Depending on what exact type of rock you may or may not have been living under this year, you might not know that Joseph Edgar Foreman, aka Afroman, just won the “Lemon Pound Cake” defamation case brought against him by the Adams County Sheriff's Department. If that statement means nothing to you, I will summarize for brevity and expect that if your interest is piqued, you will do the necessary rabbit-hole diving required to catch up on all the details.
Three years ago, a rapper named Afroman (D.I.Y.-famous for “Because I Got High,” arguably the first-ever viral hit song, as it was literally only available on the virus-laden platform LimeWire, before being featured in a Kevin Smith movie) had his house raided by Adams County, Ohio, sheriff’s deputies. The raid was due to an anonymous report that Afroman had “kidnapping victims and narcotics” on his property (the latter, a given; the former, completely fabricated). While the rapper was not at home during the raid, his security camera was running, and caught one of the officers involved eating a piece of lemon pound cake found on Afroman's kitchen table. In addition to the stolen dessert, the rapper also suffered damages, including a broken gate and door. His response was to use footage of the raid (that he legally owned) in various music videos posted to his YouTube channel (@ogafroman), in which he raps about how the sheriffs stole his lemon pound cake (“Lemon Pound Cake”) and broke his door (“Will You Help Me Repair My Door”). Reaction, equal and opposite reaction. Seems like a closed case.
Fast-forward to earlier this year, and the Adams County sheriff is suing Afroman for defamation of character, citing the distress caused by the release of the “Lemon Pound Cake” music video. Let's repeat that. In an age of “Fuck the Police” remixes in mainstream movies, ACAB tattoos on teachers, “I Brake For Dead Pigs” bumper stickers, “The only good cop is a dead cop” Cocomelon episodes, etc., posting footage of a fat sheriff eating yellow cake with his bare hands is where we draw the line, open up the legal system, and force a stoned rapper in an American flag suit to defend his dope rhymes. Somehow, this is an actual scenario. In real life. As in, even for the offline and sober.
Afroman was not going down without a fight. Before, during, and after the trial, Afroman continued to upload absolute bangers onto his YouTube channel, including (officer) “Shawn Grooming Grooms,” (officer) “BRIAN NEWLAND IS A FLAG,” and (officer) “RANDY WALTERS IS A SON OF A BITCH,” among others. While not exactly the O.J. spectacle, as the Afroman trial went on, the courtroom footage alone was worth every second spent avoiding real-world responsibilities to watch it. From (officer) “Licc’em Low Lisa” breaking down in tears as the prosecution played a song about her performing oral sex on Afroman (in its 13:45 entirety), to Officer Lemon Pound Cake himself telling the court that he is not entirely sure whether or not his wife is cheating on him with Afroman, had someone taken even a slight amount of mushrooms before watching the trial, they would be convinced that they were seeing the best hallucinations ever experienced by anyone. But, it was one-hundred-fucking-percent real. And it was glorious, up to and including the verdict, delivered to a judge by a group of Afroman's most-likely-lowkey-racist-but-this-case-is-really-dumb-and-even-they-get-it peers, that read “not guilty.” The man, the ‘fro, the pound-cake-deficient legend, was once again a free man. Afreeman, if you will.
Yet, aside from a few minor burps on CNN (between a video of a squirrel on waterskis and an ad for Chili's), the mainstream media response to the Afroman trial was basically crickets.mp3.
This is bizarre, as the Afroman trial saga has everything that a mainstream news story could ask for: police infringing on the free speech rights of a popular black artist, meme-able moments (including a photo of a fat sheriff using his bare hands to stuff his face with cake), and the always-popular David-versus-Goliath narrative of an everyman fighting an oppressive system. Why is it, then, that the trial (and verdict) seemed to be mostly ignored outside of social media shitpost feeds and a brief mention on The Daily Show? Sure, every teenager and weed smoker I know has been riding the Afroman 2028 train since the Lemon Pound Cake story (re)surfaced earlier this year, but the vast majority of my politically-in-tune friends seemed to fall somewhere between “in the dark entirely” and “slightly irritated that I keep sending them updates about Afroman.”
My theory is that, since Afroman's politics cannot be pigeonholed to fit a neat narrative, neither side of the aisle is willing to weigh in. The inability to use Afroman as an all-issues-aligned mascot for either major political party is the only reason that I can think of as to why the media basically ignored a story about an extremely popular rapper fighting the law and winning, in an age where police brutality and free speech are among the most talked-about issues in the newsfeeds.
Take, for instance, the George Floyd death or the Charlie Kirk shooting. Each of these stories got heavy press from both left-leaning and right-leaning media outlets, but they were each given unique spins, in which a politically aligned narrative could be safely promoted. With Floyd, one side would argue that he was killed directly as a result of police brutality, while the other side would argue that drugs were to blame. With the Kirk shooting, the ultra-left take is that he deserved to be killed for spewing his problematic opinions, while the ultra-right take is that he should not have been assassinated for exercising his free speech rights. However, the underlying arguments (“police brutality to blame, assassination justified” on the left, “drug overdose to blame, assassination not justified” on the right) are just afterthoughts. If George Floyd were a white nationalist who was killed during an altercation with a black police officer, or if Charlie Kirk were a black podcaster known for spewing anti-white rhetoric, I am convinced that the narratives used by left-leaning and right-leaning news outlets would swap. Suddenly, the far right would be calling for police accountability, while the far left would be calling out violence. In other words, the underlying moral principles that are supposedly being promoted by either side (in their interpretation of any particular news event) are actually just excuses to present whichever narrative best fits their respective political angles.
