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- [00:08]
A
Jesse, you forgot again.
- [00:11]
B
What did I forget?
- [00:12]
A
Our anniversary.
- [00:13]
B
Well, actually, I did forget that we were recording today and I forgot our anniversary.
- [00:16]
A
Yes. What did you get me?
- [00:17]
B
Well, you forgot it, too. I did both forgot it.
- [00:19]
A
I did forget it. Every year I forget both the anniversary of this podcast and my actual anniversary. Until someone who isn't my wife texts me and says, happy anniversary. Because other people tend to remember these things more than we do. But, yes, we have been together now. You and I. Not you, not Janet and I. For six whole years.
- [00:40]
B
That's crazy.
- [00:40]
A
And this coincides with our 301st free podcast. And now Janet is making coffee in another room. Can you hear that?
- [00:50]
B
Let's see.
- [00:51]
A
She's grinding coffee. It's so rude. A way to treat us on our anniversary.
- [00:54]
B
It's just nice homey noises. What's the actual date of our first episode? Remind me.
- [01:00]
A
It's probably.
- [01:01]
B
You don't know.
- [01:02]
A
March 23rd.
- [01:02]
B
You don't know. That was a test.
- [01:04]
A
Was it March 23rd?
- [01:04]
B
Yeah, something like that.
- [01:05]
A
Something like that. What's the sixth anniversary? Is it.
- [01:08]
B
Wait. Blocked and reported the PI. The pilot. I think we called it the pilot. March 24th, three days ago. Oh, so from one more recording.
- [01:16]
A
Interesting. So it is actually. Okay, so it came out on the same day as what I. I believe is my actual wedding anniversary. So also my sixth wedding anniversary.
- [01:24]
B
Your wedding anniversary is March 24th?
- [01:26]
A
Apparently, yes.
- [01:27]
B
Wait, sorry, we recorded the podcast the day of your wedding? Oh, no, no, this is the day.
- [01:31]
A
This is the day it debuted, and I didn't.
- [01:33]
B
And for the record, no, that's the date of the. That's the date of the anniversary. So you should be able to. Literally, the two anniversaries are the same, and you can't remember either of them the same day.
- [01:41]
A
And I can't remember either. No, but like, Janice, Aunt texted. Texted us. Texted her and said happy anniversary. So someone remembered it, but yeah. So happy anniversary. I don't know what year six is. Is it diamond? Is it paper? Is it diamond? What? Is it wood? Is it audio? It's the podcast anniversary I'm doing.
- [01:59]
B
I'm doing a Repeat annually on March 24th. Bar pot anniversary. I'll never forget again. Happy anniversary, Katie.
- [02:07]
A
You should probably do the. This is what I do for my taxes. You do the. You do it the week before to remind yourself so you can get me something extra. You'll have a week to do it.
- [02:15]
B
I won't be getting you.
- [02:17]
A
Okay, fine.
- [02:17]
B
What I'll be getting is continued employment on this podcast.
- [02:20]
A
If you're lucky.
- [02:21]
B
It's been a wild ride. You. We. I have nothing more to say other than that it's been cool.
- [02:27]
A
It has been cool. I like it. This is my longest job. And your longest relationship.
- [02:33]
B
Oh, my God. By far.
- [02:34]
A
By far. Yes, both. Yes, both. How long do you think we can keep this going?
- [02:38]
B
Probably this episode is gonna be it, but we'll see how it goes.
- [02:40]
A
All right.
- [02:41]
B
I'm confident we can squeeze out one or two more episodes.
- [02:43]
A
All right, well, today, Jesse, we are here to discuss a story about criminal justice, free speech, and lemon pound cake, all centered around a beloved or somewhat beloved American icon, Afroman.
- [02:55]
B
Nice.
- [02:56]
A
But before we get to that, we would be remiss, not to mention another big legal case that was just decided this week. And this one has much bigger implications for the rest of us than the Afroman case, although it is way less entertaining. So the plaintiff in this case was a young woman in California, now 20 years old, and she claims that she got addicted to Instagram and YouTube. And as a minor, she sued. She initially sued Meta, Google, TikTok, and Snapchat, but ByteDance and Snap. So those are the parent companies of TikTok and Snapchat, they settled before trial. So this one was just about Instagram and YouTube. And she said that she started using YouTube at age 6 and Instagram as a pre teen. And as she got older, she constantly had fomo. She compared herself to others. She obsessively used beauty filters. And she says that she became so dependent on online validation, you know, the likes, that she'd sneak off to the bathroom at school to check her post, which, Honestly, where's my $6 million? I failed grad school because I couldn't stop checking Facebook. And I wish I was kidding about that. This was, like, my first experience of having a laptop, not a phone, but a laptop in class. And Facebook in what year Was this? Like, 2007 was fascinating at the time. It really did damage to my mental health. I should have sued. Okay, so this case is important for a couple of reasons, one of which is that There are about 2,000 other similar lawsuits waiting in the wings. And this particular suit was a bellwether trial. So that that means it's basically a test case that's selected from this much larger pool of lawsuits to go first and test the legal theory. And the $6 million that the jury awarded her, you know, maybe that's not a lot to Meta and Google or their insurers, but this award signals that many more awards could be coming. And My guess is that we're about to see many, many more lawsuits filed. And even if you meta and Google and think those platforms are destroying society, and who could blame you? Some of our favorite free speech bros say there are reasons to be concerned about this outcome. So, Jesse, have you been following this case?
- [04:50]
B
I've been less online. I've been on less online than usual this week. I am metaphorically touching grass, helping my brother with some stuff. So tell me, tell me. Yeah. What's like, what's at stake here? I saw some headlines, but I've not been following this closely.
- [05:03]
A
I'm curious when you have. I will get to that. But I am curious when you have an extended period or even a short period of touching grass, of not being on long, do you sense anything different about your. Do you feel better? Do you feel a less informed to be better about the world?
- [05:17]
B
Yeah, both. I mean, I don't feel. I mean, there's other reasons to not feel better about the world, but I mean, undeniably. Yeah, like not even. Not even fucking close. It is so much better to not pay attention closely to the news or to social media. And I'm. I'm so baffled by people who think that if something horrible is happening on the other side of the world, I mean, we've talked about this. That they have to like track every. Every blackened corpse pulled out of the rubble. I think that's deeply, deeply unhealthy. And I think there's narcissism there because they think that somehow them following it and posting about it will improve things when it won't because you don't have any power anyway. That's. That. That's not what you're asking.
- [05:58]
A
Well, it's the posting about it that I think is. I don't think following like, there's nothing wrong with being well informed about the news.
- [06:04]
B
Well informed is fine. But like the posting after, after 9 11, there was a South park episode where one of the characters, moms, is just on the couch comatose watching CNN and she can't stop watching cnn. And that was before social media even just consuming this stuff.
- [06:19]
A
That's been me with the Lindy west discourse. Well, but that's on the couch.
- [06:23]
B
That doesn't make me sad or helpless
- [06:26]
A
because I just think it's like you're not a hom.
- [06:27]
B
Well, and because it's. It's legitimately it hits that sweet spot of being very interesting and arousing people's passions, but it doesn't matter. It's sort of like this Podcast.
- [06:38]
A
It's low stakes.
- [06:39]
B
Yeah, it's. Our podcast is at its best when people have very strong feelings about shit that doesn't matter. So yeah, I over answered that question. But yes, overall I feel better when I'm disconnected from the discourse as I am circling it back. I'm going to lay on the plane now as I am when it comes to this case about the girl who says she was hurt by the thing.
- [06:58]
A
Okay, good work.
- [06:59]
B
Thank you.
