Let’s Talk About Afroman’s Fun Car Collection

Have you heard about the exciting saga of Afroman yet? Oh it’s good, a rare and appreciated bit of light in these dark times. Afroman – the nom de plume of Joseph Edgar Foreman, is a rapper and musician who makes music that is often fun and comical, and sometimes even tackles hard-hitting subjects, like attempting to clean one’s room but failing because you got high. He’s a good time. Afroman has been in the news recently because he was the victim of a 2022 sheriff’s department raid on his Adams County, Ohio home on suspicion of drug trafficking and kidnapping, accusations of which zero evidence was found, and no charges were filed against Foreman.

The sheriffs did plenty of damage to Foreman’s home in the raid, breaking his door off its hinges and damaging his driveway gate and security system. They also confiscated $5,000 in cash from the home, and returned the cash $400 light. As a response to the wrongful raid of his home, Afroman recorded an album of music about the raid, complete with videos that included surveillance footage of the raid, and mocked the sheriffs who participated in the raid.

The songs and videos went viral on TikTok and other platforms, and it’s easy to understand why. Take this song, Lemon Pound Cake, for example, that focuses on how one Sheriff managed to get transfixed by a lemon pound cake in Afroman’s kitchen:

I hope all of you find someone who looks at you like that sheriff looks at that pound cake.

As these songs and videos grew more and more popular, the sheriff’s department began to receive more and more attention and mockery, which is objectively hilarious but made those poor sheriffs so very very cross that they decided to try and sue Afroman for, basically, hurting their feewings.

As you may imagine, this approach certainly didn’t help. Things went full Streisand Effect as more as the lawsuit brought national attention to the incident and its aftermath, and the video from the court proceedings just added to the eye-rollery:

 

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A post shared by Afroman (@ogafroman)

Afroman himself found the lawsuit, it seems, amusing. As he told NPR:

“I was thinking, these big bad cops … are being beat up and bullied by those little corny rap songs I made about them. I’m like, ‘Oh my god, are you letting me know that my raps are working on you?'”

The end result of all of this is that Afroman won, in a victory for both him and free speech in America. In this time of war and $5 a gallon gas and a general sense of unease, it’s nice to see that some of the fundamental parts of this country still work.

But, cars! We need to talk about cars! During all of the media attention paid to Afroman, his delightful car collection – or at least part of it – was revealed to the public, via security footage:

 

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A post shared by Afroman (@ogafroman)

What I appreciate about Afroman’s car collection is that he seems to have a bit of a theme in what he collects. This particular view shows exclusively American Iron: from lower left to upper right, there’s a pair of fifth-gen Cadillac de Villes, both sedan and coupé; a Plymouth Prowler in a nice non-factory blue; a 1962 (I think?) Chevy Impala hardtop in a lovely yellow; and what looks to be a ’90s-era seventh-gen Cadillac Sedan deVille. Possibly with a Continental kit?

From what I can see at least three of the cars seem to be lowrider-style, and I genuinely love the color palette here – it’s bold and unafraid, full of vivid candy colors that I wish more people were secure enough to rock. That green! And the Prowler looks so damn good in that particular azure blue! This feels like the collection of someone who enjoys their cars.

Mainstream car-collector culture has traditionally tended to be pretty classist about car collections like these, but I hope that’s changing. This is as valid a collection as someone who focuses on just Porsche 356s or Packards or wartime vehicles or whatever; it’s just another fascinating corner of the automotive world.

In addition to these, Afroman seems to own at least one British car – well, I guess technically German-British, but still:

Afroman’s custom wrapped Rolls
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u/WavyHarpy1342 in
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Yep, a Rolls-Royce wrapped in a two-tone green-and-white ensemble.

There’s also this video that is written and edited in a terribly annoying way, but does seem to list a number of cars not seen in the surveillance videos:

I hope that video is a bit accurate, because I like the idea of that purple PT Cruiser.

I reached out to Afroman to see if we could get more information about his car collection and try to learn some of the stories behind the cars. I’ll be pretty surprised if he’s able to get back to me anytime soon, since he’s having A Moment, a moment that I absolutely have jumped upon like everyone else.

But I’m okay with that. This whole saga is a fun story, and it’s nice to see some cars in there somewhere. Because behind all good stories, as you know, are cars.

Top graphic images: Afroman