Afroman emerges victorious in ‘Lemon Pound Cake’ defamation case

(CNN) –

The rapper Afroman did not defame seven sheriff’s deputies or invade their privacy when he put out a series of catchy, flamboyantly insulting music videos about them after they raided his home in 2022, an Adams County, Ohio jury ruled on Wednesday.

In a three-day trial that pitted two very different notions of personal outrage against each other, Afroman, whose legal name is Joseph Foreman, successfully argued that he had a First Amendment right to mock the deputies, as public figures, and that the over-the-top lyrics of his viral songs could not reasonably be taken as literal statements of fact.

Decked in an American flag-patterned suit and matching sunglasses, Afroman — best known, before the videos that brought him into court, for his 2000 hit “Because I Got High” — turned the proceedings into a display of virality, using the witness stand as one more platform to present the raid as a serious act of wrongdoing, and to insist on his power to make fun of it.

“After they run around my house with guns and kick down my door,” he said during the trial, “I got the right to kick a can in my backyard, use my freedom of speech, turn my bad times into a good time.”

In August 2022, a squad of deputies from the Adams County Sheriff’s Office broke down his door with weapons in hand. He wasn’t home at the time, but a family member recorded videos of the search on their phone, and footage from the house’s security cameras shows the officers tearing through his kitchen.