- [06:59]
A
So in the past, so let me explain this lawsuit. So in the past, companies like Meta and Google have been protected from these sorts of claims of harms caused by their products because of section 230. We've talked about section 230 on the show before. This is a part of the Communications Decency act that protects websites, social media platforms, even podcasts from being sued by what users of those platforms post. And it's really is, this is a hugely important piece of legislation. It came about in the 90s and it's so important because if these platforms like Facebook or X or Substack or even this podcast could be sued by what a user says in the comments section of our show or because of what they post on, on Facebook or X, the owner of that site, including us, is going to be much more heavy handed with content moderation. And I think there's a lot of confusion about this. So like I saw Claire Lehman of Colette arguing with Nico Perino a fire on X that if she could be held liable for what Colette publishes, why can't Facebook be held liable for what they publish? And the difference is who is doing the posting. So Facebook can be sued for what their employees publish if an employee like defame someone in official Facebook press release, but they can't be sued for what you or I posts on their site. Just like Colette can't be sued for what any random person posts in the comments section. And this rule, this is section 230. This is a big part of why free speech protections on the Internet are so robust.
- [08:20]
B
Yeah, without, without that if, if platforms actually had to worry about what people. It just, it wouldn't work at all.
- [08:27]
A
It wouldn't work. Like, it would not work. Everything would shut down and you would lose a lot. It's true that you would also a lot of the harms from speech on the Internet would disappear or be minimized like, like defamation, catfishing, scams, like Facebook itself. According to their own metrics, they have said that 10% of their content is scams. And if they were being sued by everyone who was scammed on the platform. They would crack down on scams, but they would also crack down on speech in general. So that's the trade off. Yeah, I think the trade off is worth it. Usually not always. Like I don't want to there. I think there are some people who pretend that the trade offs don't exist, like free speech bros who go a little too far. But this is. But this is the cost of enabling free speech on the Internet as much as we have. It is. People are gonna get scammed. Platforms aren't gonna get scammed. So section 230 has been under attack from all sides for a long time. It has currently very few defenders in Congress. And social media companies themselves aren't really well loved at the moment. So they also have very few defenders in public. And I also think there's a lot of misunderstanding about what Section 230 is. But no one wants to stand up for Facebook's right to host AI sl that's melting our parents brains or X's right to host Nazi content. But at this point, section 230 still persists in the law, at least for now. And that's the thing that has prevented lawsuits like this from going forward in the past. But the plaintiffs attorneys in this case, they argued that it wasn't the content that was the issue, it was the architecture of the content. So the platforms had designed their apps to be so addictive that that in itself caused harm. So it wasn't the content, but the design. That's how they sidestep 230. And this is a new legal tactic. Do you understand what I'm saying, Jesse?
- [10:10]
B
I too, yeah. It's just old debate, but slightly different argument and legal maneuverings.
- [10:14]
A
Exactly. Yeah. It was smart. And free speech advocates at places like Reason and Fire oppose this decision in California or this verdict in California. There's also a recent separate decision in New Mexico. They oppose the. They oppose both of these for several different reasons. One is that they argue that design itself is expression. And if courts treat product design is different from speech, that they risk carving a massive hole in first amendment protections. Another concern is about what happens when this legal theory. So you can sue a platform not for what's on it, but for how it's built. What happens when this legal theory gets picked up by the next set of plaintiffs attorneys and the ones after that and the ones after that? Because this will happen. And the implications for this could reach well beyond giants like Facebook and Google. So for example, imagine you run. I don't know, an independent podcast and newsletter platform. And every time you drop a new episode or newsletter into the feed, the user gets a little ping, a little notification that a new episode has dropped. And some teenager gets so addicted to podcasts and newsletters that she starts cutting class to go listen to podcasts and read newsletters in the bathroom at school. She has no friends, by the way. The podcast platform is probably not going to get sued, but they could. And years of litigation could bankrupt the company even if they have insurance. So they have a choice. Strip out all the features that make the platform engaging age. Gate the fuck out of it. You know, make the users actually prove their age with ID or biometric data. Or they could just shut it down. And to be clear, this is purely theoretical. Like, this might never happen. But my point is, even if you hate Facebook and Google, this won't necessarily end with them, particularly if thousands of plaintiffs and plaintiffs attorneys sense a payday. And of course Google and Meta are going to appeal this. So it's unknown legal territory. And it's possible an appellate court will rule that design, including the algorithms that feed us content, they could rule that this is protected by the First Amendment. So we don't know what's going to happen now. And I said at the top that I'm conflicted by this and I want to explain this so I'm not Taylor Lorenz, thank God, because her heating bill has got to be insane. I do think that phones can be bad for children, including the gay and trans and chronically ill and neurodivergent ones that Taylor insists need the most. I do think there should be age limits on social media and I think phones should be banned from schools. Even if the research isn't conclusive that social media is bad for kids health. There are other reasons to ban phones from schools.
- [12:35]
B
It gets to these like, fuzzy questions about how we deal with the concept of evidence. And of course this comes up a lot in the youth standard medicine debate. But like banning phones from schools, you can just be like, well, we don't have a perfect randomized controlled trials about the effects of phones on kids in schools, but between what teachers say and the lack of any real meaningful downsides that can't be addressed, which, and I think one of like Lorenz's arguments is often pretty catastrophizing arguments about, oh no, kids don't have phones for a few hours. So to me it's just, it's not the kind of situation that's taught to you by Bart, right? It's One of those policy calls where you need to decide X or Y or Z and you're not gonna have perfect evidence. And I don't think the lack of evidence, even if there's not good concrete evidence for harms like the highest level of evidence, that doesn't mean you can't change the policy or you shouldn't change the policy.
- [13:28]
A
Yeah, even if kids, let's say there's no evidence that, no strong evidence that phones are actually bad for kids mental health, that to me still is not a good argument for phones because Derek Thompson writes about this. He writes about sort of how phones displace other activities. Jonathan Haidt writes about this too. Kids, I think, personally, I think kids should be outside breaking bones, starting fires, bullying each other in person. That's what childhood is for. There's plenty of time to stare at your phones when you're a grown up. And I think there could be legitimate arguments for holding these platforms responsible for what they're feeding children. Although when I looked for examples of real material harms, they were harder to find than I expected. Like, I expected to see a rash of data on suicide contagion and how apps were tempting kids into like eating Tide Pods and smashing themselves.
- [14:13]
B
And that stuff is. It's really hard to generate like quality data that proves causality. That's like sort of the whole. That's the whole ball game. And yeah, I mean, that's what I'm saying. I'm going to include a link to this post by Scott Alexander called the phrase no evidence is a red flag for bad science communication. His argument is that, like, we don't have evidence for X can mean a myriad of different things. And in some cases, just because you don't have evidence to support X, you still may well want to do X. Like you're saying, even, even just the insight that every minute a kid spends in a classroom looking at their phone is a minute they don't spend on something else like that. That's the kind of thing that doesn't neatly tie into evidence. But like, if you're a policymaker and you have to decide what the policy should be, you don't have perfect evidence.
- [14:59]
A
Kids should be playing Pokemon, don't you
- [15:01]
B
think they should be? Or Tamagotchis.
- [15:02]
A
Or Tamagotchis. Exactly. Neopets. Yeah. So like the Wall Street Journal, they did an investigation into how TikTok was serving eating disorder content to teenage girls who had expressed some like, mild interest in dieting content. You know, clicking a liking a TikTok about. About a diet and then a couple hours later they're getting fed pro anorexia content. That seems bad. But does that in itself result in more girls becoming anorexic? I don't know. I don't know if anyone knows that. I don't think it's. It's crazy out of hand to think that there are some correlations there or connections there. Like we know that human behavior can be contagious. I think a lot of people who listen to this show would argue that social media obviously has a role to play in rogd. Rapid onset gender dysphoria and increasing numbers of kids who identify as trans or non binary or whatever. I think it would be silly to pretend that social media doesn't impact attitudes and behavior. We live in a society, social media is a part of it. But at the same time, I also think the responsibility of policing what kids do and see ultimately lives with the kids themselves and with parents, not Facebook or Mata or Google. And you know, I'm not a parent and if I were, I would have iPad kids for sure. So I'm not judging here. Like my kids would be on polymarket and only fans just to keep them quiet. Mommy needs her peace. And I know that age gating tools aren't perfect, but if social media is bad for you or your kids, you actually can take kids phones away or get them phones that don't have social media like dumb phones or gab phones or tin can phones. Have you heard of these, Jesse? Tin can phones?
