As the founder of Art Not Evidence, Elli Brazzill is both a part of the musical community that listens to rap music, and a fervent advocate for the protection of it as an art form, something that has been hotly contested in the media and in UK courts in recent years. The vilification of rap music has been well documented, with a number of pivotal cases making their way into mainstream media over the past decade – from Skengdo and AM’s landmark case making history for receiving a suspended prison sentence for performing a track in 2019, to Digga D being served a Criminal Behavior Order (CBO) banning him from performing his track “Next Up?” just the year before, the landscape of drill music is riddled with controversy, injustice, and racism.

As per the history books, white musicians don’t tend to face the same scrutiny as their Black counterparts, with countless examples of “violent” lyrics and viscerally descriptive imagery found in other genres like metal, country and opera, which aren’t typically afforded the same criticism. These lyrics are often rationalised as purely performative and fictional in these historically white-majority genres, whilst drill lyrics are often perceived to be literal, autobiographical confessions often resulting in damning convictions with lengthy sentences. It’s a double standard that hasn’t gone unnoticed, with Art Not Evidence pioneering the agenda that rap should be heralded as the art form it is, and that creative expression should be properly ensured it is reliable and not going to influence a jury, which is so often not the case.

With this in mind, Art Not Evidence have drafted legislation with Nadia Whittome MP, calling for artistic expression to be inadmissible in court, and only put before judge and jury if it passes rigorous tests to confirm it’s legitimately relevant, and reliable. “We’re talking about art at the end of the day,” shares Elli, an astute observer of the current political, judicial, and musical climate that we find ourselves occupying, “and it’s the generally young Black boys who are being unjustly prosecuted over it.”

To kick off, could you explain what Art Not Evidence (ANE) is as a movement for someone who might not be familiar?

Art Not Evidence is an organisation and campaign working to stop the criminalisation of rap music – our ultimate goal is to change the law around creative and artistic expression being used as evidence.

Art Not Evidence is connecting with a whole host of different audiences, from those impacted by miscarriages of justice to those who deal out the charges. Could you explain who ANE is “for”?

It’s for the generally young Black boys who have been persecuted by this issue, and for me, it’s also for the future of rap music. When I got into Art Not Evidence it was like, “wow, these boys are going away for music that we all love”, and if this continues to happen, it’s going to be a detriment to rap music being seen as art. Not even just rap music, all art in general. It’s a slippery slope – the way that their freedom of expression is being persecuted and quashed could go a lot further if we’re not careful.

Researchers at the University of Manchester found 68 cases involving 252 defendants in which police or prosecutors sought to introduce rap evidence often for serious charges including gang related murders. How did it get this bad? Has it always been like this?  

In America, it’s been knocking around since like the late 80s, literally when hip hop started. The earliest case we’re aware of in the UK was 2005, and then increased significantly around 2017 and 2018 when UK drill started to gain in popularity and began to enter the charts. I think it was basically just quite clear that it was working as a tool to prejudice the jury to get convictions. And sadly, the way that the media has vilified drill has made it become synonymous with crime or being a criminal, you know.

Were there any pivotal cases that provoked the start of Art Not Evidence?

Digga D was a big one because he’s spoken vocally about the campaign and his lawyer is involved with Art Not Evidence. He’s really one of the most outspoken artists in terms of direct experience having been served a CBO (Criminal Behaviour Order) for his music which I think is really underappreciated. I think it’s very honourable that he’s speaking out.

There was a high-profile case involving a rapper from Homerton in 2020 and there has been an article written recently ‘Racist inferences and flawed data’ that dives deep into what happened. There’s an example in the article about four bars used as evidence, but they’ve taken out the third line, literally taking out the context which makes it very clearly a metaphor. It made those remaining lines so much more dramatic – they can’t be autobiographical because they’ve twisted them to their own gain, removing and changing and adding ellipses. They know what they’re doing.

There is clearly a racial imbalance in who is being charged based on rap lyrics, with 84% of defendants in the above statistic being non-white. How do you find the judicial system and police force are receiving this criticism of their processes?  

