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:
View this post on Instagram
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:
View this post on Instagram
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
by
u/WavyHarpy1342 in
carspotting
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
This looks like one of my garages in GTAV. The pinchable gang cars are yellow, green and purple.
Thank you Torch! I had a bad (well, it is all relative) day today. More than 2 hours on the phone fighting my utility company to allow me to go on time-of-use rates after buying a BEV last week. I was a push-over until I spent 3 years in Korea working for Samsung. It was there that I honed my skills and orneriness. I think I won, but won’t know for some time. And yes, I am hearing Lemon Pound Cake in my head.
There’s a saying from newspaper days.
“Never fight with a man who buys ink by the barrel!”
Before newspapers, song writers could be equally dangerous.
If you’ve been especially stupid, especially as a public figure, really dumb to go to court and draw more attention to your dumbidity.
Check out the infamous McDonald’s lawsuit against protesters who won.
People are still laughing about that one.
How did these cops get an attorney willing to take this?
Let’s go sue a guy that enjoys generating publicity! Sure, sure.
Even easier in the digital age.
Exactly!
Yes!
In a town sufficiently small enough, when dealing with a celebrity whose day in the limelight was long enough ago, I’m sure that absolutely no one involved even took the time to research exactly who it was they were dealing with here. I am certain that to them, he was just another local who needed to sit down and shut up and stop challenging their authority to do whatever in the hell they wanted to do in their little fiefdom.
And in any community small or large, that’s always their first mistake.
I’m so glad this verdict was reached. Absurd how many cops think they, as public servants, should be above reproach. My favorite thing I read from this trial:
“In Afroman’s memo supporting his motion for the winning verdict, he counted the most surprising times when cops failed to prove his exaggerated statements weren’t true. For example, one officer, Randy Walters, was offended that Afroman said he slept with his wife, but curiously did not testify that this was false. Instead, Walters only testified that ‘he would hope that his wife would not have extramarital affairs.'”
He was afraid to find out if there was ANOTHER embarrassing video.
Thats actually amazing. All it takes is to say, under oath, “false” instead he gave a whole long sentence.
That last car in the row, the blue Cadillac with the continential kit is a 93-96 Fleetwood Brougham. I do love me some 80s/90s big body Cadillac, he has great taste in cars and suits. The “merica” suit looks like something Cleetus McFarland would also rock lol
Im just glad he made an ass out of those Barney Fifes. Im kinda suprised he didnt get railroaded in court as well, a lot of those hick counties are still run by a “Boss Hogg” who has complete control over the sheriff’s department and the local court system.
Lemon pound cake sounds really good right now.
Always, no matter when now is.
Great story. That cop looking from pound cake to surveillance camera and back is hilarious. However Afroman, who has a voice like Chef has seemed to be appropriating white beach music. Lol
His Randy Walters song has been living in my head for like 3 days.
https://youtu.be/u4AiuqQpB1U
Musicians embarrassing idiots in court is my favourite sub-genre of law. Congrats to Afroman on a victory for free speech!
The trio of Dee Snider (Twisted Sister), Frank Zappa and John Denver all shaming congress back in 1985 was also pretty great.
Looking back, I kind of wish they had gotten together to make an unusual album or at least a song.
I managed to grab one of Zappa’s LPs the other day. Now I gotta finish setting up my record player.
Do it, you won’t regret it. And, get all of Zappa’s LP’s. Awesome music and lyrics from a tremendous talent that spans rock to classical, and genre’s that have yet to be described.
Dee Snider sadly just decided to retire from performing before a planned tour because his body can’t do it the way it used to, and he doesn’t want to disappoint. Still a good dude.
I remember a great TV movie about the PMRC hearings that was made, of all networks, by VH1 back in the day, titled “Parental Advisory – Explicit Lyrics.” Dee Snider played himself! The scene I remember most of all is when the lead attorney character (I think?) was meeting him for the first time and unconvinced that he would be a convincing spokesperson for First Amendment rights, with his knucklehead appearance and day job, and especially once he started ranting and raving. But at the end of the scene, he listed off all the reasons why he was the perfect guy, including the part where this affected his livelihood directly and spread lies about his lyrics, but mainly because (from memory), “Best of all, I speak the English language – FLUENTLY.”
This is the part where you need to look not for the movie, but for the actual footage of Dee Snider’s testimony in the Senate hearing, where he walked in with his fountain of permed blonde ringlets shooting out of his head, his skin tight jeans, his metalhead t-shirt, and his rockstar cowboy boots; reached into his back pocket, pulled out his pre-written remarks on a folded up piece of loose leaf paper like a love note from a high school girl, sat down, unfolded and flattened the paper against the table – and then read one of the most erudite defenses of the American right to freedom of expression you will ever hear, and how the events of the day had impacted his artistic life and misrepresented his reputation. And of course, the best thing about it is how intelligent it is when you are looking at who it’s coming out of. It had exactly the effect they needed – the “dumb metalhead” making all the Distinguished Gentlemen of the panel look like the assholes they were.
