The Oscar-winning rap group Three Six Mafia is claiming there was nothing in the lyrics of its song “Let's Start a Riot” that could have been taken literally and incited audience members at a Pittsburgh concert to beat up a teenager.

In a negligence suit against the group, Ramone Williams says fights broke out in the audience as the lyrics of “Let's Start a Riot” urged “niggas to get buck, get wild and knock a nigga down.” He suffered multiple injuries including two fractures of his jaw.

“Three Six Mafia exhorted members of the audience to act violently towards other members of the audience,” the complaint, filed in Allegheny County (Pa.) Court of Common Pleas, alleges.

The group moved for summary judgment last month, saying it is “highly unlikely” that they performed “Let's Start a Riot” at Pittsburgh's Rock Jungle night club in August 2003. After the concert, Williams, who was 19 at the time, told his brother that Three Six Mafia sang “punch a nigga in the mouth and f*** a nigga up” -- words that do not appear in the lyrics.

Moreover, the motion says, even if Williams' injuries were the “result of an unreasonable reaction to the music,” he must still prove that “Three Six Mafia specifically intended for violence to immediately erupt at the Rock Jungle.”

Under the U.S. Supreme Court's Brandenburg test, speech constitutes “incitement” and falls outside First Amendment protection if it “is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to produce such action.”

Plaintiffs have failed to meet that test in cases alleging that songs by Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest and Tupac Shakur inspired violence. And Three Six Mafia argues that Williams' claims should suffer the same fate because

[N]one of the lyrics of "Let's Start a Riot" can be characterized as commanding an audience member to be imminently violent towards Plaintiff or any other audience member.

The group also insists the title of the song refers to starting a “party,” noting that “The term 'riot' is not solely defined to mean to start a public disturbance.”

Williams testified in a deposition that Three Six Mafia “didn't say, 'You go punch somebody in the face,' if that's what you're trying to ask me.”

By Matthew Heller
9/7/06