Enter Afroman, who, in an interview with Channel 5 on YouTube, shared several interesting sentiments regarding his own personal politics, which, if put into a blender, would make the average hard-line conservative or progressive vomit. Afroman likes some things that Trump has done, while he takes huge offense to other Trumpisms (specifically the treatment of BLM and anyone who says “all lives matter”). He wants to own a vast amount of property where dropping N-bombs would be illegal, but at the same time, he feels that openly racist people also deserve their own space, saying, “they can have their space, and I can have mine.” The ‘fro'd crusader hates corrupt cops and appreciates good ones, he believes in fighting systemic oppression while being opposed to violence, he believes in treating people with respect, but also endorses the use of mockery and personal attacks against those who cross him.
In short, Afroman is basically the ideal Libertarian, which is a surefire way to make sure the media (and most people) will disregard everything that comes out of someone's mouth. Libertarians are basically just grown-up autistic children who point out the obvious and get punished for it—not because they're wrong, but because society likes to bullshit itself. While the left is saying “spend, spend, spend,” and the right is saying “invest, invest, invest,” Rand Paul is out here saying “...so, here's how we can cut spending and better invest,” only to have his mic cut and bloodline mocked. Libertarians, when let out of their mom's basement, pose a serious (but benign-seeming) threat to the status quo, so the status quo just pretends we don't exist, and occasionally mocks us for being single at 46. No one wants to claim us. Case in point, small town sheriffs are out here suing a dude over a joke about stolen cake, and we're somehow not hearing Jimmy Kimmel call Afroman a civil rights hero, or a Tucker Carlson rant about how the police deserve treats.
Afroman is to politics what Insane Clown Posse is to rap: the indigestible outsider, who somehow lasts the test of time and ends up having the last laugh—with zero support, aside from a dedicated following of stoners and weirdos. But when ICP marched on Washington for the Juggalos to be removed from gang lists, everyone seemed to celebrate it. I feel that Afroman deserves the same shine for using art to defend his home from cake-stealing government intruders.
Of course, there could be another narrative-breaker at work. Sticks and stones may break bones, but to some people, words are literally violence.
If we roll back our algorithms to the mid-2010s and bring up any random Tumblr page or Facebook rant (bonus points if there's a trigger warning attached, but absolutely zero mention of assault or actual trauma), we will find paragraphs upon paragraphs about “shaming language.” Slut shaming (mostly valid to oppose this one), body shaming (getting a bit weak), time blindness shaming (oh, come on), kink shaming (sorry, if you wear a diaper, we're gonna laugh at you), shame shaming (for those with shame kinks), the list is endless. Younger Millennials and older Gen Z introduced the concept of disregarding the legal system while, at the same time, treating problematic statements made on social media as literal violence—or in other words, they became anarchists who are easily defeated by words. Burn down the system, just don't call it “retarded.” And this, in my opinion, is why Millennials and Gen Z will glorify serial killers, while at the same time, attempting to cancel comedians (Afroman being one) for jokes. Comedy, when used as a weapon, is not only highly effective, but there's a lot less cleanup, and you don't have to hide the bodies.
Although Millennials and Gen Z may have weaponized the concept, the idea of shame being a bigger deterrent than laws is not new. For example, it's totally legal to scream racial slurs at toddlers (as long as the slur doesn't match the ethnicity of the child), but it's entirely illegal to jaywalk. Yet, if you poll 100 people and ask them if they'd rather be caught jaywalking or screaming racial slurs at a toddler, 99 would choose to jaywalk (and one would just be a homeless dude, who's sick of being hit by cars). I'm not condoning the act of screaming racial slurs at toddlers (or anyone), it's just that we often forget how much more effective shame is compared to legal action. You can take the time to sue someone, drag them to court, lose thousands in lawyers' fees, and waste years of your life trying to get them to make things right. Or, you can find their old wedding photos on Facebook and comment, “It's so nice seeing a photo of you back when you were happy and healthy.” Emotional bruises, while invisible, can be permanent.
To the chagrin of Millennials and Gen Z pearl-clutchers alike, Afroman used the ultimate toolbox when fighting the Adams County Sheriff’s Office: utter humiliation, shame, and mockery. From “Licc 'Em Low Lisa” liccing him low, to Randy Walters being a son of a bitch, to musical accusations of the entire department covering for pedophiles, Afroman (a former Crip) opted against violence and chose to use the power of the First Amendment, releasing song after song on his YouTube channel, cooking his oppressors with shame, like an unhinged Weird Al from the hood.
Shame and mockery proved, for Afroman, to be the appropriate response to a pound cake-stealing sheriff and his merry band of corrupt law enforcement pals. There was no protest, no smashing of windows, no storming of government buildings, no hashtag, no social media campaign, and most notably, no one besides Afroman to help Afroman. David was handed a blunt by God, given some studio time, and he took down Goliath. A guy named “Afroman” winning any trial in a rural, podunk courtroom is news on its own, but the idea that a jury of this man's peers (many of whom were likely friends with the good ol' boys network) found him innocent is, by all definitions, a bipartisan win for free speech.
And it got absolute crickets from most three-or-four-letter news stations outside of Adams County, Ohio. Perhaps the sheriff’s deputies lost the defamation case because of this very reason: no one seems to care what Afroman is up to. I'm just here to say, if you value free speech, you should.
@RainmanMcmillin on IG / I don't check Facebook
