee, who teaches a course on hip hop, which examines its beginnings and history and includes comparisons like Cash vs. N.W.A.

He has also testified as an expert witness in court, called upon to provide background context into why aspiring rap artists might talk or boast about involvement in street violence, “whether that be in the form of gangs or in shootings or robberies and other kinds of activities that often come up in certain genres of hip hop.”

The challenge for courts, says Lee, is differentiating between “artists who are really trying to make it and this is a way out of the gang life, the street life” and an emerging practice of young people “immersed or involved in gangs or street crews where they’re increasingly turning to social media as a way to provoke, disrespect, communicate.

“I think that’s where you really do need the expertise of somebody coming in,” says Lee, who grew up in California in the ’90s, fell in love with hip hop culture and studied and hung out with aspiring hip hop artists in South Central Los Angeles. He wrote a book about the latter, called Blowin’ Up.

University of Windsor law professor David Tanovich examined North American criminal cases where rap lyrics came into play — including ones in Canada, and one in which Lee testified — and found few excluded rap lyrics as evidence of guilt.

However, unlike Canada, the “issue of criminalizing rap has received considerable attention in the United States” judging by recent newspaper articles and opinion pieces, Tanovich wrote in a 2016 academic paper entitled “Rethinking the Admissibility of Rap Lyrics in Criminal Cases.”

Using media reports, Tanovich identified 36 cases in Canadian courts from the past decade where rap lyrics came into play, and found only one that involved lyrics from another genre. In that case, involving a murder, the Newfoundland Court of Appeal excluded the lyrics to a “metal/punk” song entitled “Kill Kill Kill.”

Of the 36 rap cases, 16 involved the Crown using lyrics as evidence of guilt. It was used as defence evidence in five cases. In four, rap lyrics were excluded. The remaining cases involved sentencing and charter applications.

“Generally speaking, the Canadian cases have failed to apply a culturally competent lens when assessing probative value and, to address the relevance of race and bias, when assessing prejudicial effect,” Tanovich wrote.

Tanovich has said to include lyrics there must be probative value, and rap lyrics should only be entered into evidence in “exceptional cases” because systemic racism is a problem in the justice system.

In a 2018 Toronto murder case, 10 rap videos were excluded from evidence in the trial of Jermaine Dunkley, an admitted criminal gang leader and rapper. Lee was called as an expert witness in that case by the defence, while a Toronto police officer was called as an expert for the Crown. Ontario Superior Court Justice Michael Code ruled that the videos would have a “powerful prejudicial effect” and “very few” parts of the videos were relevant to the trial at hand.

Jooyoung Lee, associate professor of sociology at U of T, teaches a course on hip hop and has testified in court as a rap lyric expert. (Jim Rankin)

Nonetheless, a jury found Dunkley guilty of first-degree murder in November in what the Crown portrayed as a revenge killing. Dunkley is to face another trial for another murder in Hamilton.

Lee and other American experts on rap and the courts say courts generally fail to regard it as an art form.

That, notably, was not the case in another Toronto murder case in which Lee testified. “As with lyrics generally, but especially when it comes to rap, it is risky to take any word literally,” then-Superior Court Justice Ian Nordheimer wrote in a 2015 decision excluding lyrics written by Orville Campbell.

“Rap, particularly gangster rap, often deals with the subject matter of drugs, guns, shootings, violence and the like,” wrote Nordheimer, now sitting on Ontario’s Court of Appeal. “The mere fact that an artist records a rap with lyrics that refers to such activities cannot be taken as an admission by the artist that they were involved in such activities, even where the lyrics are used in the first person.”

There is a long history of artists writing lyrics as if they had personal involvement in events, but in fact had “no involvement with them at all,” wrote Nordheimer.

The Crown had sought to include a rap video by Campbell that included this, among other, lines: “One shot, leave your brains on your Nikes.” The victim in the murder for which Campbell was eventually convicted was wearing Nikes at the time of his death. The judge noted that “fact, of course, only makes the deceased one among literally thousands of young men” in Toronto who, on any given day, would be wearing Nikes. (Campbell is appealing his conviction.)

In a landmark U.S. court ruling on rap lyrics, the Supreme Court of New Jersey affirmed a lower appeal court’s decision to exclude 13 pages of violent rap lyrics in an attempted murder case, overturning a conviction.