- [16:31]
B
I've not heard of tin can phones. I know that. I know the dumb phone scenario more generally or phenomenon.
- [16:36]
A
Yeah, so they're, they're like landlines for kids. They work off of WI Fi, but it's an actual, like, it looks like an old school landline. And I have friends who, they don't want their kids to have cell phones, but they want their kids to be connected to their friends and they don't want to be the one, you know, mediating all of the hang time between the kids. They don't want mom to have, they don't want like mom to have to call mom. They want the kids to sort of coordinate for themselves. And so these kids, they go to, like my friend was telling me the other day, her kids go to school, they hang out with their friends at school and then they come home and they talk to them on the landline like it's 1995. They like these things so much that they call their grandparents every day just because they like the phones. It's Very cute. My point is just that there are ways that parents can control their kids phone use, even if it's hard. But clearly the jury here disagreed with me and thinks that platforms are at fault, at least in part. You know, at least $6 million worth worth of fault. That's what they, they awarded this the plaintiff in this case. And had I sat on the jury, you know, heard the evidence, I might have agreed. But from the outside, I think this may have opened a can of worms that might end up being more of a snake.
- [17:43]
B
Yeah, it'll be the way society ends up like resolving all these issues, especially as like, you know, more and more people come forward and say, me too, I was harmed too. It's going to be very interesting and complicated and people like are already. Science is really hard and like anytime you a scientific question intersects with a fraught legal one, you're going to get a lot of bad science. So this is going to be worth keeping an eye on and maybe some further coverage from us.
- [18:09]
A
All right, so onto Afroman. I had kind of forgotten about this guy. And then last week you forgot about
- [18:14]
B
Afroman, one of the most important cultural figures of our high school years. Are you fucking. Oh my God. That's disqualifying right there. Yeah, continue.
- [18:23]
A
And then I had, yes, I admit it, I had forgot about Affirman. And then last week my ex timeline very briefly morphed from all Lindy west takes to all Afroman clips. And I personally found this very upsetting. We were just getting to the part of the Lindy west cycle where people were analyzing Aham's Instagram captions to figure out who he loves more. Did you see this?
- [18:44]
B
Yeah, because he posted one with Roya, right?
- [18:46]
A
He, he posted, he put like on Lindy's birthday, he posted like a, a, a photo of himself with her blurry in the background. He's flipping her off and there's like a sort of like a nice jokey caption. And then his happy birthday posteroya. His. The, the third was like the light of my life, my reason for being my one. It was much sweeter.
- [19:08]
B
This should just be a Lindy west podcast. Like that's what we do best.
- [19:11]
A
I agree, I agree. To be fair, I think what he might be experiencing with Roy is what you call new relationship energy. Are you familiar with this term in the poly universe?
- [19:20]
B
But it's not new. But it's not new at the, it's not new at this point.
- [19:22]
A
I don't know, I don't know what the date was on the. On the happy birthday post. Anyway, we're not going there today, but Afroman briefly took over the algorithm and the reason for this was that he was involved in a lawsuit that was just made to go viral. And we will get to that shortly. But let's do some background first. So the name Afroman might not be familiar to everyone listening to the show. Hi mom. But he's a musician, a rapper. And his classic hit song is called Because I Got High. I don't even think I need to play a clip here. As soon as I say the words, people will sing it in their heads just so you got a few bars on you.
- [19:54]
B
I was gonna go to class, but I got high. I don't need lyrics. I could have cheated and I could have passed. But I got high and. But then the most important part is. Cause I got high. Cause I got high because I got. And then him. Him dubbing over like his own voice comes in and it. What makes it so. It's an absolute earworm of just very endearing but low effort hip hop. I super get to embed just a few seconds of it.
- [20:20]
A
No, we're not.
- [20:21]
B
We could do a few seconds.
- [20:22]
A
We have plenty of embeds for this one. Because I Got High does not need it to be embedded here.
- [20:25]
B
Oh my God. For anyone who hasn't heard it, I think you should. You're the editor. Yeah, it's just a very.
- [20:30]
A
Everybody has heard it. Everybody has heard this song.
- [20:33]
B
Unlike weed, this is a habit forming experience.
- [20:37]
A
I wonder how much I think weed
- [20:39]
B
is habit form for some people. This is a separate.
- [20:40]
A
The fact that you have apparently encyclopedia knowledge of this song. Do you know your Social Security number? What?
- [20:46]
B
I do know my Social Security number.
- [20:47]
A
The funny thing about.
- [20:48]
B
Should I give one digit. Should I give one digit of it on the show? No, Just for premium subscribers.
- [20:53]
A
The funny thing about this song is that you. If you listen to more than the chorus, it's very clear that the song is actually about transcendental meditation. And people don't realize that anyway. For people who maybe weren't smoking blunts in 2001. Afroman's real name is Joseph Edgar Foreman. He's from South Central Los angeles. Born in 1974. I would call his genre comedy hip hop. His major label debut was called the Good Times. It came out in 2001 and the album had two singles, because I Got High and Crazy Rap, also known as cult 45 and two zigzags, which is about two champion horses at Preakness. No, it's about pussy and weed. It's actually very catchy and has some interesting race commentary. So, Jesse, please read and or rap these lyrics.
- [21:37]
B
Well, it was just sundown in a small white town. They call it Eastside Palmdale. Well, when the Afro man walked through the white land Houses went up for sale.
- [21:47]
A
Sale.
- [21:47]
B
Well, I was standing on the Corner selling rap CDs when I met a little girl named Jen. Jan. Jan. I let her ride in my Caddy so I didn't know her daddy was the leader of the Ku Klux Clan. Jesus.
- [21:59]
A
Ha ha.
- [22:01]
B
We fucked on the bed, fucked on the floor. Woo. Fuck. So long. I grew a fucking afro Then I fucked to the left.
- [22:09]
A
Left.
- [22:10]
B
Fuck to the right.
- [22:11]
A
Right.
- [22:12]
B
She S'd my D to look shit and turn white.
- [22:14]
A
Jesse.
- [22:15]
B
No, I'm not.
- [22:16]
A
Say it.
- [22:16]
B
This one.
- [22:17]
A
She sucked my dick till the shit turned white.
- [22:19]
B
This isn't as endearing as Because I Got High, but it's funny. I find it funny.
- [22:23]
A
I find the racial commentary very astute.
- [22:27]
B
It is astute. Because her daddy was the leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
- [22:30]
A
Yes. And she sucked his dick till the shit turned white. I think he's a genuine talent. And Because I Got High was everywhere in the early 2000s. Just inescapable. It was actually nominated for a Grammy in 2000 for best rap Solo Performance. But because this was before the racial reckoning, Afroman was robbed by the white rapper Drake. No. Missly Elliott won Forget your Freak on, which is also a great song. But I'm not sure anything can compare to lyrics like, I was gonna make love to you but then I got high I was gonna eat your too but then I got high Now I'm jacking off and I know why Because I got high Because I got high Because I got high.
- [23:05]
B
I had never heard that verse, I think, because I probably only had access to the radio, which surely would not have included that.
- [23:11]
A
Interestingly not. They would have been.
- [23:12]
B
By the way, I'm in my. To help my brother, like, clear it out. And we found these little.
- [23:17]
A
The entire town.