And yeah, John Denver totally torpedoed the whole thing. The only thing more shocking than Dee Snider randomly becoming Alan Dershowitz under oath was John Denver quietly and gently telling the panel that it was wrong to try to censor anyone’s creative output. It was most shocking of all to the pro-censorship twerps who had asked him to come in the first place, thinking he would defend decency and goodness in the music business, without asking him first what his thoughts were on freedom. It turned out he liked America more than he liked censorship – which they didn’t find out until it was too late.
It’s catchy!!
But is he a son of a bitch?
We don’t know. Randy couldn’t even confirm whether or not Afroman slept with his wife.
Which means that potentially any of the male children at his house could technically be sons of bitches.
And Afroman has been scheduled to perform here in Grass Valley CA in April for awhile. This ought to increase ticket sales here in our not giant venue.
Cool! Seems like it should be a fairly chill crowd, just don’t stand downwind of the fairgrounds if you have a drug test coming up.
I have nice memories from going to the Draft Horse Classic a few years ago.
Well, of course there’s grass involved…
Take a step back and look at the economic data. If police departments and ICE, etc. were not hiring these useless idiots, imagine how much higher the US unemployment rate would be.
For just ICE it would raise the unemployment rate by. 0135%
You know what stands out to me in that music video? The amount of white people at his concerts.
Weed-based humor transcends the color barrier.
I walk a lot. Rap is playing from all of the vehicles these days.
I’m now going to be singing “Lemon Pound Cake” in the garage all day long – while replacing the exhaust manifold / upper cat on my daughter’ 2018 Sportage. Taking a break in the house right now because I do t wanna be high on parts cleaner.
Thanks. Good jam.
That candy-apple green Caddy with the white vinyl in the back is pimp.
The shot of five cars first struck me as Hot Wheels/Matchbox collection. In a good way.
Dear Mattel:
We need the Hot Wheels Afroman box set, stat.
This story was my non-Autopian highlight of the week. I know the cops were “just doing their jobs”, but it sure seems like they could have knocked on the door instead of knocking it down.
But why use the door handles when you have the jaws of life? They’re so much fun!
Ah, but see, knocking on the door might give the mistaken impression that they had literally any business being there in the first place. You can’t properly terrorize someone for dubious reasons if you knock politely and ask to be admitted.
Watched the bit they did on The Daily Show and it just cracked me up. Do you think anyone is taking a guy seriously dressed like this?
Seems like a chill dude. A collection that works for him works for me!
This is what we are here for. Awesome story. Lemon pound cake, afros and cool whips. Keep it coming.
mmm lemon pound cake and cool whip
I was hoping you would find an excuse to bring this up because Afroman defeating the cops both in court and in the hearts of Americans has been my favorite story of the week.
Can I just say that for a guy who became famous with a song about not getting shit done because he was high that his home is damn near immaculate? It didn’t look like anything was out of order until those assholes broke down the door and started going through his stuff. Afroman is the hero America needs.
Looks at project in garage…contemplates tonight’s to do list…pure Autopian.
Afroman was going to reply to you, Torch, but, he got high
Now he can’t find this article, and he knows why…
I couldn’t sleep the other day and did a deep Afroman dive and am absolutely cheering for his legal win.
Lots of videos and interviews out there if you look around.
All hilarious!
He says his Coupe de Ville is an ’83 but he also claims a romantic encounter with the wife of Colonel Sanders in the same song so the information may not be factually correct.
it’s spiritually correct
This made me think of Torch’s article that mentions “Herbsann Spices Sanders” Ha ha…and now I want some fried chicken…
C’mon, be honest. Is there ever a time you don’t want fried chicken? Yeah, me neither.
It’s called afrofuturism.
Hell yeah! What a great and totally honest collection of cars that are obviously used and loved, as all cars should be. The low-riders and donks aren’t my personal stye, but I respect the man for collecting what he loves.
It’s also great to see a legal victory upholding our Constitutional rights to free speech in these troubled times here in the USA. I truly admire the way he stood up to that crooked police department and publicly shamed them, leading them to even more publicly embarrass themselves. I recommend Jordan Klepper’s take on this, including Afroman’s impassioned defense of free speech – it’s totally worth your time: https://youtu.be/rIEGz9LtF3I?si=mTXVbs27JJzjPQPc&t=84
Klepper’s not my favorite of the host rotation (that would be Desi Lydic) but he absolutely nailed this segment.
Get him to become a member and we’ve got the best member rides ever. Maybe make it a series.
Hell, I’ll GIVE him a membership if he wants! The man’s earned it.
He strikes me as a guy that can wax poetically about Rich Corinthian Leather
You’ll need a new member level. Crushed Velvet? Tonneau roof?
Brothel Sateen
Diamond (Tuck) level?
I’m here for this. Or, y’know – just go interview the guy about his cars. Sounds like a great roadtrip for Mercedes.
Can we all go? Caravan!
I unironically love the color of that Prowler. Wheels ain’t my thing but I still dig it. And he doesn’t seem the TE37 type anyway.
Genuinely surprised at the number of cars he has that don’t have sunroofs.
Glad you reached out. It would be a cool story to hear and see more.
As a fellow lemon pound cake enthusiast, I concur