Hip Hop, Hypocrisy and the Law: The Case of Tiny Doo

Sometimes you read a courtroom story that just makes you shake your head at its sheer stupidity.

That’s certainly how I felt being made aware of the sad situation in which San Diego rapper Tiny Doo currently finds himself in. He’s facing life behind bars, without having a single prior stain on his criminal record, for releasing a ‘gang-affiliated’ rap album. An album that, by virtue of an obscure law, a judge is seriously considering condemning as confirmation of Tiny’s status as a ‘criminal’ due to the fact that his sales have somehow benefitted from its gang-centric themes.

The law in question was voted for by Californians in 2000 and is kind of similar in function to the RICO Act introduced to combat criminal organisations. Harvey Dent used that one in The Dark Knight to put all of the mobsters in Gotham on trial, regardless of what evidence he had against them.

The prosecution in this case will argue that the album is both a confirmation of his status as a gang member and that the criminal activity (namely murder) of the gang he finds himself on trial with directly benefitted his album sales, thereby (somehow) making him culpable. That’s apparently all they need to put this man away for LIFE.

I wasn’t aware of Tiny Doo before today. Apparently he once worked with Lil Wayne, but so have people like Birdman and Gudda Gudda.

He doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. Ur Boi Bangs has a fucking Wikipedia page. That should give you some perspective as to how much of a nobody this guy actually is. I also trawled through Google for close to half an hour trying to find sales figures for No Safety, the offending album, to get an idea of the kind of dirty, ill-gotten paper Tiny Doo was no doubt belly flopping into from a diving board every day. I found nothing. Not a single figure anywhere, suggesting three men and a dog may have bought this album.

As far as I can tell, the only crime Tiny Doo (real name Brandon Duncan) has honestly committed is having a terrible stage name and releasing dreadfully generic rap music, both only criminal to our notion of good taste. Nonetheless, the Deputy District Attorney in the case, Anthony Campagna, puts forth the totally not at all ridiculous argument that “we’re not just talking about a CD of anything, of love songs. We’re talking about a CD (cover) … there is a revolver with bullets.”

Are you… are you fucking kidding, Anthony? That looks like one of my high school Photoshop submissions. Nothing contained in that painfully derivative album cover proves a goddamn thing, other than that you are a twit. Let it sink in for a second that Anthony up there is paid an obscene amount of money by the State of California to come up with explanations as fucking pathetic as that. With a man’s life at stake no less.

As for musical content, No Safety features such game-changing tracks as All About My Doe (feat Tyrone), Hella On (feat. Young Ralph) and THC (feat. Young Robin). As far as I can tell, not one of these tracks is a written, signed confession from Tiny Doo stating that he is, in fact, a criminal. They’re a set of hamfisted, generally shitty rap songs, sure, but even if he had one entitled Arrest Me, I’m An Actual Murderer (feat. Gudda Gudda), this should not be grounds for a single second in prison, let alone a lifetime.

Furthermore, if the courts want to judge a person’s criminality based entirely on lyrics alone then boy oh boy are we going to have some incarcerated celebrities. Rick Ross spends an inordinate amount of time on most albums detailing his Miami drug smuggling activity. He has a song honestly called Rich Off Cocaine for the love of fuck. And yet he remains a free man.

Groups like Onyx, NWA and the Wu Tang Clan would have seen an electric chair years ago for the gratuitous violence in their lyrics. Even the dolts in Odd Future today, who would last about five minutes in a correctional facility, would have fried as well for lyrics encouraging rape and the stabbing of others’ oesophagi among other things. And yet they remain free men.

Wanna talk gang affiliation? What about Game releasing The R.E.D. Album, full of thinly-veiled references to being a member of the Bloods? Or, if you prefer your bandana blue and hanging to the left, what about our old friend Snoop? Actually a former gang member and actually acquitted of murder once, he STILL raps about being a Crip and beating the 187. And yet he remains a free man.

Point is, these lyrics don’t fully reflect a person’s real persona nor do they depict with unshakeable truth their day-to-day activities; and nobody who isn’t a moron fails to understand that. It’s over-exaggerated poetry, a violent and controversial narrative designed to sell their albums and earn your fandom.

So why single out insignificant old Tiny Doo when all of this is so obvious?

Because he has some questionable friends, he’s not famous or rich enough to just Bill Cosby these accusations away and there is an obscure criminal law that a California court can use to make an example of him without raising the ire of millions of fans. It’s despicable, but why wouldn’t they?

I’m not sure which way this is going to swing. I highly doubt that Tiny Doo sees any time inside unless they find absolute concrete evidence that links him to these murders, which they haven’t up to this point. The amount of media buzz this case has generated will probably ensure that his constitutional rights end up protected from this bullshit law, but the fact that it got to this point is utterly ludicrous.

The prosecution’s case should be recognised as pure speculation and thrown out the window. I can’t speculate on whether Tiny Doo is a criminal or not (I totally can because I’m allowed to be as subjective as fuck here, but still). I can only point to the simple facts: that he doesn’t have a prior criminal record and that the prosecution in this case has only a single album as their flimsy ‘evidence’. And if I can’t speculate, neither should a court of law; it’s as simple as that.