Skip to main content Prosecutors love to cite rap as criminal evidence, but artists and advocates are waging an increasingly successful effort to restrict the controversial practice. A group photo taken during Grammys On The Hill: Advocacy Day on April 27, 2023 in Washington, DC. Paul Morigi/Getty Images for The Recording Academy When Maryland lawmakers passed new legislation restricting how rap can be used in criminal cases, it was the latest victory in a five-year effort to limit a practice that critics say hurts free speech and stokes racial bias. Prosecutors have long cited hip-hop lyrics as evidence to help win convictions against the artists who wrote them, doing so more in more than 800 cases over the past four decades. Though the tactic is used more often against amateurs, big names like Boosie Badazz , Bobby Shmurda and the late Drakeo the Ruler have lyrical indictments, as have Young Thug and Lil Durk in more recent cases.…