SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Anerae Brown was on the rise as an up-and-coming rap artist when he joined a crime that turned deadly: the 1992 slaying of Meadowview community activist Patricia Harris.
His own art became part of the case against him as he stood trial with three other gang members accused of killing Harris in a break-in that went bad.
A judge allowed prosecutors to play Brown’s songs in court. They mined his music, pulling lyrics from his gangster rap album “Psycho Active” depicting killings and other violence as they built a case against the then-17-year-old artist known as X-Raided.