- [23:18]
B
Clear out the whole town. We got these. We found these little unlabeled tapes. And my bo. My body. My brother bought a $20 tape player.
- [23:27]
A
Nice.
- [23:28]
B
And we, like. I would. I popped it in and it was just instant nostalgia. Both of them. The first one, as soon as I hit play, I recognized Self Esteem by Offspring. Did you guys have that?
- [23:38]
A
I'm sure we did. I'm sure we had Self Esteem by Offspring.
- [23:41]
B
And then the other one was clearly a mixtape I had made it was Roll to Me, which was like a one hit wonder from the 90s. Alanis Morissette and some Coolio or Bone Thugs and harmony. Some combination of Coolio and both thugs in harmony. Yeah, it's really good stuff.
- [23:56]
A
Was this like, were there. You remember when you would tape things off of the radio and you would have to like. You would hear like the few bars of a song and then you would like run to the radio to press record. So I think that's.
- [24:06]
B
Yeah, I think I want to say like most of our audience doesn't get this. I think most of our audience does get this. But a fraction of our audience doesn't understand. You literally would have a tape player like hooked up to the radio via a wire. And then if you wanted to hear a song more than once, you would either have to call the number and ask for it or hit record. When it happened to come on, it was impossible, right?
- [24:27]
A
You called a radio dj. We had like, there was a radio station in my. At the college in my hometown where my. Where my parents worked. And we had real and honestly inappropriate relationships with these radio DJs because we would call them so much. When I was in sixth grade, a girl, sixth grade, a girl from my class. This is actually. This gets dark really quickly. I'm not going to finish the rest of it. Let's just say do it, do it,
- [24:51]
B
do it, do it.
- [24:51]
A
Someone was arrested, let's just put it that way. Radio dj. At the local. At the local station.
- [24:57]
B
I have an even darker.
- [24:58]
A
This is what kids should be doing these days, but instead they're playing fucking Roblox on their phone.
- [25:03]
B
Anyway, I have an even darker story about a radio dj.
- [25:05]
A
Okay.
- [25:06]
B
There was one time in my life I heard a song and it was so good that I called the radio station to ask for them to play it again. Can you guess what it was?
- [25:14]
A
It's gonna be pop punk. No hints, I would say, because I got high by that.
- [25:20]
B
For man, it was All Star by Smash, bro.
- [25:23]
A
That was a great.
- [25:25]
B
Before it became a lot of things that become memes. There's a reason they become memes. They become memes because like it was actually just sort of. It is perfect bubblegum pop sort of. It's just pot. It's just. It's really good. And I was like, this song's amazing. And at the time, 1999, I only had one option to hear it again. And it was literally to call a guy and ask him to play it. Those were the, the situations in which we grew up yeah, these were.
- [25:49]
A
Honestly, this was a good time to be alive. Okay, anyway, back to Afroman. So he. Despite his massive hits, Afroman kind of faded from the mainstream. This tends to happen when your entire brand is weed jokes. Ask me how I know. So he kept making music independently over the last 25 years. But for most people he was just this kind of early 2000s nostalgia act. And I personally had not thought of him for at least 20 years. I think I am not alone in that until last week. So to explain why Aphraman is back in the news we have to go back to 2022. Aphraman then and now was living in Winchester, Ohio. This is in Adams County, Ohio. Jesse, I'm sure you're familiar.
- [26:28]
B
I mean I have.
- [26:29]
A
Don't you have a house there?
- [26:29]
B
Spent. Spent a number of hours driving through Ohio and the part that's not in the mountains of Ohio is. Would you call it a little bleak, Katie? Is that fair to say?
- [26:39]
A
You know, I'm pretty unfamiliar with Ohio to be honest with you. I have, I have on my many cross country drives I always managed to skirt Ohio.
- [26:46]
B
Yeah, I don't, look, I don't want to talk shit about entire state and the southern part. I just, I don't trust flat places. That's part of it but like it's just flat, flat farmland, trees, occasional like broken cities like Youngstown or whatever. I like Columbus. When I went there. I don't want to talk shit about Columbus but I, you know we're going to get into some of the videos he posted. I saw them, I was like, oh I recognize that very gray landscape. But yeah, Ohio gets pretty dark.
- [27:10]
A
Okay, so Adams County, Ohio, mostly rural, very poor, very conservative. They went 82% for Trump in the last election. It's also very white. Like you think Portland is white. Adams County, Ohio makes Portland look like Jamaica. Afroman is one of the only black people in town. And this is where Afroman, the black weed rapper From South Central LA, this is where he's been living for nearly 20 years. It's an odd choice, one made by love. His ex wife is from there and I think it was probably a good investment financially. I found an article from realtor.com claiming that he purchased his five acre home in Winchester for just 24, $500.
- [27:46]
B
Oh my God.
- [27:47]
A
Yeah, I checked current real estate listings in the area. The prices have gone up but it's still very affordable. So if you are looking for a quiet place to settle down among Trump voters and weed wrappers, don't sleep On
- [27:59]
B
Adams county, for some reason, Dave Chappelle is not from Winchester or Adams County.
- [28:04]
A
Right.
- [28:04]
B
He's from Denmark, Ohio.
- [28:05]
A
Yeah. No, he is from Yellow Springs, which is a very different part of Ohio. Although is it racist for you to hear black man and think, oh, they must be from the same part of Ohio? Is that racist? It might be racist.
- [28:19]
B
No. If I was being racist, it was just in the sense that, you know, two. Obviously, Dave Chappelle's a million times bigger than Afroman, but they both do, like, ended up in these, like, really white, I thought, rural places. But Chappelle's might not be as white in rural.
- [28:32]
A
So Yellow Springs is a college town. It's a very small college town, but it's where Antioch College is. His father was on the faculty there. They had very different upbringings. Like Afroman, single mom. Dave Chappelle was like middle class.
- [28:48]
B
Well, but that's what's interesting. He's from South Central. You said he ends up in Ohio. It's just. It's an interesting story.
- [28:53]
A
It is an interesting story.
- [28:54]
B
If I'm being racist, it's for good reasons is what I'm saying.
- [28:56]
A
Okay.
- [28:57]
B
Out of human curiosity. Led to my racism.
- [28:59]
A
All right, so back to 2022. It's August 21st. Afroman is not home. He's on his way home from Chicago and he gets an alert on his phone from his home security system that something is going on. So he's actually able to watch in real time as the Adams County Sheriff's department shows up to his house to execute a search warrant for suspected drug possession. Drug trafficking and kidnapping.
- [29:20]
B
Right, the kidnapping. Okay. Yeah. Kidding.
- [29:22]
A
Yeah.
- [29:23]
B
So that's a lot. It's kind of a. It's kind of a lot.
- [29:25]
A
Yeah. And drug possession makes sense. Trafficking.
- [29:27]
B
Okay.
- [29:28]
A
Maybe he's a weed rapper.
- [29:31]
B
In order of how likely it is for Afroman to have done both of these crimes. Going in, not knowing any details. Possession of drugs.
- [29:38]
A
Okay.
- [29:38]
B
Yeah. Distribution of drugs. He seems more like of a user than a push. Yeah. Trafficking. Afroman doesn't need to traffic drugs. He's Afroman. Kidnapping does not off brand. Nobody who recorded Cause I got high could kidnap someone. You would just play. You would play that song for the jury and they would acquit immediately.
- [29:57]
A
Yes, exactly.
- [29:58]
B
All right, continue. I'm sorry, I just wanted to give some legal analysis.
- [30:01]
A
Reason that they thought that he. The reason they suspected him of kidnapping was from a confidential informant. Motherboard got a hold of the warrant. I'm quoting from Mother Beard. Motherboard here. Mother Beard. That's a. That's different.
- [30:12]
B
Let me just give you some advice on. On this sort of legal reporting. Say C.I. from now on. They sound way cooler. A C.I. yeah.
