A Portland, Oregon, hip-hop artist and former gang member found out last week that what you rap may be used against you in a court of law.

Jonathan "Demitrius" Norman is accused of conspiracy to distribute narcotics in a trial in which prosecutors used the lyrics of his song "No Deal" as evidence that he's involved in illegal activity.

Under the name "Smurf Luciano," Norman formed Gangsters on the Move, who released a locally popular, self-titled album on Norman's label, 2 Real Records, in early 1999. The album outsold new releases by such major-label acts as Bizzy Bone and Mack 10 in Portland during its first two months of release, according to the label's marketing VP, Dominic Hall.

Norman is on trial with four other defendants, some of whom face additional charges. The 29-year-old rapper was driving in a car that was following a Dodge Intrepid in Vancouver, Washington, according to Ellen Rogers, an investigator for Norman's defense team. Police pulled over the Intrepid and allegedly found three kilos of cocaine.

Norman ran to the Intrepid from the other car, in which no drugs were found, according to Rogers. He had previously driven the Intrepid, but not on drug runs, Rogers said. He got in a wreck with it once, and he filed an accident report using his driver's license and born name, she added.

The Intrepid's insurance was paid for by LCH Auto Sales, a business owned by alleged drug kingpin Adolph Spears Sr., a friend of Norman's father.

Norman claims he knew nothing of the drugs, and he claims he's been unfairly targeted by police informant and former Spears associate Daren McCoy, who shot to death Norman's friend and business partner, Anthony "Lil Smurf" Branch, outside a Portland strip club in 1997, according to Rogers. Rogers claimed that McCoy and another witness, both of whom are in prison for murder, have received cash and other deals in exchange for their testimony.

Rogers believes that McCoy, a career violent criminal, is targeting Norman because of his association with Branch, and that the entire prosecution case is tainted by false testimony. She said investigators searched more than 20 homes and apartments and seized "boxes and boxes" of evidence, none of which linked Norman to selling drugs.

Norman was arrested December 31, 1997, and he has been in jail since then, Rogers said. The U.S. attorney's office in Portland did not return repeated phone calls requesting comment.

The jury in the trial, which began October 17, went out for deliberations Friday (December 1) and had not returned a verdict by press time. If convicted, Norman faces 20 years to life in prison.

Prosecutors argued that the lyrics of Norman's "No Deal," which include a reference to "packing heat" and tell Portland D.A. Eric Bergstrom to "suck my dick," are proof of Norman's criminal activity, according to spoken-word artist Carl Hancock Rux, who testified as an expert witness for the defense.

Rux recites his poetry in a rapid-fire sing-speak over funk-, rock- and jazz-inflected music. The 29-year-old South Bronx, New York, native's first album, Rux Revue, came out in 1999.

Hip-hop lyrics come out of an African-American cultural tradition in which the renegade and outlaw are glorified, Rux said, pointing to "blaxploitation" films, such as "Superfly."

"These songs, and those films, say, 'This is the ghetto that I live in, this is how it looks, there are my surroundings,' " Rux said. "So if there are Crips or Bloods or drugs are whatever, they're going to make their way into the music."

Lawyers for the prosecution asked Rux if Norman saying on record that he's "packing heat," was enough for a listener to assume he was carrying a weapon. Rux said that it's racist and wrong to make that assumption, adding that just because Robert De Niro has played mobsters in movies doesn't mean he's a mobster in real life.

"When Johnny Cash sang 'I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die,' I don't know whether he did that or not," Rux added. "I don't know if Lil' Kim is actually a whore in her real life. It's a character she created that's no different than what Mae West did."

Rux and Hall said that prosecutors tried to argue that since Norman puts out records on his own small label, he doesn't have a real business. Rux answered that many new rappers start their own label, and that major labels look to independent outfits, such as Roc-A-Fella and Rap-A-Lot, to get a sense of what's cutting edge and popular.

Hall said 2 Real has been struggling since Norman went to jail.

2 Real is under contract with City Hall Distributors to re-release the album, but Hall said he's not sure when that will happen. In the meantime, the label's contract prevents it from selling the disc. "We can't do anything with the record right now," Hall said.

Hall, who is Norman's cousin, and testified in the trial, said that the charges against Norman are a case of inaccurate guilt-by-association. Hall said Norman was in the Crips gang in his teens and early 20s, but he had turned his life around and was trying to help his old friends do the same by bringing them into his business.

"He is committed to his music, his friends and his community," Rogers said. "He didn't want anybody to go down."

This isn't the first time that rappers' lyrics have gotten them in trouble with the law. In 1998, gangsta rapper C-Bo was briefly jailed for writing lyrics that violated a parole condition that forbade him from promoting a gang lifestyle.

In another parallel to the Norman case, rapper Scarface alleged that a DEA agent was harassing him, and he rapped about it in two songs on his Last of a Dying Breed album, "Look Me in my Eyes" (RealAudio excerpt) and "The Gangsta Shit."