My opinion is that they haven’t taken any responsibility, they’ve actually done the opposite. The CPS (Crime Prosecution Service) say that they’ve never charged anybody due to the music that they listen to which technically is true, because there’s no law that says you can’t listen to rap music. But on many, many, many occasions, they have used it to infer bad character, or to influence a jury to suggest that young Black boys making drill music in hoodies and using “gun fingers” in a video means that they’re in a gang and are therefore criminals. It’s destroying these young boys’ lives, it’s destroying the validity of rap music, and rap music is art, not evidence. So this is why we have to do the thing and change the law.

Many people consider rap lyrics as having the potential of being an autobiographical “confession” informed by lived experience. What would you say to those people who believe that some rap lyrics speak to a “truth”, and are actively promoting and justifying violence and illegal activities? Are there any examples where the use of art as evidence has been justified?

I would say that obviously, some rap lyrics will be “true”, because they’re often informed by lived experience, but we can’t say whose lived experiences it is referring to, that’s artistic licence, and that’s what other genres are afforded. Just because some are true, it doesn’t also mean that it’s “glorifying” something, that’s a huge leap to take. There are some amazing stats from Youth Music about how music is catharsis and therapy and helps people get through what a lot of these young Black boys are experiencing, and music is really one of the only avenues that they can afford or is sort of “allowed” culturally.

Regardless, our bill is clear that we don’t condone violence and we don’t pretend that violence in drill doesn’t exist, but to allow drill to become synonymous with criminality because of a few cases doesn’t mean that the hundreds and thousands of drill tracks should be painted with that same brush. That’s why it’s important that we have this new legislation, ensuring creative expression can only be admissible once it has passed a much higher challenge to its relevance.

Tell me about ANE’s connection with Nadia Whittome MP – how does her role in a political capacity and legislative influence help to push the ANE agenda?

Her and her team are amazing, she does so many things, so for her to so happily jump on board with the campaign and speak at our launch and help us put that together in parliament was huge. The plan is that the next opportunity she has to table a bill and say that this new legislation should be law, it will be our legislation which is absolutely insane. We didn’t realise until recently how unusual it is to have support from an MP before launch, so we’re just mega blessed to have her and her team onboard because they’re great people doing great things.

From Giggs to Annie Mac, many artists and political figures have stepped forward to show their support for ANE. It feels particularly powerful that Giggs has shared his thoughts considering his lived experience of the criminal justice system. Is this something you expected?

I was just in Westfield and I got a text from another artist manager saying “yo I just saw Giggs’ instagram post on Art Not Evidence”, and I was like “what’s going on?!”. It was so amazing. That got so much press. The hardest thing is getting anyone of influence to talk about something, but it’s a dangerous thing for rappers to do this, they’re the target. It could fuel the fire with them speaking out about their experiences. The Landlord?! talking about us?! Crazy.

How do you feel about seeing ANE out in the world on posters with BUILDHOLLYWOOD? Who are you hoping to reach on the streets? How can people get involved? 

It’s so amazing to be working with BUILDHOLLYWOOD, so iconic. I know the way that they came up from flyposting and doing radical shit, so working with them feels so exciting. We’ve done a lot of legal and academic stuff but not enough music stuff yet in my opinion, so to have a presence at Parklife and Wireless is really sick. Like, this is a real thing! You can scan the QR code!

A lot of rap fans are aware of us, but just in general, more music fans to spread the message in any way is really important. We need people to sign our open letter, that will be a huge part of when we table our legislation, to show the support we have from the community as well as from artists. And if there are any artists reading this – definitely get in touch.

What’s next for ANE? How are you planning on pushing the agenda forward?

We are currently in fundraising mode! Because of the nature of what we do we can’t have charity or CIC status which means it’s harder for us to raise money or receive a grant like a traditional charity, so we’re having to go around different ways to fund what we want to do. We want to give people the opportunity to make an impact by investing in what we’re doing, so get in touch if that sounds like you.

Something I want to do next is to create some kind of artists’ coalition of artists that aren’t rappers. To me, this is an art issue too, this is about protecting art and not letting it be used for the wrong reasons. We shouldn’t be leaving it to the rappers to put their lives on the line to speak about something that non-rap artists can do safely, it’s really important.