How Afroman turned lemons into lemon pound cake

When you think of rapper Afroman, chances are his early 2000s hit song "Because I Got High" is already playing in your mind. More than two decades later, his music has once again broken containment. Host Ben Brock Johnson and Producer Grace Tatter dig into how Afroman turned a police raid and defamation trial into another moment of internet virality. Show notes: Afroman surveillance footage https://www.instagram.com/p/Chsg3JDjw_m/ (Instagram) "These lemon poundcake shirts are going fast !!!" https://www.instagram.com/p/Ckg2RKDO1bm/(Instagram) Cop Says Afroman's False 'Pedophile' Claim Caused Him To Quit Sheriff's Office https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POc4RSevoVQ&t=951s (YouTube) Credits: This episode was produced by Grace Tatter and Kalyani Saxena, and co-hosted by Grace Tatter and Ben Brock Johnson. It was edited by Meg Cramer. Mix and sound design by Marquis Neal. Sponsor message: 🌏 EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/ENDLESS Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee 👍

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken?, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questrom School of Business. A recent episode explores how AI is reshaping our schools. Stick around until the end of this podcast to preview the episode.

• 0:17Speaker 01

  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.

• 0:33Speaker 00

  WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

• 0:45Ben Brock Johnson?

  Producer Grace Tatter.

• 0:46Speaker 03

  Host Ben Brathjohnson.

• 0:49Ben Brock Johnson?

  I think that's Ben LaFroman Johnson to you.

• 0:55Speaker 03

  Nice.

• 0:56Ben Brock Johnson?

  I'm excited. I'm excited for this story that you have today. Thank you for bringing it.

• 1:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, clearly you've gotten a head start 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.

• 1:32Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah, let's pound this episode out. Let's pound cake this episode right out.

• 1:36Speaker 03

  Heck, yeah. Okay, so this story starts back in 2000 with the song Because I Got High.

• 1:42Speaker 04

  I was gonna go to class before I got high.

• 1:45Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:50Ben Brock Johnson?

  I remember when this song came out.

• 2:00Ben Brock Johnson?

  Because I got high. Because I got high. Grace, why don't you sing along? Come on.

• 2:07Speaker 03

  I've gotten.

• 2:08Ben Brock Johnson?

  Come on, Grace.

• 2:09Speaker 03

  I think I've gotten. I've sung once on Endless Threads. It's a high bar.

• 2:13Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah, you gotta, you gotta like, no, but you gotta, we gotta lower the bar.

• 2:20Ben Brock Johnson?

  All right.

• 2:21Speaker 03

  So you remember.

• 2:22Ben Brock Johnson?

  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?

• 2:50Speaker 03

  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 still chuckle.

• 3:11Speaker 03

  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 meme-able?

• 3:30Ben Brock Johnson?

  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.

• 4:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:03Ben Brock Johnson?

  It's potent.

• 4:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, I could see that. That wasn't even one of my theories. But I do think it's probably relatable. I actually was listening to an interview of Afra Man talk about this, and he talks about how this 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.

• 4:31Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 4:32Speaker 03

  Structure is very easy to parody. I was X, but then I got X.

• 4:37Ben Brock Johnson?

  Mm hmm.

• 4:38Speaker 03

  So I think that helps with the meme ability because I've definitely seen parodies of this like throughout the years since the song first came out.

• 4:46Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 4:46Speaker 03

  And it's catchy. It's like I've had it stuck in my head all week personally.

• 4:52Ben Brock Johnson?

  And it's dank. That's the other thing. It's just super dank.

• 4:56Speaker 03

  Exactly. Okay, so fast forward nearly three decades and Afferman is having another viral internet moment.

• 5:06Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yes.

• 5:06Speaker 03

  This one starts in 2022. Officers from the sheriff's department in Adams County, Ohio raided Afferman's house. According to their search warrant, they were looking for evidence of drugs, drug trafficking and kidnapping.

• 5:22Ben Brock Johnson?

  Why?

• 5:22Speaker 03

  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 Afferman has said that those claims were totally baseless. Indeed, the officers didn't find any drugs or anything else illegal in his house. Afferman 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 Afferman's suit pockets. And we know this because his wife was able to film some of the search with her cellphone. And the family also had a security camera system in place.

• 6:08Speaker 03

  So like I said, this was pretty upsetting. Afferman 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?

• 6:42Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay.

• 6:43Speaker 03

  Like the camera angle, that kind of thing.

