DMX‘s lawyer has requested that his client’s music be played in the courtroom in an effort to encourage the judge to show him some leniency during the rapper’s upcoming sentencing hearing.
The rapper is due to be sentenced in a hearing in Manhattan on Thursday (March 29) for tax evasion charges. DMX – real name Earl Simmons – pleaded guilty to the charges last year, and could face up to five years in prison.
According to a court filing obtained by the Associated Press, DMX’s lawyer Murray Richman has asked to have the rapper’s music played during Thursday’s hearing.
Richman argued that DMX may be “too emotional” during the hearing to speak, and that the playing of some of the rapper’s “compositions” – thought to include the DMX songs ‘Slippin’ and ‘Convo’ – may help the judge to “understand [DMX] genuinely in his voice”.
Speaking about DMX’s music, Richman wrote: “It is raw Earl. We are not here or desirous of moulding him into what some may want to see; Earl is uniquely him and that is both his beauty of mind and his genius.”
DMX owes a reported $1.7 million to the US government, and Richman is also attempting to prevent his client from being sent to jail by proposing that the rapper both go to rehab and use a monitored payment plan.
Back in January, DMX was sent to prison for violating the terms of his bail after he failed a drugs test.