Yella Beezy fights to exclude rap lyrics from MO3 murder trial in Dallas
Lawyers for Yella Beezy are pushing to exclude rap lyrics from the upcoming MO3 murder trial.
The Dallas rapper is charged with capital murder, with prosecutors claiming he hired a man to kill fellow musician MO3 in November 2020.
According to WFAA, his attorneys appeared in court on July 16th and brought in Dr Erik Nielson, a professor at the University of Richmond.
Nielson has spent many years studying the use of rap lyrics in criminal prosecutions and talked the court through hip-hop music for several hours.
“He plays a character named Yella Beezy,” he said, before comparing the genre to wrestling. “You stay in character even when you’re not in the ring.”
He continued, “Everybody seems to understand that engaging in these beefs in order to get clicks, in order to get fan engagement. Just about every major has been involved in one significant rap beef and it’s just par for the course.”
When asked whether rappers make confessions in their music, Nielson replied, “That would be stupid. Why would you do that?”
Addressing a study, he said, “People found rap lyrics to be far more literal than the exact same lyrics characterised as country. If they’re saying, ‘I did this or I did that’ … it can sound like straight confession. It’s a perfect way to send people to jail for something they did not do.”
Beezy was arrested for the murder of Melvin Noble in March 2025. He’s accused of hiring Kewon Dontrell White to kill MO3 in an ambush shooting on I-35.
The trial is scheduled to begin on August 24th, 2026, in Dallas County, Texas. It was initially set for February 2nd, but was pushed back.