• 6:47Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh my God. So this is like surveillance footage inside his house with the cops in and one of the, one of the police, they all have like bulletproof vests. One of them has one of those like, oh my God, it's like a, a crowd control shield. And 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.

• 7:28Speaker 03

  So yeah, Afroman 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.

• 7:49Speaker 04

  Okay, now, watch the physically challenged officer come in here. He gonna take a double take on the pound cake. Look at the pound cake. He gonna, he wanna shoot me? He gonna look at the pound cake and he, hey man, that pound cake. He didn't know whether to shoot me or cut him a slice of that lemon pound cake. He backed up. He wants some of that pound cake, mate.

• 8:13Speaker 03

  So you, you had noted the, the lemon pound cake. That I would say is the, the hero of this video. And, and I guess we do kind of see the, the officer, he like looks at the cake, pauses. I mean, he doesn't so much as like reach out for the cake. Afroman is definitely doing some creative interpretation, but yeah.

• 8:33Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yes, yes. He does. He clearly double takes the cake, which who among us, if you will, but he double takes, 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.

• 8:46Speaker 03

  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.

• 9:00Speaker 04

  Lemon pound cake. He wanna put down his Glock. Lemon pound cake. Trending on TikTok. Lemon pound cake. He's a family guy.

• 9:13Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, boy.

• 9:14Speaker 04

  Lemon pound cake. Because he got high. Lemon pound cake.

• 9:18Ben Brock Johnson?

  Wow. Pound cake. Wow.

• 9:22Speaker 03

  A bop.

• 9:23Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah, it's another bop.

• 9:25Speaker 03

  Before I got high before it.

• 9:26Ben Brock Johnson?

  And, and do you know the actual song this is based off of, by the way?

• 9:31Speaker 03

  Oh, you know what? I just learned this. It's "Under the Boardwalk" by The Drifters.

• 9:36Ben Brock Johnson?

  Under the boardwalk. Boardwalk.

• 9:40Speaker 03

  There's also a second song called "Will You Help Me Repair My Door."

• 9:44Speaker 04

  Will you help me repair my door? Did you find what you was looking for? Will you help me repair my gated door?

• 10:04Speaker 03

  I, 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, Afra Man talked a lot about the officers who raided his house, who are in the music videos for this song. And he even made merch about, um, the officer who paused by the pound cake, whom he refers as Officer Pound Cake.

• 10:29Ben Brock Johnson?

  Of course he does, yes.

• 10:31Speaker 03

  But Afra Man, 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 2022. The raid and a lot of the content that he produces about it. And Afra 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 cake.

• 11:01Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, boy.

• 11:02Speaker 03

  But the officers involved are not happy. Their response in a minute.

• 11:32Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken?, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questram School of Business. How should employers measure real skills in the age of AI?

• 11:45Speaker 05

  Instead of observing the final artifact, instead of observing the final essay or the final program, observe the entire process of creation.

• 11:54Speaker 00

  Follow Is Business Broken? wherever you get your podcasts and stick around until the end of this podcast for a preview of a recent episode on rethinking academic and job assessment when AI can do the work.

• 12:11Speaker 06

  I'm Alison Aubrey, longtime health and science correspondent with NPR, and I've got a new podcast all about the science and wisdom of life after 50. It's called Your Turn with Alison Aubrey. We want to take you on a journey to help you explore all the opportunities to make change and feel good as you step into middle age and beyond from WBUR and NPR.

• 12:36Ben Brock Johnson?

  Your Turn with Alison Aubrey from NPR and WBUR. Supported by AARP. New episodes every Thursday.

• 12:45Speaker 07

  At Radiolab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But, but we do also like to get into other kinds of stories. Stories about policing or Politics. Country music. Hockey. Sex of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not-science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers. And hopefully make you see the world anew. Radiolab, adventures on the edge of what we think we know. Wherever you get your podcasts.

• 13:22Speaker 03

  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.

• 13:44Ben Brock Johnson?

  That seems accurate.

• 13:45Speaker 03

  Yeah. And they said they suffered humiliation, ridicule, mental distress, embarrassment, and loss of reputation as a result of Afroman's content about the raid.

• 13:57Ben Brock Johnson?

  Also, you know, not necessarily wrong, like, in some ways, like, yeah, this would not, this would not, probably not be good for their reputation as law officers to be, you know, referred to, for instance, as Officer Pancake, because you looked at the pancake twice, so, okay.

