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Afroman, the profane rapper of the early 2000s, no longer sings about forgetting to clean his room “because I got high.” His music took on a more serious problem after August, when he said officers from the Adams County Sheriff’s Office broke down his door and stormed into his home in Winchester, Ohio, guns drawn.
The rapper, whose real name is Joseph Foreman, was not home at the time. However, he was shocked to learn that officers were executing an arrest warrant that claimed his home contained evidence of drug dealing and kidnapping. Officers found no such evidence, Fox19 later reported, and instead seized around $5,000 in cash Afroman said he earned from performing.
Afroman slammed the officers in his usual flippant style on his album Lemon Pound Cake, which he released the following month. In music videos, on merchandise and in social media posts, he mocked officers using footage of them conducting the search, which he recorded with his home security cameras.
In response, seven officers from the Adams County Sheriff’s Office sued Afroman, his label and a music distribution service last week, alleging that the rapper unlawfully used their personas for commercial gain and subjected them to emotional distress and humiliation.
Afroman is unmoved — he intends to take action and release a new album dissing officers one-by-one, he told the Washington Post in an interview.
“I feel like I have every right to do what I do,” Afroman said. “And I think I took the wisest and most positive path. I didn’t snap her in the middle of the street and throw trash cans through the door of her sheriff’s department. I licked my wounds. i made songs I did my best.”
Robert Klingler, the attorney representing the officers, said the sheriff’s office had a lawful reason to conduct the raid. He characterized Afroman’s work as an attempt to profit from the officers’ images at their expense.
“He’s simply using this situation to get more publicity and get more sales for his wares, at the expense of the reputation of the officers who are just trying to do their jobs,” Klingler said.
The Adams County Sheriff’s Office said the sheriff could not be reached for comment Thursday night.
Officials searched Afroman’s home on Aug. 21, he said. Security footage he posted to social media shows officers in body armor breaking down the door to his home and storming in. One carried a rifle and another carried a pistol and a large bulletproof shield.
Officers went through the rapper’s home, ransacking his suits in a walk-in closet and combing through folders of CDs. They later counted and confiscated cash.
Afroman was returning from a party in Chicago when officers searched his home, but his ex-wife and two of his children were present. His children, then aged 10 and 12, were “traumatized” by the armed officers, he said.
The warrant authorizing the search of Afroman’s home alleged that the home contained money, weapons and paraphernalia related to drug dealing and kidnapping. Afroman only had a few blunts around the house, he told Fox19.
No charges were brought against him. Officers allegedly seized $5,031 in cash from his home, which Afroman says was earnings from rap performances. The money was later returned to him but $400 was missing, Fox19 reported. An independent investigation completed in February found officials miscounted Afroman’s money when they were wrapping it at his home, according to Fox19.
Afroman said he was ultimately burdened with the cost of replacing his door, an outside gate and wiring to his security system, which officers allegedly cut while searching his home. He added he was upset that his home was attacked with guns while his children were present.
“I am powerless,” Afroman said. “There’s nothing I can do about these people stealing my money, disconnecting my cameras and ripping open my door. So I took my humor.”
Rapping about your problems is nothing new, he said. Using the same flippant tone that made his 2000 song “Because I Got High” famous, Afroman summed up his grievances with the sheriff’s department.
“Will you help me fix my door?” He hums on one track before adding, “Did you have to traumatize my kids?”
Other songs poke fun at the officers more directly. In one, Afroman nicknames an officer “Lemon Pound Cake,” while a video plays an endless loop of the officer appearing to pause and look down at a cake in the kitchen. “Congratulations TikTok star/Now the world knows how stupid you are,” he raps in another.
Afroman also sold merchandise featuring images of the officers alongside unflattering cartoon comparisons such as Family Guy’s Peter Griffin and the Hunchback of Notre Dame. In social media posts cited in the lawsuit against Afroman, he is said to have insulted the officers with vulgar language.
The lawsuit alleges that Afroman used the officers’ likenesses for commercial purposes without their permission and alleges that people mocked the officers depicted in the rapper’s music videos and merchandise and hindered their ability to perform their duties. The officers are said to have received death threats.
Afroman “attacked some of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit in a very ugly way,” Klingler said. “It’s a shame it has come to this, that he’s stooped to a pretty low level. We just think it’s time to stop.”
The lawsuit alleges an Ohio law that prohibits the use of “an individual’s persona” for commercial purposes, but excludes audiovisual and musical works and material of political or news value. She is demanding damages and an order prohibiting Afroman from using the officers’ personas and from publishing information about them.
Afroman announced his plans to sue the Adams County Sheriff’s Office on social media Wednesday, calling the August raid on his home unlawful and racially motivated.
In the meantime, he’s also working on his next album, which he’s promised will feature more sheriff’s office disses. Existing songs beating up officers got a sales boost after news of the lawsuit broke, he said, and officials’ reactions have encouraged him to continue.
“It’s like, wow, I didn’t even know I hurt any feelings until the lawsuit came out,” he said.
Afroman insisted that the best way to deal with his situation was to mock the officers and call them trash.
“That’s all I want to do,” Afroman said. “And I think I’m a pretty peaceful Christian Samaritan because that’s just what I want.”