Afroman: Police Raid, Lawsuit & ‘Lemon Pound Cake’ Album Explained
A jury in Adams County, Ohio, ruled in favor of rapper Afroman, whose legal name is Joseph Foreman, in a civil lawsuit brought by six Adams County Sheriff’s deputies, court records show. The deputies sued Foreman over a music video he created using security footage from a 2022 raid on his home.
The jury found in favor of Foreman on all 13 counts, which included claims of defamation and false light, according to documents filed in the Adams County Common Pleas Court. The lawsuit stemmed from a music video released by Foreman following an August 2022 raid on his Winchester residence. Deputies executed a search warrant tied to an investigation into alleged drug trafficking and potential kidnapping victims. No charges were ultimately filed against Foreman.
During the raid, authorities seized $5,031 in cash, a vape pen and a joint, all of which were later returned to Foreman, according to his testimony. A spokesperson for the Adams County Prosecutor’s Office later acknowledged that the raid “failed to turn up probative criminal evidence.” Foreman described the raid as an overreach, stating, “You shouldn’t kick people’s doors down over speculation, and you shouldn’t kick people’s doors down with an AR-15 over assumptions,” according to Fox 19 reporting.
Foreman initially considered suing the police department but ultimately decided against it, questioning the efficacy of legal action for a Black man against law enforcement. “I asked myself, as a powerless Black man in America, what can I do to the cops that kicked my door in?” he told NPR. “And the only thing I could approach up with was make a funny rap song about them and make some money, apply the money to pay for the damages they did and move on.”
That response materialized as the 2022 album Lemon Pound Cake, featuring tracks directly addressing the raid. Songs like “The Police Raid,” “Why You Disconnecting My Video Camera,” and the title track detailed the events in a comedic and exaggerated manner. The music video for “Will You Help Me Repair My Door” incorporated footage from the raid itself, with lyrics asking for assistance in fixing the damage. Foreman likewise sold merchandise featuring stills from the raid footage and shared related content on his social media accounts.
The deputies – Shawn D. Cooley, Justin Cooley, Michael D. Estep, Shawn D. Grooms, Brian Newland, Randolph L. Walters, Jr., and Lisa Phillips – filed their civil suit against Foreman and his record label, Hungry Hustler Records, alleging they had been “ridiculed, embarrassed, and threatened” by the release of the videos, as reported by the Scioto Valley Guardian.
Foreman countered that his artistic response was a legitimate exercise of free speech and more powerful than the deputies’ authority. “Me laughing at them, making songs about them, is more powerful than their authority,” he said. “It’s more powerful than their assault rifles, it’s more powerful than what they got because I got these sizeable bad tough guys crying and whining about my songs, on my page, in my world.”
Foreman testified on March 17, stating, “All of this is their fault,” according to WCPO. “If they hadn’t wrongly raided my house, there would be no lawsuit, I would not know their names, they wouldn’t be on my home surveillance system, and there would be no songs … My money would still be intact.”
Judge Jonathan P. Hein had previously dismissed Foreman’s countersuit seeking damages for the damage to his home in February, a decision Foreman expressed dissatisfaction with, stating, “I don’t like that they dismissed all of my claims with a click of a button in some little office somewhere without a hearing.”