• 14:20Speaker 03

  Totally, yeah. So they asked for $3.9 million 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 Afroman's music and social media content about the raid counted as protected speech. Does the First Amendment apply here?

• 14:49Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay.

• 14:50Speaker 03

  So throughout the trial, lawyers read many of Afroman'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 denies. 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 Afroman 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. Afroman, for his part, was completely unfazed when he was asked about Phillips' emotional reaction to his creative work.

• 15:35Speaker 05

  You knew she was upset.

• 15:37Speaker 04

  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. 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 the victim. Let's talk about the predators.

• 15:51Speaker 03

  So Afferman'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.

• 16:15Ben Brock Johnson?

  Interesting.

• 16:17Speaker 03

  On Wednesday, March 18th, a jury ruled in Afferman'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.

• 16:35Ben Brock Johnson?

  Is that it? It's like, case closed? We're done?

• 16:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, the case is closed. 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 have some theories about why clips from this trial went so viral.

• 16:57Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay.

• 16:58Speaker 03

  Do you have any, or do you want me to go into that mine?

• 17:03Ben Brock Johnson?

  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, you know, he likes his drip, clearly. 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...

• 17:45Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 18:06Speaker 03

  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 Afro Man. 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. And by making content about the raid, they feel that Afro Man held the sheriff's department accountable and that his victory in court was a triumph of justice.

• 18:44Ben Brock Johnson?

  Obviously, something that we need to acknowledge here is that Afro Man, you may be shocked to learn, is a black man. And 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 r slash black people 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 go viral in communities that

• 19:28Ben Brock Johnson?

  ostensibly were communities for people of color on Reddit, which I think is also interesting here.

• 19:34Speaker 03

  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 $3.9 million. 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.

• 20:11Ben Brock Johnson?

  I mean.

• 20:14Ben Brock Johnson?

  What do you, what do you, what do you think about all of this?

• 20:19Speaker 03

  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.

• 20:44Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah, I agree.

• 20:49Ben Brock Johnson?

  What's the sweet that you would like to be forever associated with involving a nickname?

• 20:55Speaker 03

  Oh, man. If people start wanting to call me podcast producer, ice cream cone, totally fine by me. That has a great connotation. I have no shame.

• 21:09Ben Brock Johnson?

  I like it.

• 21:10Speaker 03

  How about you?

• 21:11Ben Brock Johnson?

  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, I'll, I'll submit that to the, if it pleased the court. Donuts Johnson will be the thing that I would, that I would accept. And also, if folks have their own sweet-based nicknames that they'd like to submit for consideration, please, please send them on in. Endless thread at wbur.org.

• 21:44Speaker 03

  Well.

• 21:44Ben Brock Johnson?

  By the way, yes, Afro Man is still getting lemon pound cake from his lemon. Streams of his catalog were up 500% the week following the verdict, according to Billboard. Endless Thread is a production of WBUR in Boston. This episode was produced by Koyani Saksana and Grace Tatter and hosted by me, Ben Brock Johnson.

• 22:05Speaker 03

  And me, Grace Tatter. It was edited by Meg Cramer. Mix and sound design by Marquise Neal.

• 22:12Ben Brock Johnson?

  The rest of our team is Amory Sivertson, Dean Russell, Chiosna Bernadette, Emily Jankowski, our production manager, Paul Vikes, and our managing producer, Suma Tajoshi.

• 22:22Speaker 03

  Endless Thread is a podcast about the blurred lines between getting high and getting justice.

• 22:28Ben Brock Johnson?

  Haha, 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 if you want to send us a Pound Cake t-shirt from AfroMain. Or Pound Cake. Yeah, we'll take Pound Cake, too. We'll take it all. Just send us an email, [email protected].

• 23:09Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken?, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questram School of Business. Follow Is Business Broken? wherever you get your podcasts, and listen on for a preview of a recent episode featuring Janet Kang, Executive Director of the Just Horizons Alliance, on who stands to benefit from AI in education.

• 23:31Speaker 06

  I am absolutely in favor of AI in learning in the right context. And just to explain why you're excited about it. Oh, my gosh. Individualized support, right? Personalization, and to be able to scale quality education in places where it was historically impossible. So for certain kinds of learners with different kinds of learning styles and disabilities, for example, speakers of different languages, there are amazing ways AI can boost learning. It just has to be with the right context. And age appropriateness is something we do a lot of work in, because it is very different depending on where in that maturity cycle you are in terms of how your brain develops.

• 24:10Speaker 00

  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.