With all the heavy news in the world, I’d like to switch things up a bit. As such, I present you with a story of pettiness, rap, lemon pound cake, and free speech.
Afroman, best known for his 2000 hit song, “Because I Got High,” won a defamation lawsuit on Thursday filed by seven Ohio sheriff’s deputies. The saga begun over a 2022 raid on Afroman’s home, legal name Joseph Foreman, by the Adams County, Ohio Sheriff’s office. The raid was part of a drug and kidnapping investigation according to the original warrant. Nothing illegal was found in the musician’s home, and no charges were filed. Foreman subsequently alleged that the officers vandalized his home, and stole money. In response to the raid, Foreman released a series music videos featuring his home security footage of the raid. The footage included one notable moment where an officer paused to look at a pastry on Foreman’s kitchen counter. That inspired the most popular song of bunch, ‘Lemon Pound Cake.’ The sheriff’s deputies said they were publicly harassed in the wake of the video series release, and sought nearly $4 million in damages. The case sparked conversations around the constitutional right to free speech and the limits of parody, which Foreman noted in an Instagram video after he emerged victorious, stating, “We did it America! Freedom of speech! Right on!” #Afroman#LemonPoundcake#News
I feel like this is a lawsuit straight out of “Better Call Saul.”
The fact that the news anchor was able to tell this story with a straight face is killing me.
If someone kicked down my door for something I didn’t do, I’d be pretty ticked, too. And if you kick down the door of a raunchy rapper and eye his lemon pound cake, songs are inevitably going to be the result. I’d say his form of protest was within his First Amendment rights, and the jury thought so, too.
I’ll never look at lemon pound cake the same way again.