- [30:19]
A
A confidential informant told them Afroman had a C.I. had a dungeon, quote dungeon. Where he keeps women locked up and forces them to defecate and urinate in a bucket as punishment. According to a search warrant and body camera footage shared with Motherboard. When showed the relevant section of the warrant, Afroman's record label said. Lol. That is completely fabricated and untrue. Afroman doesn't even have a basement. He does, they note, have a crawl space.
- [30:43]
B
What's amazing about that is. Does that ring any bells for you? Doesn't even have a basement.
- [30:47]
A
Pizzagate.
- [30:48]
B
Yeah. Comet Ping Pong. That was. It was the same thing of these like crazy allegations about what they're doing to kids at Comet Ping Pong. And it took place in the basement and whoops. There's no basement.
- [30:55]
A
Jeffrey Epstein doesn't even have an island.
- [30:57]
B
Jeffrey.
- [30:58]
A
That's the thing.
- [30:58]
B
Big people keep talking about the Epstein island. I've never been there. I've never seen it. It was fabricated atoll. Fabricated by. By the state of Israel to distract everybody. Yeah.
- [31:07]
A
Okay. So officers arrive at his house. No one's home. They break down the front door like it's a siege at Waco. His ex wife and kids are nearby where they live. Let me read you another quote from Motherboard. At one point, Aphroman's ex wife shows up and bemused, asks why the cops performed a forced entry when they could simply have asked to be allowed in. I should say because no one knows home. It's possible they did knock first before they used the battering ram, although I'm not sure about that. The ex wife starts recording on her phone. Plus his house is completely wired with security cameras, including on the inside, the
- [31:38]
B
cops to make sure the women can't escape.
- [31:40]
A
Of course the cops, according to Afroman, disabled his cameras at some point, but he still has footage of them busting out down his door, searching his house, rifling through his pockets, looking for this basement that doesn't exist.
- [31:50]
B
And they don't. And they don't find. They don't really find anything. Right. It.
- [31:53]
A
No. No kidnapping victims. No one is being force fed pizza and grape soda in the basement. There's no shit bucket. They did find a small amount of weed and they did seize over $5,000 in cash with which Afroman says was payment from a gig at Red Rocks. He did with Snoop Dogg. And Wiz Khalifa. Which dude get a better agent. You deserve more.
- [32:11]
B
Well, hold on. They get. Okay if he. If they fly him to God. Rural Ohio to Red Rocks. That's quite a trip. Would you consider that if they. Assuming they covered all expenses and put him up. Yeah, I guess it. Wiz Khalifa, he should be getting significantly more than 5. I was trying to. Like, I was trying to get anymore.
- [32:33]
A
It was just one song.
- [32:34]
B
Oh, one song.
- [32:35]
A
It was just. Yeah, it was just because he got flown to Red Rocks. Presumably first class to do. Because I got high with Snoop Dogg.
- [32:42]
B
One song.
- [32:42]
A
I don't know, but I think, like, the amount of money that Snoop Dogg made for that song. I don't know. I don't know.
- [32:49]
B
Well, Snoop Dogg doesn't make. I mean, people. People are coming to see Snoop Dogg, not because of Apherman. This is an interesting music economics question. I wanted to know. Green Day played, I think, three songs at the Super Bowl. I'm really curious what they got paid for those three songs. I don't know. I'm curious. But okay, so I remember from this, they. They literally seize the cash. Like, they take. They take the money.
- [33:09]
A
Yes. And this is legal.
- [33:11]
B
Yeah.
- [33:11]
A
And if you ever want to work yourself into a rage and possibly turn into a libertarian, read Billy Binion at Reason on civil asset forfeiture. The short story is that police are allowed to seize property that they suspect is connected to a crime, even if the person isn't convicted. And it can be really difficult to get your property back, even if you're never convicted. And, Jesse, if you cannot get your own property that the seas from you back, guess where that money goes.
- [33:34]
B
Well, it goes to the police. And. And they. Before Billy Binion, who. We love Billy Binion. Sarah Stillman, like, for, like, a long time, was writing about this in the New Yorker, and they're just astonishing stories of the ways police can, on the thinnest of premises, just take your shit. And often they would target people just like traveling through a state with shitty cops, and that was that.
- [33:57]
A
Yeah, like, you got a lot of money, you got a lot of cash in. You hide it real well.
- [34:02]
B
They just pull you over, they say, and take it. Listen, Jew boy, this must be drug money. Yeah, this must be drug money.
- [34:07]
A
I don't know if it's Jew boy that they're really targeting. In particular.
- [34:10]
B
I think they're targeting. In fact, I think that would be an unwise person to target. Target because of certain. I don't want to get into it. I don't want to be accused again of anti Semitism. Certain stereotypes are born of truth. And one of those stereotypes might bear on the question if cops should. If cops should say, Jew boy, give me. Give me your. Give me that blinged out Star of David Jew boy.
- [34:29]
A
Jesse says, this is the child of two parents with JD's. So, yes, the police can use SE's assets to buy for themselves. And there are some incredibly corrupt and egregious cases is tied to this. So, like, for instance, there was a sheriff in Camden County, Georgia, who allegedly used forfeiture money to pay prison inmates to build himself a vacation home called the Ponderosa. He also allegedly donated $250,000 in forfeiture proceeds to his alma mater to start a scholarship in his name to train corrupt.
- [34:58]
B
It was earmarked, marked, to train corrupt cops of the future.
- [35:00]
A
It wasn't sit at all. So, yeah, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. And no charges were never filed against him. This is legal. But we will do our part to publicly name and shame him. It was Bill Smith, a name so generic it sounds fake. And I'd say we should cancel him, but he was canceled in 2025 when he died.
- [35:17]
B
The ultimate cancellation. I think I've made that joke before on this podcast. Sorry, continue.
- [35:22]
A
Well, it's six years. They're gonna come back. Afroman's cash was later returned, but it was missing $400. The sheriff's department says this was a counting error. Afroman says they stole it.
- [35:32]
B
Wait, wait, hold on. Sorry. They couldn't count to 5,000.
- [35:36]
A
It seems they. It's four digits because that was the
- [35:38]
B
amount they took, right? Yeah, it's just because it's not like. As everyone knows from the Wire, there's a famous scene in the Wire where these two cops just find a huge amount of drug money and no one knows how much it is, and they just each take a little bit of it. That's great. That's cool. That's good policing. But if the guy. If Afroman knows he has $5,000, you can't be like, oh, we couldn't count that high. Sorry about that. That's just lazy.
- [36:01]
A
Well, they say that it wasn't $5,000. He says it was $5,000.
- [36:05]
B
Oh, so they disagree.
- [36:05]
A
The money was in his suit pocket from Red Rocks. And he was like, it was five. I got paid $5,000 from Red Rocks. And they were like, here's $4,600 back.
- [36:13]
B
It's also so much cooler than the way I get paid, which still involves paper checks for some reason. You just.
- [36:18]
A
The way I'd like to think you could set up. You could set up a wire transfer.
- [36:23]
B
No, we. Because, remember, they take the fee. They do take the fee well, but.
- [36:26]
A
But it's a $20 fee every time.
- [36:28]
B
What? The way I want this to work is that Snoop comes backstage after the set and just gives him $5,000. That would be so cool if Snoop just. I know that's not how it works, but if Snoop just literally gives you a handful, reaches into his pockets and just gives you loose $5,000. Sorry, no.
- [36:43]
A
He points to the Jew who holds the cash.
- [36:46]
B
This is my. This is my money guy, Shlomo Jberg. He'll hook you up.
