Afroman has been cleared of wrongdoing after several Ohio police officers filed a lawsuit against him for using footage from a police raid on his home in a series of mocking music videos.
Deputies broke down the US rapper’s door in 2022 as part of a drug and kidnapping investigation, but the raid didn’t lead to any charges. His wife had filmed the raid, which was also captured on home security cameras.
Subsequently, Afroman – best known for his 2000 hit ‘Because I Got High’ – used the footage in viral videos that ridiculed the officers, effectively inverting what he felt was an invasion of his privacy.
The video for his track ‘Lemon Pound Cake’ was inspired by a deputy seemingly eyeing a cake in his kitchen in the footage, while another video questioned the gender and sexuality of a female officer.
The former track currently has over 3.6 million views on YouTube, while another parody song, titled ‘Will You Help Me Repair My Door’, has had more than nine million.
A retired deputy suing Afroman for defamation testified he doesn’t know why the rapper nicknamed him “Officer Pound Cake,” so Afroman’s lawyer played the “Lemon Pound Cake” video.
“You would admit that’s you with the glasses walking by the lemon pound cake on the counter?” pic.twitter.com/dj9RL8leHW
— Meghann Cuniff (@meghanncuniff) March 18, 2026
Seven sheriff’s deputies sued him for defamation following the release of the videos, but a jury has now sided with the colourful rapper after a brief three-day trial.
“We did it America! Yeah! We did it! Freedom of speech!” Afroman yelled outside the Ohio court in a clip posted on social media after the verdict, where he gave evidence wearing a red, white and blue US flag-themed suit.
“The whole raid was a mistake,” he told the court, per BBC News. “All of this is their fault. If they hadn’t have 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.”
The deputies requested $3.9m (£2.9m) damages for “humiliation, ridicule, mental distress, embarrassment and loss of reputation”, but the rapper argued he had a constitutional right to criticise public officials.
One major point of contention was the release of a song that suggested that the wife of one of the officers, Randolph Walters Jr, had a sexual relationship with Afroman. “It’s caused tremendous pain in my life,” Walters Jr said. “I been with that woman since middle school, I would hope she wouldn’t. But you know what, once someone puts it out there for their fun and entertainment, it’s out there, and it’s a problem.”
Walters said his child had been humiliated at school over Afroman’s posts, and had come home afterwards in tears, while the deputies’ lawyer Robert Klingler told the court the rapper had “perpetuated lies intentionally” about his clients.
Meanwhile, in America.
Police raided rapper Afroman’s house. They didn’t charge him with anything, but they trashed his home and stole $400.
He captured the raid on CCTV.
He then dropped diss tracks roasting them.
They sued him for defamation, and he won. pic.twitter.com/ODHXA17FGC
— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) March 19, 2026
“Even if somebody does something to you that hurts you, that you think is wrong – like a search warrant execution that you think is unfair – that doesn’t justify telling intentional lies designed to hurt people,” he said.
Meanwhile, the rapper’s lawyer, David Osborne, countered that public officials could not use the courts to “silence” criticism simply because it hurt their feelings.
“I’m sorry they feel the way they do, but there’s a certain amount that you have to take as a public official, it’s part of the duties of the job,” Osborne said.
“What chilling effect does that have on the world we live in? You don’t like what a public official does and you make a joke, and you’re dragged into court?”
The post Afroman succeeds in viral ‘Lemon Pound Cake’ police defamation trial appeared first on NME.
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