How Afroman turned lemons into lemon pound cake

Support for Endless Thread comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink Software, to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at MathWorks.com. Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questrum School of Business.

In a recent episode, the show explores how artificial intelligence is transforming healthcare and what that means for patients, providers, and the business of care. Stick around until the end of this podcast to preview the episode. W B U R podcasts. Yeah. Boston. Producer Grace Tatter. Host Ben Braff Johnson. I think that's Ben Lafroman Johnson. To you. Um I'm ex I'm excited. I'm excited for this story that that you have today. Thank you for bringing it.

Yeah, well clearly you've gotten a head start, um, on all of this, but I do indeed have a story for you today about something I think we all wish we could do in our lives. which is taking a terrible experience and making something meaningful. or even delicious out of it. You know, lemons into lemonade or pound cake, lemon pound cake, if you catch my drift. Yeah, let's let's pound this episode out. Let's pound cake this episode right out.

Yeah, okay. So this story starts back in two thousand with the song Because I Got High. Oh, yeah. I remember when this song came out. Because I got hot! Because I got hot! Grace, why don't you sing along? Come on. I've got Come on, Grace. I've s I think I've gotten I've sung once on Endless Threads. It's a high bar. Yeah, you gotta you gotta like no, but you gotta we gotta lower the bar. Hopefully.

Remember. Yeah. I remember this came out when I was in college and I do remember a very close friend of mine, Joe, being very into this song. Um, and I was like pretty not into this song. Like I was like this, it felt adolescent to me. Um whereas like I was like, no, I'm just listening to like the shins in Modest Mouse right now. You know what I mean?

Yeah. I this song came out I was quite young when it came out, but the first time I heard it was in middle school. It was a big hit on my middle school bus. And I think that perhaps speaks to the adolescent tone and Yeah, we thought this song was hilarious. And I still I I still chuckle. Um, but it was also an early viral internet bop. It was a lot of people distributed it through Napster. That was yeah. Um and the song I do think just like

Was an instant meme has so much meme potential. What do you think makes it so memeable? I think the reason that the song is popular is it sort of wisely connects to this kind of self-deprecating idea, right? Which is like, I would have been a productive member of society, but I but I got high. And there's something that's both like you can kind of like brag about it and also make fun of yourself about it at the same time. I don't know. That would be my guess. It's just a very like

distilled idea. Yeah. It's po it's potent. Ha ha. Yeah, I c I could see that. I that wasn't even one of my theories, but I do think it's probably relatable. I actually was listening to an interview of Afro Man talk about this and he talks about how the song actually came out of like a lot of pain. And I think maybe he's referring to shame of like self sabotage that he was, you know, going to go to class, but then he got high. And that might be a relatable feeling.

But I also think my theories are it's it's funny, like we said. It's structure is very easy to parody. I was X, but then I got X. Um so I think that helps with the meme ability'cause I've definitely seen parodies of this like throughout the years since this song first came out. Yeah. And it's catchy. It's like I've had it stuck in my head all week personally. And it's dank. Yeah. It's just super dank. Exactly. Yeah.

Okay, so fast forward nearly three decades, and Afroman is having another viral internet moment. Yes. This one starts in twenty twenty-two. Officers from the Sheriff's Department in Adams County, Ohio raided Afrman's house. According to their search warrant, they were looking for evidence of drugs, drug trafficking and kidnapping. Why?

So the warrant claims that they had probable cause that drugs were on the property and of kidnapping and trafficking, but it doesn't list any specific evidence. And Afroman has said that those claims were totally baseless. Indeed, the officers didn't find any drugs or anything else illegal in his house. Averman was never charged with anything, and this raid was extremely upsetting.

He wasn't home at the time, but his children and wife were. The officers broke down their door, came in with guns, and went through seemingly the entire house. They were opening CD cases. They were going through all of Afroman's suit pockets. And we know this because his wife was able to film some of the search with her cell phone, and the family also had a security camera system in place.

So, like I said, this was pretty upsetting. Afroman said it was traumatizing to his children in particular. He also suspected racism was involved. So he quickly started putting this footage on social media. And he's a funny guy. So he said that he turned his pain into humor with because I got high. Same thing with this. He's very quickly making jokes about this raid.