- [36:52]
A
All right. So the raid also damages Aphroman's front door, his gate, his security camera wiring. And he says repairs cost him over $20,000 and no, the police did not pay for it. So Afroman, American icon, is not happy about these developments. And rather than, say, sue the individual cops or the department itself, which he could theoretically do, but would probably get him nowhere due to qualified immunity and similar laws, he decides to use his God given talents and rap about it. And not only does he rap about it, he has all this video footage from the raid. So he takes the security camera footage and he makes music videos. So on December 29, 2022, Afroman drops three videos, all using raid footage. And some of the footage is genuinely shocking. Like, this is a guy who had done nothing wrong. And police batter down his door. They've got their weapons drawn. One of those first three songs is called Lemon Pound Cake. It's set to the tune of under the Boardwalk by the Drifters. Let's listen to a clip. And Jesse, I want you to describe what you're seeing.
- [37:55]
B
There are cops. Gun. A pudgy one with his gun drawn. Sorry to fat shame. Sorry.
- [38:00]
C
Lindy West, Adams County Sheriff. Kick down my door. Then I heard the glass break.
- [38:07]
B
It's sort of like cut between scenes from the raid and Afroman wearing a ridiculously garish outfit with like a huge drink.
- [38:13]
A
And what's on his suit?
- [38:15]
B
Weed leaves. Marijuana leaves. Marijuana. He is sort of the model of, like, dignified aging. Like, when I'm in my 50s, I want to look like that. Seriously. He just doesn't. He just doesn't give a.
- [38:30]
C
And cut him a slide. Of what? Of what lemon pound cake he wants.
- [38:39]
B
It's really poorly timed. But the chubby cop, he's got his gun out and he's supposedly looking for kidnapping victims. But then his eye catches a cake. He's in the kitchen in the corner. He's in the kitchen and he looks and then he looks back up. The task at hand of rescuing the the kidnapping victim's defining in buckets. But he can't resist. He looks back down at the pound cake.
- [39:02]
A
Yes, that is lemon pound cake. And the next month in January 2023, Afroman drops a full 14 song album called Lemon Pound Cake. So Jesse, take a look at these song titles. Here, read these.
- [39:14]
B
Well, these are very to the point. The police raid Lemon pound cake. Why are you disconnecting my video camera? I' ma have a good time. Sign my titties Wet tight energy had hard ass dick.
- [39:29]
A
I need money, I need dollars.
- [39:31]
B
One I'm familiar with. Will you help me repair my door?
- [39:34]
A
Yes.
- [39:35]
B
And so on. So a lot of these are variations on the theme of why did you raid my house, you pigs?
- [39:42]
A
Yeah. So not every song on the album is about the police raid. Sign My Titties is about signing titties, not the police raid wet tight energy. I'm actually not sure what that one's about, but it does contain the line fuck you and my Stacey Adams. That's above my head. But yeah, some of these songs are about the cops and he names the police. So why are you disconnecting? My video camera includes these lyrics. I pay taxes, I work daily I get raided by Beetle Bailey, Randy Walters private file. I used to fuck his wife doggy style. So that's about Deputy Randy Walters. The same song includes these lines. Jesse, why don't you read these ones?
- [40:17]
B
Lick em low Lisa ate my ex wife just like pizza she jealous of me and my log jamma that's why she disconnected my came. Jesus Christ.
- [40:27]
A
This should be taught in poetry classes about iambic pantameter.
- [40:31]
B
Yeah, seriously.
- [40:32]
A
So that one is about Deputy Lisa Phillips. He also referred to her as a racist feminist, which conveniently rhymes with white supremacist. And he didn't just put out these songs and videos, he made memes, he sold merch. Let me read from NPR here. Common themes range from poking fun at the deputies appearances, comparing them to family guys, Peter Griffin and Quasimodo from the Hunchback of Notre Dame to more serious allegations of extramarital affairs and pedophilia among department members. So this goes well beyond merely like calling him fat. He's. He's making serious, if still kind of funny allegations. And so the police who again raided his home, found nothing, took his money, cost him $20,000 in damages. They do about the dumbest thing possible and sue him.
- [41:17]
B
Which can we just say like, like when you say dumbest thing possible, that like, that's almost not giving it enough credit for how dumb it is. Because if someone says XYZ about you and you choose to sue them, any decent lawyer will be like, well, they can like then ask for a bunch of your messages. They can subpoena this like it. It's a whole can of worms you're opening up that might lead you horrible places not even having anything to do with the lawsuit. And this is like, it would actually, it would be unpleasant to be a cop whose name was dragged through the mud. But you are, you are a public servant and you did take place in this raid and the guys has a right to get pissed off about it and sing about it. So yeah, just the tactical error of bringing this into the courts is pretty.
- [42:03]
A
Wow, it's very ahomaluo.
- [42:05]
B
Can we just bring everything back to Lindy West?
- [42:07]
A
I'm just saying, right.
- [42:08]
B
What is him choosing to send that email to a journalist list is a not as dumb, but pretty, pretty dumb version.
- [42:16]
A
Yeah, right. If somebody says something about you that you don't like, sometimes you gotta either just ignore it or laugh about it because other like any fighting back will spread that. This is. Try standing. This is the. Like this is just spreads the message further. Like we would never have heard of this of these people. I would never would have heard of this case if they hadn't sued him. It's the law. It's not the rage that he did put out these songs. They did get lots of plays. But it was the lawsuit, not the raid, that that's why we're talking about this.
- [42:45]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [42:46]
A
So like Lemon Pound cake now has 7.5 million views on YouTube.
- [42:50]
B
Of course it does.
- [42:51]
A
Will you help me repair my door? Has 13 million views on YouTube. And the vast majority of these of these views came in the last week. So in March 2023, seven members of the Adams County Sheriff's office filed this civil lawsuit against Afroman. Man. They claim he used their likenesses without consent. He defamed them. He invaded their privacy and caused, quote, humiliation, ridicule, mental distress, embarrassment, and loss of reputation. They were seeking $3.9 million in damages and they want a cut of the revenue from his music, YouTube and merchandise sales. And in March 2026, just this month, the trial actually begins. It's called Cooley v. Foreman, AKA Afroman. And the case was incredible. Afroman shows up in a full American flag Suit and matching sunglasses. This is partly why I think this went so viral. Like, it is a great story. Yes. But the image of him walking into court dressed like Uncle Sam from South Central la, the scene is just made for the Internet. Although I'm so Internet poisoned myself that when I first saw the video of this, I didn't recognize Afroman. And I thought it was someone in blackface in an American flag suit. I thought. I thought it was like a racist Trump administration official. But no, it was Aphraman.
- [44:01]
B
He's just very good at sort of seizing the moment and, and doing the best with what the moment has given him.
- [44:06]
A
Yes. And so his lawyer is named David Osborne, and he makes the free speech argument. He argues that the videos are clearly comedic exaggerations, not statements of fact. He compares them to NWA's the Police and WAP by CARDI B And Megan Thee Stallion. But he mispronounces both of their names. He calls them Carly B and Megan 3 stallion, which is fair. He also tells the jury that no one listens to Lil Wayne's song Pussy Monster and think there's a literal monster in it. The only defense witness he calls is the ex wife of one of the deputies. And she testifies that she and her. Her students are familiar with wap. She's a teacher. She and her students are familiar with wap. And none of them took the lyrics literally. And that she heard the cops laughing about the songs, which calls into questions their claims of emotional.
- [44:50]
B
Oh, man, that's awesome. That's awesome. So what. Wait, so what are the. What are the plaintiffs argue, though, like, during the trial?
- [44:58]
A
Yeah, so I want to take their side seriously for a moment. So the deputies testified about the real impact on their lives. So Sean Cooley, he's the now retired chubby deputy caught on camera eyeing the cake. He says he received hundreds of actual pound cakes sent to him at work. Quote, it just went from being a nice, quiet community, a job he felt safe in, to a place where you had to look over your shoulder every second. I actually felt kind of bad for the guy. I mean, he didn't actually violate any laws. He just looked at a pound cake like he wanted to it. Another deputy, Brian Newland, he said he was forced to quit this job, his dream job at the sheriff's department, because of Afroman's claims that he was a pedophile and a thief, which, for the
- [45:35]
B
record, he denies calling someone a pedophile. That, to me, gets into defamation territory.
