In the summer of 2022, members of the Sheriff’s Department in Adams County, Ohio, raided Afroman‘s home with a warrant on suspicion of drug trafficking and kidnapping. After busting down his door and ransacking his home, armed officers found neither drugs nor any signs of a kidnapping. No charges were filed.
Following the debacle, Afroman turned lemons into lemonade, transforming footage of the botched raid into a series of music videos that have gone viral — particularly one titled “Lemon Pound Cake” that shows one of the officers pausing in the rapper’s kitchen to eye a tasty treat on the counter.
That video, as well as social media posts the artist made with the raid footage, became the subject of a lawsuit filed the following year by seven cops who claimed Afroman (real name Joseph Foreman) used footage of their faces without their consent (a misdemeanor violation in Ohio) and sued him on civil grounds for invasion of privacy.
On Wednesday, following a three-day trial in which Afroman defended his art in court, the jury sided with the rapper on all counts and disagreed with the cops’ claims that he owed them a combined $3.9 million in damages. Shortly after the trial ended, the rapper posted a video to his social media of the judge reading the verdict in court.
The trial in Adams County this week raised questions about the limits of First Amendment protections and the freedom of artistic criticism. In 2023, the ACLU of Ohio wrote an amicus brief in support of the rapper. “This case is a classic entry into the SLAPP suit genre: a meritless effort to use a lawsuit to silence criticism,” the ACLU wrote in the brief. “Plaintiffs are a group of law enforcement officers who executed what appears to have been a highly destructive and ultimately fruitless search of a popular musician’s home. Now they find themselves at the receiving end of his mockery and outrage, expressed through a series of music videos about the search, as well as spinoff merchandise and social media commentary.”
In their lawsuit, the seven officers claimed they had been “subjected to threats, including death threats” and had also “suffered emotional distress, embarrassment, ridicule, loss of reputation and humiliation.” During the trial, the officer that Afroman had dubbed “Police Officer Poundcake” on social media said he had been sent numerous pound cakes at work. Another officer cried as a video made by the artist mocking her played for more than 10 minutes.
“Mr. Foreman perpetuated lies intentionally, repeatedly over three and a half years on the internet about these seven brave deputy sheriffs who’ve lived in this county for years, risk their lives for this county for years, done their job,” Robert Klingler, the deputies’ attorney, said during his closing testimony, per The Washington Post. “Mr. Foreman did it intentionally. Mr. Foreman knew that what he posted on the internet were lies.”
Afroman’s attorney, David Osborne, emphasized that the case was about free speech and musical expression. Pointing to Afroman, who was sporting a suit covered in the American flag, the rapper’s lawyer said: “Does this look like a man who thinks that everybody’s going to assume that everything he’s saying is fact?”
In his own testimony, Afroman said, “The whole raid was a mistake.” He added, “All of this is their fault. If they hadn’t wrongly raided my house, there would be no lawsuit. I would not know their names. They wouldn’t be on my home surveillance system, and there would be no songs. Nothing.”
Marco Rubio in Washington, D.C., on April 7
Trump and His Cronies Are Partying as the World Burns
We are at war. Gas prices are climbing above $5 per gallon across much of the country. The political apparatus of the country is rife with division, infighting, and bureaucratic chaos that threatens to further upset 250 years of historical precedent.
But look at Marco Rubio over there, getting his groove on. DJ at a wedding! What a lovely time.
The secretary of state was pictured this weekend behind the turntables at a family wedding queuing up Calvin Harris’ “Feel So Close” and some other bangers to a cheering crowd, first-pumping as the beat drops. “Let’s goooooo!!!” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino wrote on X.
It’s a jarring contrast to the current geopolitical situation Rubio is supposedly overseeing. But hey — he’s really just following his commander’s lead. As J.D. Vance slogged through ultimately unsuccessful negotiations to end the Iran war last month, President Donald Trump took in a UFC fight. This past weekend, he was hosting a PGA tour event at his luxury Doral golf club in Florida, where, the White House was quick to point out, he took a phone call.
Political leaders partying while the world order crumbles is obviously hard to stomach. But they’re only human — even the people with the most important jobs in the world have commitments to families and deserve the chance to blow off steam. But there’s a tension between the grace we extend to these figures and the grave importance of their roles.
Getting elected president — or appointed secretary of state — is, to put it lightly, a pretty big deal. For four years, they are essentially always on the clock. The needs of the country must come first, and on some level, they must personally see to them all. It is, which is why we historically like to judge presidents harshly for taking time off.
It’s the timing, ultimately, that determines how these images play with the public. Marco Rubio isn’t going to work around the clock to find a solution to the crisis in Iran, but the sheer lack of urgency that both Trump and his administration seem to be exhibiting seems to suggest that they might not even care about finding an end to the war, no matter how economically disastrous it is for the country.
That posture is certainly a gift to their political rivals, but it’s also an indication to the American people who Trump and his underlings actually represent. It’s not you, clocking in and out at a 9-5 or working a graveyard shift at the hospital. Most of us — people with jobs — can’t help but feel a little resentful when we see the president on the golf course, or the secretary of state dancing to Calvin Harris. But the other people on the golf course? The other class of people who can afford to be on vacation, can afford to drive their boats and trucks and golf carts for pleasure when gas is above $5 a gallon? We’re not talking about the upper middle class here. We’re talking about the ones who probably don’t even know what the price of gas is, because they haven’t pumped their own in years. That’s Trump’s constituency. That’s whose behalf Rubio is negotiating on. That’s who they serve. And those people? They’re happy to play another round.