It first dawned on me that the ability to make music was an extraordinarily effective way to smack the crap out of someone who did you wrong when Dave Carroll of Sons of Maxwell put United Breaks Guitars on Youtube. Not only was it incredibly cutting, but it was a damn good song as well.

But then came Joseph Foreman, a/k/a Afroman, whose door was broken down and home searched after a confidential informant accused him of having a basement dungeon. One problem was that he had no basement, but that didn’t stop the Adams County, Ohio, sheriff’s deputies from raiding his home.

Adams County, Ohio, sheriff’s deputies executed a search warrant on Afroman’s house in 2022. According to a search warrant, Afroman was suspected of drug possession, drug trafficking, and kidnapping. The deputies were searching for evidence of outlandish claims from a confidential informant that the house contained a basement dungeon.

Body camera footage of the raid showed the deputies—after the initial excitement of busting down the front door—ambling through Afroman’s house, rifling through his clothes and CDs, and trying to find false walls and secret rooms. But the hourslong search turned up no evidence to corroborate the claim of a basement dungeon. Part of the problem may have been that, as Afroman’s record label told Vice, the house did not have a basement.

Afroman was never charged with a crime.

Afroman, best known for his classic 2000 song, Because I Got High, did what he does best to get back at the cops. He spanked them hard in songs.

An aggrieved Afroman then used surveillance footage of the raid and cellphone video taken by his wife in two music videos, “Lemon Pound Cake” and “Will You Help Me Repair My Door.” He also sold merchandise with images of the deputies and used the footage to promote his products and tours.

The deputies were not amused, and sued Afroman for defamation.

Rather than taking their lumps and moving on, seven Adams County sheriff’s deputies sued Afroman in 2023, claiming that the musician used their personas for commercial purposes without permission, causing them to suffer “embarrassment, ridicule, emotional distress, humiliation, and loss of reputation.”

The case went to trial and the jury found for Afroman on all counts. The deputies were constrained to watch the videos played in full at trial. It was glorious.

For example, Adams County officer Randolph Walters Jr. testified that a music video in which Afroman says he had sex with Walters’ wife painted him in a false light and caused him “tremendous pain.”

“But we all know that’s not true, right?” David Osborne, Afroman’s lawyer, replied.

“I don’t know,” Walters said.

After a long pause, Osborne responded, “You don’t know if your wife’s cheating on you or not?”

You can’t make this up. As Afroman said following the verdict, this was a win for America, for free speech. That the jury found for Afroman was, indeed, a win for America and free speech, but it was also a win for those people who want to take the government to task for the damage it causes citizens without considering that people have any chance of fighting back. Afroman fought back.

It may have been vulgar speech, intended to insult and publicly demean its targets, but the fact that it was brutally effective is secondary to the fact that it was launched in response to, and in criticism of, government force. The deputies seem to mainly object to discovering that the state’s monopoly on violence doesn’t extend to diss tracks, and the jury rightly saw that government officials can’t claim both the power to break into a rapper’s house and stop him from making music about it.

Congratulations, Afroman. And thank you for your service.