- [45:40]
A
Yeah. So Afroman posted this on Facebook. It was he posted a photo of Newland with a boy he had met through the Shop A Cop program, which does sound sus. And Newlyn's brother, who had also been a cop.
- [45:52]
B
Wait, wait. Shop. Shop a cop.
- [45:54]
A
Shop a cop. Like, sorry, shop with a cop. Not. Not buy a cop. Go shopping with a cop.
- [46:01]
B
Well, so it's just like, okay, a little like kids, like hanging out with cops. I don't think that that's actually sus.
- [46:10]
A
Shop with a cop. Okay. Anyway, Newland's brother had also been a cop in a different district, and he was convicted of misdemeanor charges of providing obscene material to juveniles. This had nothing to do with Brian. And during the cross, the plaintiff's attorney, he directly asked Afroman about this. You know, do you have evidence that Brian Newland molested little boys? And this was Afroman's response. Quote, if you look at the picture he's holding the little boy butt. It's too much for me. Use your eyeballs.
- [46:41]
B
I feel bad for this cop. He was called a pedophile. That, like, there's no evidence. So his brother was. Was apparently a pedophile, but he wasn't.
- [46:49]
A
Let's be careful here, Jesse.
- [46:51]
B
Convicted of a. Convicted of a misdemeanor charge of giving.
- [46:54]
A
Providing obscene material to juveniles.
- [46:56]
B
Yeah, I mean, I. Okay, who hasn't. That's. I don't. I don't mind calling someone who does that a pedophile, but it sounds like this cop was genuinely.
- [47:03]
A
Jesse, you know about the pedophile tribe molester distinction.
- [47:06]
B
I know, but. But I just want to make sure I'm clear on this part, because the new. This Newland cop didn't actually do anything wrong other than participate in Shop With a Cop program.
- [47:14]
A
Well, he also was the one who handled the money.
- [47:16]
B
Okay. Nobody didn't do anything. He didn't do anything with a little kid, which is the worst thing you can accuse. Okay.
- [47:20]
A
Hey, use your eyeballs.
- [47:22]
B
He's holding the little boy. But it's too much for me to use your eyeballs.
- [47:25]
A
There was also Sergeant Randy Walters, or as Afroman put it, Randy Walters, Private pile. I used to fuck his wife doggy style. So Walters testified about the tremendous pain that this had caused him. Walter says, actually, let's just watch a clip.
- [47:39]
D
He said he had sex with your wife. Yes. Okay. And that's painted you in a false light. It's caused tremendous pain in my life. I'll get to that. We have to go through false light first. So does it paint you in a false light? Yes, that my Wife is cheating on me with Mr. Foreman. But we all know that's not true, correct? I don't know. But you don't know if your wife's cheating on you or not. You want to go there? No, I just want to ask that question because you said we don't know. I just been with that woman since middle school. I would hope she wouldn't. But you know what? Once somebody puts it out there for their fun and entertainment, it's out there and it's a problem.
- [48:16]
A
He could have just said no, she's definitely not Afro Man. I'm. Maybe he was nervous.
- [48:20]
B
You never. It's impossible to. This is a basic like philosophy of science thing. No one can prove Schrodinger's after to a certainty that Afroman. It's not Schrodinger. By the way, I explained Schrodinger cat wrong and I'm not correcting that because I'm just gonna fuck it up further. But yes, this is a basic principle of science. Nobody knows for sure that Afroman did not fuck any of your relatives or any of your pets for that matter. So it's a tricky situation.
- [48:47]
A
Yeah, it's true. Walters also testified that he found out about these music videos from his kids. And he said that his then 11 year old biracial daughter. So this is one of three kids that he adopted from foster care. He says she came home from school in tears because kids were claiming that she was Afroman child. Walter said that he was not involved in any of the money retrieval or the processing that night. But he's still being accused of stealing Afroman's money. And he said where in the world is it okay to make something up for fun that's damaging to others when you know for sure it's an absolute lie? You know, he says his reputation has hurt, his family's been hurt and he's clearly pissed. And then there was Deputy Lisa Phillips. Lick them low Lisa ate my wife just like pizza. That was about her. Afroman also later released another song that contained the lyrics. Lyrics. Lick them low Lisa, you don't really know her. I noticed her voice is a few octaves lower. She's not too ugly, she's not too fine. She might whip out something that's bigger than mine. Basically calling her a man.
- [49:44]
B
Damn.
- [49:45]
A
And in the music video, Afroman got an actress with a, it has to be said, massive ass to play Lisa in the video. Including these scenes where she's, let's say orally pleasuring a line of women with what looks like Whipped cream on her face. The video is over 13 minutes long, and it includes footage from Philip's deposition. So this is pre trial. It's footage of her answering questions about the effect of this on her. And I am pleased to say Jesse, that genius. The lyrics website included this in their page for the song. So please read these lyrics from Lick them.
- [50:18]
B
Lolisa, how'd you like to go to Walmart and be called a guy because of your voice or ask if you got a pecker? How would you like that? That you like a female or a guy asking if you got a vagina? Probably not. Obviously, I haven't had a sex change. I have a child. I mean, I had that.
- [50:32]
A
We call that gender affirming care.
- [50:33]
B
I was on my way to work one morning, stop at the stop sign. The commissioners had contracted a crew that was working panhandle. I got hollered. Lieutenant Lickam Lowe, Lisa Phillips.
- [50:42]
A
So her attorneys play the video in court, and Deputy Phillips is on the stand and she cries. And of course, there's footage of that and that goes viral. And it's funny, yes, but it's also kind of sad, but it's mostly funny.
- [50:54]
B
I mean, it would say it would suck to be publicly shamed in this manner, but it is like it's.
- [51:01]
A
He's absolutely.
- [51:03]
B
He's. He's making fun of you for a video, for video footage he has of you. And that's all, like, definitely within his free speech rights, I would think, for sure.
- [51:10]
A
Yeah. I just don't want to pretend that, you know, his act, that his art didn't have consequences, because they did. Like the cops were doing their jobs when they busted down his door and invaded his home and stole his money. Allegedly. I was touched by their testimony. But Afroman, unlike me, has no sympathy for the cops who caused $20,000 in damage to his house. And when he was asked on the stand about Deputy Phillips getting upset during her testimony, Afroman said, just like I was upset when she was standing in front of my. My kids with an AR15 in her hand around the trigger. He also posted this on Instagram, all caps. Where were these tears when she was standing in my yard with a.
- [51:46]
B
Where was these tears?
- [51:47]
A
Where was these tears when she was standing in my yard with a loaded AR15 read Swiss cheese me. So it's already pretty dramatic trial. But then Afroman does something possibly unprecedented in the history of American jurisprudence. He drops a diss track about one of the plaintiffs during the trial. The song is called Randy Walters is a son of a Bitch Lyrics Randy Walters is a son of a bitch. That's why I fucked his wife and got filthy rich.
- [52:14]
B
Do you think he ran that by his lawyer before he did it? So he testified too during the trial, right?
- [52:19]
A
Yeah. And he never took off his sunglasses. It was like watching Kara Swisher testify. But his argument was exactly what you'd expect. And it comes down to this is America. So let's watch a clip.
- [52:30]
D
So what they did, searching your house gave you the right to do everything
- [52:34]
C
you under the circumstance that I got freedom of speech. After they run around my house with guns and kick down my door, I got the right to kick a can in my backyard, Use my freedom of speech. Turn my bad times into a good time. Yes I do. And I think I'm a sport for doing so.