Um, so I'm going to send you an Instagram post and first I want you to describe the visuals. So like what do we see? Okay. Like the camera angle, that kind of thing. Oh my God. So this is like surveillance footage inside his house with the cops in and one of the c one of the police they they all have like bulletproof vests. One of'em has one of those like oh my god, it's like a a crowd control shield. Um they're walking through this kitchen. But also like interestingly there's

There's a finger. It's like a it's like a recording of something on a screen and there's a finger pointing around the screen. Um, there's a cake on the table with a nice inside of a nice little glass cake case as these Officers are kind of like walking through the kitchen. So yeah, Afro Man is like

Filming himself pointing out things in the footage. That's why we see his finger. Um but the footage itself is like from high up kind of looking down in the kitchen. It looks like probably it was from security camera. footage that they had in their house. Um and now I want you to listen to the audio. Watch the physically challenged officer come in here. He's gonna take a double take on the pound cake. Look at the pound cake.

He gon' he wanna shoot me. He gonna look at the pound cake and hey man that pound cake And he didn't know whether to shoot you. I cut him a slice of that lemon pound cake. He backed up. He wants one of that pound cake, my he. So you you had noted the the lemon pound cake that I would say is the the hero of this video.

And la and I guess we do kind of see the the officer, he like looks at the cake, pauses. I mean, uh he doesn't so much as like reach out for the cake. Afroman is definitely doing some creative interpretation. But yes. Yes, yes. Clearly double takes the cake, which who among us, if you will, but he double takes it he double takes the cake and he uh and then he moves on. But he doesn't take his hands off his weapon. That's true. Yeah. Afroman makes lots of videos.

About this and eventually releases an album with songs about this incident. Um, one of the songs is fittingly called Lemon Pound Cake. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Wow. A bop. Ha ha Yeah, it's another bob. Uh and and do you know th the actual song this is based off of, by the way? Oh you know what? I just learned this. It's under the boardwalk by the drifters. There's also a second song called Will You Help Me Repair My Door?

Um, I think it's a catchy melody. I think both of these songs are very catchy, very funny. And they also did well on social media. And to promote these songs, Afro Man talked a lot about the officers who raided his house, who were in the music videos for this song. And he even made merch about um the officer who paused by the pound cake whom Officer. Officer Pancake. Of course he does. Yes. But Apriman, he sells these T shirts. He

releases this album. I think he even sold the door that the officers broke down or at least he posted about selling it on Instagram. And this all happens in twenty twenty two, the raid and a lot of the content that he produces about. And Afro Man recognizes that very quickly he's taken a scary, traumatizing incident and he's made money off of it. You know, as we said, he's taken lemons and made lemon pound cakes. No boy. But the officers involved are not happy. Their response in a minute.

Sup Nords? I mean nerds? Or do we in fact mean Nords? We do. If you're a nerd like us, you probably know about Nord VPN. The company has 9,000 servers across 130 countries, and you can use one of the fastest VPNs out there with a single click of a mouse. You don't even have to be an iOS user. You could be an Android like that.

Whatever operating system you use to get Nordy, you can use NordVPN for sports or entertainment or for privacy protections, covering 10 devices across your whole household. Nord VPN has your best. Back. and they don't track you online. To get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, you can go to NordVPN.comslash endless. Our link will also give you four extra months on the two-year plan. There's no risk with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee.

Again, that is NordVPN.com slash endless, and the link is also in our show notes. Bye, Nords. Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken? A podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questrum School of Business. As AI tools enter the healthcare space, how should we understand the concept of trust? I don't think that patients necessarily trust the other. A model. I think they trust the care that they receive.

That's Microsoft researcher Michael Hansen on a recent episode exploring how the future of healthcare may depend not just on technology, but on the human relationships behind it. Follow Is Business Broken wherever you get your podcasts, and stick around until the end of this podcast for a preview of the episode. Hey, it's Ben Brock Johnson from WBUR Podcasts. As a dad, I will say that climate change feels overwhelming. But my kids?

They meet every challenge with so much imagination. That's why we made The Midnight Rebellion, a podcast for our whole family where we can put our heads together, because every choice we make can help save the planet. Find and listen. the Midnight Rebellion in your podcast feed right now.