“The difficulty in identifying probative value in fictional or other forms of artistic self-expressive endeavours is that one cannot presume that, simply because an author has chosen to write about certain topics, he or she has acted in accordance with those views,” the New Jersey court noted in its decision. “One would not presume that Bob Marley, who wrote the well-known song ‘I Shot the Sheriff,’ actually shot a sheriff, or that Edgar Allan Poe buried a man beneath the floorboards, as depicted in his short story ‘The Tell-Tale Heart,’ simply because of their respective artistic endeavours on those subjects.”

Rap is “like poetry, or any kind of literary tradition that requires a person who is going to be well versed in that area,” says Lee, who hopes the Canadian justice system “gets to that point where people realize that, at the very least, you can’t proceed in these cases if you don’t have experts who have studied and who have an understanding of the culture present to weigh in on what they see and interpret from the evidence and data that they’re given.

“But there’s this other side of me that also, from a long view, sees the persistence of different institutional levers in place that disadvantage people of colour,” says Lee, “and that end up disproportionately impacting their chances as they go through the justice system.”

Jim Rankin is a reporter based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @Jleerankin

Anglais

Nostalgia and much more with Starburst XXXtreme

Published

3 années ago

août 10, 2021

admin

Get a taste of adventure with Starburst XXXtreme based on the legendary NetEnt Game. The nostalgic themes are sure to capture fans of the classic version as they get treated to higher intensity, better visuals, and features. The most significant element of the game is its volatility. Patience will not be an essential virtue considering the insane gameplay, and there is a lot of win potential involved. It retains the original makeup of the previous game while adding a healthy dose of adrenaline.

Starburst Visuals and Symbols

The game is definitely more conspicuous than before. The setting happens over a 5-reel, 3-row game grid with nine fixed win lines, which function if a succession from the left to the right reel is present. Only those players that that attain the highest win per bet line are paid. From a visual standpoint, the Starburst XXXtreme slots illustrates lightning effects behind the reels, which is not surprising as it is inherited from the original version. Available themes include Classic, Jewels, and Space. The game is also available in both desktop and mobile versions, which is advantageous for players considering the global pandemic. According to Techguide, American gamers are increasingly having more engaging gaming experiences to socialize to fill the gap of in-person interaction. Starburst XXXtreme allows them to fill the social void at a time when there is so much time to be had indoors.

Starburst XXXTreme Features

Players get to alternate on three features which are Starburst Wilds, XXXtreme Spins, and Random Wilds. The first appears on reels 2,3, or 4. When these land, they expand to cover all positions while also calculating the wins. They are also locked for a respin. If a new one hits, it also becomes locked while awarding another respin. Starburst XXXtreme offers a choice between two scenarios for a higher stake. In one scenario with a ten times stake, the Starburst Wild is set on random on reels 2,3, or 4, and a multiplier starts the respin. The second scenario, which has a 95 times stake, starts with two guaranteed starburst wilds on reels 2,3, or 4. it also plays out using respin game sequence and features. The game also increases the potential with the Random Wilds feature to add Starburst Wilds to a vacant reel at the end of a spin. Every Starburst Wild gives a random multiplier with potential wins of x2, x3, x5, x10, x25, x50, x100, or even x150.

The new feature is sure to be a big hit with the gaming market as online gambling has shown significant growth during the lockdown. AdAge indicates the current casino customer base is an estimated one in five Americans, so Starburst XXXtreme’s additional features will achieve considerable popularity.

What We Think About The Game

The gambling market has continued to diversify post-pandemic, so it is one of the most opportune times to release an online casino-based game. Thankfully Starburst XXXtreme features eye-catching visuals, including the jewels and space themes. These attract audience participation and make the gameplay inviting. The game also has a nostalgic edge. The previous NetEnt iteration featured similar visuals and gameplay, so the audience has some familiarity with it. The producers have revamped this version by tweaking the features to improve the volatility and engagement.

That is characterized by the potential win cap of 200,000 times the bet. Starburst XXXtreme does not just give betting alternatives for players that want to go big. The increase of multipliers also provides a great experience. If the respins in the previous version were great, knowing that multipliers can go hundreds of times overtakes the game to a new level.