- [52:51]
A
So that's what the jury has to decide. Were Afroman songs and videos and posts defamation or were they art? Is this America or is this Red China? And the jury decided it's China. It's America, baby.
- [53:04]
B
Oh, it's America.
- [53:05]
A
No, it's America. Afromann was found not liable and he left the courthouse with his ex wife wearing what looked like a juicy tracksuit, triumphant crying we did America. Freedom of speech. And he has really gotten a hero's reception since this story went viral. Almost everyone on the spectrum from Fox News to Mother Jones seems to be on his side. You know, fuck the police. At least in this case. Although there was one contingent that was not on Afroman's side. So Jesse, please click this link and describe.
- [53:33]
B
Oh, this is you. You decided, not me. You decided to go to Blue sky and check if they decided he was transphobic. Because he did make that joke about the woman having a dick.
- [53:44]
A
Jessica the 80s Yes, I regret to
- [53:46]
B
inform you that man is transphobic. I'm glad Afra man won. He was legally correct. But he's also a transphobic libertarian loser. This does not surprise me. I will also say it's not. It's not some groundswell of anger. Most of these are not didn't really get much pickup. But of course some people are mad
- [54:04]
A
about this other than that he was really seen as something of a hero. But I found myself sort of sympathetic to the cops not pursuing him. That was very dumb, clearly. And they should have compensated him for the damage they did to his house. Although legally they don't have to. Cops can do basically whatever they want during a raid. Peter Moscows. He's a professor at John Jay College of Criminal justice, former Baltimore Police Department officer. I asked him about this. And he said, cops executing a warrant can almost never do wrong. Legally, not morally. And yes, they can bust your gate and bust up your house and not pay for it.
- [54:34]
B
Not great.
- [54:34]
A
Not great. But I have a knee jerk tendency to feel bad for people who become the character of the day. As long as it's not Lindy West's husband. So I wonder, did the police actually do anything wrong here in their search of Afroman's property? They got this tip. You know what was best practices in this situation?
- [54:50]
B
Yeah. What did you. So you looked into this. What'd you find?
- [54:52]
A
Yeah, so I checked in with a couple of law enforcement folks. I said, what should they have done in a case where they got a tip about a woman being held in a dungeon and forced to shit in a bucket? You know, you can't, like, totally ignore that just because it sounds crazy, right?
- [55:05]
B
Well, I think there's. There's probably a middle ground between totally ignoring it.
- [55:09]
A
We'll get there. We'll get there. We'll get there. So, to be clear, none of the law enforcement people I spoke to had any particular insight about what happened into this case. So we're talking in generalities here, but one law enforcement officer, his background is specifically in confidential informants. Cis.
- [55:25]
B
Nice.
- [55:25]
A
Tell me this. Generally, CIS will be motivated by either financial incentives, meaning they're paid for providing information, or they're working off potential criminal charges and are cooperating with law enforcement to cut a deal. This dynamic creates two obvious problems. I probably don't need to spell this out, but he said CIS will often make up stories, exaggerate the extent of crimes, or outright lie in order to make money, reduce their uncharted charges, or get rival criminals into trouble with law enforcement. So he also explained that because cops are generally not required to provide CI's identities to prosecutors, defense counsel, or even judges, there have been cases where dirty cops just make up CIS to justify search warrants. And to be clear, I'm not saying that's what happened in this case, but clearly the CIA in this case was unreliable, and yet the police got a warrant off of this bad tip. And the thing is, a case should never hinge solely on a tip from a CI. That should be the beginning, not the whole story.
- [56:19]
B
Well, it's like in journalism, if one source tells you a very exciting thing, you tweet it. Exactly. You tweet immediately. There's exceptions where you could base a story on one source, but usually that's bad practice because. For obvious reasons.
- [56:32]
A
Exactly. Yeah. So I asked our public Defender friend Yassin Mascout, who, by the way, just had twins. Identical twins. Very cute. Congrats to him.
- [56:39]
B
And twins. Other 90s stuff.
- [56:42]
A
Condolences to Ms. Kathy as well. I asked Yasin about this and he told me, quote, there's something called the Aguilar Spinelli test, where you have to establish why a source is trustworthy. And for cis, that's typically an established history of corroborated information. And he also said, I don't know if they did that here, but at minimum, you'd send an officer to surveil the property from the street and see if the stories line up. So as an example of this done right, he told me about a case of his where so many people were coming and going from a house all day and all night that the Neighbors had called 911-DEZENS and dozens of times, like over a hundred times. So the cops go surveil the house for two days, they confirm this, they get a search warrant based on that, and then they raid the house, they find what they're looking for. The case is airtight. This ain't that. And I was wondering if this is a case where this, like, small town police department, you know, not much going on in Adams County. If they get this tip, they just get super excited to use their battering rams and their big guns and so they jump the gun. But I also talked to an Adams county local, and I'm not going to name him, but he is someone who has. Has quite a bit of knowledge about this case and the cops involved, and he said my speculation wasn't quite right. So Adams county has very low violent crime rate, although, oddly, there were a handful of murders in 2025. But they do have a meth problem and a heroin problem and a fentanyl problem. So the local sheriff's department does these drug rates fairly often, not weekly, not monthly, but it's not this thing that never happens where they're like, busting out the battering ram for the first time and blowing the dust off of it.
- [58:09]
B
So what did he say about the local police here?
- [58:11]
A
Not a fan. And I thought this might be a case where, you know, the national media picked up this small town story and just completely misrepresented the place and the people in it. But that doesn't actually seem to be the case here. So this guy I talked to, he grew up in the area. He's lived there most of his life. He explained that the sheriff's department does not, in general, have a good reputation like one of the cops involved in the Afroman case, there were rumors he would take drug dealers drugs and money and not report that them. He also said another local cop in town was known for pulling over women to get their phone numbers. He said that pretty much everyone in Adams county that he knows of is on Afroman side here. And I asked him what sort of Afroman's reception is like in the county. Like, it's. It is weird that this like weed wrapper from south Central LA is living in rural Ohio. Like, how is he treated locally? And he said that Afra man, you know, he's been there for a long time. His ex wife is from there. His kids go to the local public schools, they go to the local church. People see him at sporting events. And yes, this is a conservative, white, rural place and he is a black weed rapper from South Central la, but he's a part of the community, even if he physically stands out.
- [59:13]
B
I think you're. I think you're like a little outdated. So I'm just. I suspect in 2026, weed is now the sort of thing where, like, people would not bat an eyebrow at someone living near them who is very into weed. Do you think there's still a stigma especially?
- [59:29]
A
It's more the. It's more the. The. I. No, I think it's more the like giant Afro and the color of his skin that would make him stand out in Adam S.C. ohio.
- [59:37]
B
I don't, I don't. I don't. I think even in. Okay, all right. It's. I just understand real America and you don't, but that's fine.
- [59:45]
A
Sure.
- [59:45]
B
I'm a big real America guy. I always have been.
- [59:47]
A
Sure. Yes. So in the end, Afroman, American icon, he might not get the Grammy nod for Lemon Pound Cake, but I think this may be his best and his most important album yet.
- [59:58]
B
I'm glad that you had the same impulse as me, which is maybe why we're contrarian podcasters, which was like, yes, this is funny, but I actually do think the cops involved are human beings. And I'm sure they went through some shitty.
- [60:10]
A
Jesse, that's a little much. I wouldn't go that far.
- [60:14]
B
A car. All cops are human.
- [60:15]
A
All cops are bodies.
- [60:16]
B
It would suck to be at the center of one of these public shaming episodes, but really, they decided to sue him and it's clearly a free speech thing, so the correct outcome.
- [60:24]
A
All right, Jesse, any questions?
- [60:26]
B
No. Thank you for that, Katie. This has been blocked and reported as always. We are produced with help from Jessica the 80s baby thank you for listening. Bye Bye.