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Rap on Trial: How An Aspiring Musician's Words Led To Prison Time

Olutosin Oduwole at his home in New Jersey in 2016.
Shankar Vedantam
/
NPR
Olutosin Oduwole at his home in New Jersey in 2016.

Olutosin Oduwole was in his dorm room at Southern Illinois University when police knocked on his door one day in 2007. They were there to arrest him.

"In my mind I'm thinking, 'Okay, maybe a warrant for a ticket.' I really didn't know what was going on," he says.

Olutosin Oduwole in 2017, at the Revolt music studio in Los Angeles.
Yemi Oduwole / Olutosin Oduwole
/
Olutosin Oduwole
Olutosin Oduwole in 2017, at the Revolt music studio in Los Angeles.

What was going on was that the police suspected that Olutosin, a college student and aspiring rapper, was on the brink of committing a Virginia Tech-style mass shooting on his campus. He was soon charged with attempting to make a terrorist threat, and was eventually convicted and sent to prison.

That conviction was later overturned by an appeals court, but to prosecutors, the case remains a clear example of a tragedy averted. To Tosin and his supporters, however, his prosecution was a fool's errand — an example of bias in how people perceive rappers and rap music.

This week on Hidden Brain, we'll meet Tosin and explore his case from all sides. We'll also consider what criminologist Charis Kubrin sees as a troubling rise in prosecutions that use rap lyrics to bolster claims that a defendant is violent.

Additional Reading:

You can find more resources on the use of rap lyrics as evidence in criminal trials at the website of our guest Charis Kubrin. It includes a list of legal advisers, testimonies byrappers who have been taken to court over song lyrics, and scholarly research.

A 2011 newspaper article announcing Olutosin's five year prison sentence for making a "terrorist threat."

This episode was produced by Rhaina Cohen, Jennifer Schmidt, and Laura Kwerel, and edited by Tara Boyle. Our team also includes Parth Shah and Thomas Lu. Original music for this episode was composed by Ramtin Arablouei. You can also follow us on Twitter @hiddenbrain, and listen for Hidden Brain stories each week on your local public radio station.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Shankar Vedantam is the host and creator of Hidden Brain. The Hidden Brain podcast receives more than three million downloads per week. The Hidden Brain radio show is distributed by NPR and featured on nearly 400 public radio stations around the United States.
Jennifer Schmidt is a senior producer for Hidden Brain. She is responsible for crafting the complex stories that are told on the show. She researches, writes, gathers field tape, and develops story structures. Some highlights of her work on Hidden Brain include episodes about the causes of the #MeToo movement, how diversity drives creativity, and the complex psychology of addiction.
Rhaina Cohen is an associate producer for the social science show Hidden Brain. She's especially proud of episodes she produced on why sexual assault allegations are now being taken seriously, on obstacles to friendship that men face and why we rehash difficult memories.
Tara Boyle is the supervising producer of NPR's Hidden Brain. In this role, Boyle oversees the production of both the Hidden Brain radio show and podcast, providing editorial guidance and support to host Shankar Vedantam and the shows' producers. Boyle also coordinates Shankar's Hidden Brain segments on Morning Edition and other NPR shows, and oversees collaborations with partners both internal and external to NPR. Previously, Boyle spent a decade at WAMU, the NPR station in Washington, D.C. She has reported for The Boston Globe, and began her career in public radio at WBUR in Boston.
Laura Kwerel