So the Adams County Sheriff's Office raids Afroman's House in 2022. He starts making content about it pretty much immediately. Then in March of 2023, four of the officers who raided Afroman's house. sue him for defamation. They accuse him of using their images for commercial purposes like selling that t-shirt. That seems accurate. And they said they suffered humiliation, ridicule, mental distress, embarrassment, and loss of reputation as a result of Afro Man's content about the raid. Yeah.

You know, not not necessarily wrong. Like in some ways, like, yeah, this this would not um this would not probably not uh be good for their reputation as law officers. um to be, you know, referred to for instance as Officer Poundcake'cause you looked at the pound cake twice. So Okay. Totally. Yeah. So they asked for three point nine million dollars in damages and for the content to be removed from the internet. The trial didn't take place until March of this year.

But the primary questions that juries had to decide was not so much whether this was humiliating to the officers. It was whether or not Afro Man's music and social media content about the rake counted as protected. Does the first amendment apply? Okay. So throughout the trial, lawyers read many of Aferman's posts about the officers word for word, including one in which he claimed that one of the officers, Brian Newland, is a pedophile, which Newland, let's be clear, totally denied.

Newland testified that he was actually forced to quit his quote unquote dream job with the sheriff's office due to Afroman's social media posts. And then there's another officer, Lisa Phillips, who cried in court after they showed a video of Afro Man mocking her for having a low voice. Afroman also claimed that she has sex with women and has male genitalia, which she says is not true.

Averman for his part was completely unfazed when he was asked about Phillips' emotional reaction to his creative work. You knew she was upset. Just like she knew I was upset when she was standing in front of my kids with an AR-15 with her hand around the trigger ready to shoot me, uh just like she knew I was upset when she cut my cameras, but I'm not a person she is, so I'm sorry for being a victim. Let's talk about the press.

So Asaman's line, this whole trial, is like if y'all hadn't raided my house, none of this would have happened. And Afferman's lawyers weren't trying to make the case that these posts were true, right? They were arguing that the public knows not to take rap songs and a lot of comedy literally. His lawyer cited Cardi B's WAP as an example of this, except he called her Carly B, which was funny. Interesting.

On Wednesday, march eighteenth. J uh jury ruled in Afroman's favor on all counts after six hours of deliberation. They said that the speech was totally protected by the First Amendment. He can keep making these songs about these raids. He doesn't have to take any of them down and he doesn't have to pay the officers anything. Is that it? It's like case closed. We're done. Yeah, the case is closed. Um, but it certainly lives on on social media. The trial particularly was everywhere.

And once again, like I have theories about what made because I got high such good early internet fodder. I I have some theories about why clips from this trial went so viral. Um do you do you have any or do you want me? To go into that mine. I'm interested in yours. I mean, I guess like, you know, during the trial he also wore this like suit, this like American flag suit, which

I he you know, he he likes his he likes his drip, clearly. Um But like I found the kind of like trial footage that I was seeing to be thought provoking. And like, you know, he says, like, I'm sorry for being the victim. Let's talk about the predators. He is very confident in the arguments that he is making. And it's rare, I find, that you see someone who, you know, at least in their previous public facing existence. w was I I sort of read as like silly and ridiculous.

is literally you see them in like a, you know, on the stand, um, being quite uh thought provoking in in what they have to say about freedom of speech and and where we should be directing our ire when it comes to this kind of thing.

Totally. It's it's kind of these videos and the verdict kind of offer this moment of catharsis. This was a traumatic event for Afroman. And the top comments on these videos tend to agree with him that the officers used excessive force in the situation, that there was no reason for them to break down the door coming guns blazing.

Especially since there were kids in the house. Um, and by making content about the raid, they feel that Afroman held the Sheriff's Department accountable and that his victory in court was a triumph of justice. Obviously something that we need to acknowledge here is that Afro Man, uh you may be shocked to learn, is a black man, and uh there's a whole lot to say about, you know, the way that our law enforcement apparatus in this country treats people of color.

when it comes to suspicion of possession of drugs. And that's a whole other layer here, obviously, to all of this. And I will say, Grace, that when I first started seeing this stuff pop off, it was in the um R slash black people.

um subreddit. So I think in some ways I was seeing this, at least ostensibly, obviously Reddit's Anonymous. We don't know who's hanging out in there, who's not, but I was seeing this conversation um go viral in uh communities that ostensibly were communities for people of color on Reddit, which I think is also interesting here.