Players should get excited about this offering. All of the features can be triggered within a single spin. Whether one plays the standard game or takes the XXXtreme spin route, it is possible to activate all of the features. Of course, the potential 200,000 times potential is a huge carrot. However, the bet size is probably going to be restricted and vary depending on the casino. It is also worth pointing out that a malfunction during the gameplay will void all of the payouts and progress. Overall, the game itself has been designed to provide a capped win of 200,000 times the original bet.

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Anglais

‘We’re back’: Montreal festival promoters happy to return but looking to next year

Published

3 années ago

juillet 23, 2021

admin

In downtown Montreal, it’s festival season.

In the city’s entertainment district, a musical act was conducting a sound check on stage Friday evening — the second day of the French-language version of the renowned Just For Laughs comedy festival. Tickets for many of the festival’s free outdoor shows — limited by COVID-19 regulations — were sold out.

Two blocks away, more than 100 people were watching an acoustic performance by the Isaac Neto Trio — part of the last weekend of the Festival International Nuits d’Afrique, a celebration of music from the African continent and the African diaspora.

With COVID-19 restrictions continuing to limit capacity, festival organizers say they’re glad to be back but looking forward to next year when they hope border restrictions and capacity limits won’t affect their plans.

Charles Décarie, Just For Laughs’ CEO and president, said this is a “transition year.”

“Even though we have major constraints from the public health group in Montreal, we’ve managed to design a festival that can navigate through those constraints,” Décarie said.

The French-language Juste pour rire festival began on July 15 and is followed by the English-language festival until July 31.

When planning began in February and March, Décarie said, organizers came up with a variety of scenarios for different crowd sizes, ranging from no spectators to 50 per cent of usual capacity.

“You’ve got to build scenarios,” he said. “You do have to plan a little bit more than usual because you have to have alternatives.”

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Anglais

MELS new major movie studio to be built in Montreal

Published

3 années ago

juillet 23, 2021

admin

MONTREAL — MELS Studios will build a new film studio in Montreal, filling some of the gap in supply to meet the demand of Hollywood productions.

MELS president Martin Carrier said on Friday that MELS 4 studio construction will begin « as soon as possible », either in the fall or winter of next year. The studio could host productions as early as spring 2023.

The total investment for the project is $76 million, with the Quebec government contributing a $25 million loan. The project will create 110 jobs, according to the company.

The TVA Group subsidiary’s project will enable it to stand out « even more » internationally, according to Quebecor president and CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau. In the past, MELS Studios has hosted several major productions, including chapters of the X-Men franchise. The next Transformers movie is shooting this summer in Montreal.

Péladeau insisted that local cultural productions would also benefit from the new facility, adding that the studio ensures foreign revenues and to showcase talent and maintain an industry of Quebec producers.

STUDIO SHORTAGE

The film industry is cramped in Montreal.

According to a report published last May by the Bureau du cinéma et de la télévision du Québec (BCTQ), there is a shortage of nearly 400,000 square feet of studio space.

With the addition of MELS 4, which will be 160,000 square feet, the company is filling part of the gap.

Carrier admitted that he has had to turn down contracts because of the lack of space, representing missed opportunities of « tens of millions of dollars, not only for MELS, but also for the Quebec economy. »

« Montreal’s expertise is in high demand, » said Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante, who was present at the announcement.

She said she received great testimonials from « Netflix, Disney, HBO and company » during an economic mission to Los Angeles in 2019.

« What stands out is that they love Montreal because of its expertise, knowledge and beauty. We need more space, like MELS 4, » she said.

There is still not enough capacity in Quebec, acknowledged Minister of Finance, the Economy and Innovation Eric Girard.

« It is certain that the government is concerned about fairness and balance, so if other requests come in, we will study them with the same seriousness as we have studied this one, » he said.

Grandé Studios is the second-largest player in the industry. Last May, the company said it had expansion plans that should begin in 2022. Investissement Québec and Bell are minority shareholders in the company.

For its part, MELS will have 400,000 square feet of production space once MELS 4 is completed. The company employs 450 people in Quebec and offers a range of services including studio and equipment rentals, image and sound postproduction, visual effects and a virtual production platform.