THE 3-MINUTE INTERVIEW: Paul Butler | Washington Examiner

THE 3-MINUTE INTERVIEW: Paul Butler | Washington Examiner

"Butler is a law professor at George Washington University and former prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice. He'll be giving a lecture on Monday at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library downtown on the relationship between hip-hop and the criminal justice system, called "Let's Get Free: How Hip Hop Music Can Improve Our Justice System."

How do hip-hop and the criminal justice system relate?

Hip-hop contains an amazing description of how the criminal justice system doesn't work now and it contains first-rate recommendations for how we can all be safer and freer. So what I'm going to do in the presentation is use hip-hop video and music to show how if we listen to hip-hop we will have an improved justice system.

What has been the impact of hip-hop on American culture?

I think hip-hop has changed American pop culture. It's changed race relations. It's changed the music business and it's changed youth culture. So hip-hop is very influential. It's very interesting in part because it's mainly music created by young black men -- and young black men are the group most likely to be incarcerated and to drop out of high school. And financially they are among the worst off. So we have people who are on the one hand on the low end of well-being, but on the other hand they are creating this amazing product that is one of the most successful American cultural exports ever. Hip-hop is a phenomenon all over world."