Yeah, a lot of people were celebrating him in the trial and then were certainly celebrating his victory and the fact that he did not have to pay these officers three point nine million dollars and the Streisand effect, which we've talked about before. And which by trying to sue Afro Man and making him take down this content, he actually drew way more eyeballs.

to it. So like the top comment on lemon pound cake on YouTube is I'd like to thank the Adam County Sheriff's Department for introducing me to this song. I mean What do you think about all of this? Yeah, I think it's a really interesting I do think it raises a lot of interesting questions about the First Amendment, about policing. I also think it demonstrates that Afro Man is a very skilled entertainer who has understood.

He's a one-hit wonder in some ways, but like he's consistently understood how to get people's attention, how to keep people's attention, and like props to him for that. Yeah I agree. What's the uh suite that you would like to be forever associated with uh w uh involving a nickname? Oh man. If people start wanting to call me podcast producer ice cream cone, totally fine by me. That's a great connotation. I have no shame. I like it. How about you?

Yeah, I'm trying to think. Like, I love a donut. Like I'm just a sucker for a donut. So like You know, Donuts Johnson would be fine with me. I'll submit that to the uh if it please the court. Donuts Johnson will be the thing that I would um that I would accept. And also if folks have their own uh sweet base. nicknames that they'd like to submit for consideration, please uh please send them on in. Endless thread at WBUR.org

Well. By the way, yes, Afroman is still getting lemon pound cake from his lemon. Streams of his catalog were up five hundred percent the week following the verdict, according to Billboard. Endless Thread is a production of WBUR in Boston. This episode was produced by Koyani Saksena and Grace Tatter and hosted by me, Ben Brock Johnson. And me, Grace Tatter. It was edited by Meg Kramer. Mix and sound design by Marquise Neal.

The rest of our team is Amory Siebertson, Dean Russell, Chiosna, Bernadot, Emily Jenkowski, our production manager, Paul Vikus, and our managing producer, Summitoshi. Endless Thread is a podcast about the blurred lines between getting high and getting justice. Nice. Have an unsolved mystery, an untold history, or another wild story from the internet you want us to tell, you can email us. And and if you wanna send us a a pound cake t shirt from

Or pound cake. Or a pound cake. Yeah, we'll take pound cake too. Uh we'll take it all. Uh just send us an email endless thread at w Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questrum School of Business. Follow Is Business Broken wherever you get your podcasts and listen on for a preview of a recent episode.

Featuring host Kurt Nickish in conversation with cardiologist Eric Topel on one of AI's most surprising traits, empathy, and what it could mean for the future of the doctor-patient relationship. Is there anything that AI is doing today that would genuinely surprise most patients, or do you think that much of that is still to come? Well, the big surprise to me was empathy. In that book I had a chapter, Deep Empathy, and I said, Oh, it'll never come from AI.

But as I didn't forecast properly, AI uh with large language models is a r remarkable channeling. The algorithms, the AI has no idea what empathy is, but it it transmits it and in thirteen studies

that have looked at this evaluated by physicians, twelve of the thirteen studies showed empathy was better with the AI than by the physicians. So this is really interesting and one of the questions it raises is will in the future clinicians be getting coaching by A by AI to be more empathic and better communicators. I'm just curious, is this helping doctors who don't have good bedside manner in the first place?

AI just has not seen so many patients and actually has empathy for each situation because it just doesn't get tired. Yeah, there's several reasons for this, but the probably the biggest one is that most physicians have a lot of empathy, but they're squeezed so much. for the limited time. They don't get to express it. And when the AI reviews their note and say, you know, why didn't you ask Mrs. Jones about this or why did you interrupt her after nine seconds and on and on?

Then you start to cue into what could be better. But it really does come back to we gotta have the gift of time or we can't rebuild. the patient-doctor relationship, which has gone through so much erosion over the years. There's been seven studies now that have been published where the AI did better than the doctor with AI in various tests.

That wasn't anticipated, but it may reflect that we're still in the early stages and a lot of physicians haven't gotten grounded in AI or have automation bias. And the fact that these studies were not real world medicine. They were in a way contrived with, you know, scenarios and patient actors and that sort of thing. So we'll have to see. But everybody was banking on that the combination of Artificial intelligence would be the best of all.

Find the full episode by searching for Is Business Broken wherever you get your podcasts. And learn more about the Marotra Institute for Business, Markets, and Society at IBMS.bu.edu.