"Rap is a foreign language"

A High Court Judge has admitted that he could not understand a word of a rap he was supposed to be examining for a court hearing.

Judge Lewison was presiding over a copyright case. Composer Andrew Alcee had complained that his number one hit "Burnin" had been sampled as a backing track for a rap by the Heartless Crew, but they had used derogatory language towards him and his group Ant'ill Mob.

Judge Lewison said that the words, though in a form of English, were for "practical purposes a foreign language".

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