Creative outlets are important… and words alone are usually not taken as evidence of illegal activity. Many states differ on the matter in terms of a court of law – some allow rap lyrics as admissible evidence in court while other states restrict it. When you rap about explicit content that you don’t actually participate in, your street cred may be ruined. But what about your chances of a security clearance?
I make rap music that involves a lot of illegal content, including but not limited to drug use, robbery, murder, etc. However, I don’t actually partake in any of that, and I have a completely clean record. I am worried my investigator will assume I am lying about being clean after listening to my music.
Can this cause me to fail my security clearance?
YOUR BACKGROUND INVESTIGATOR ISN’T LISTENING TO YOUR MUSIC
An investigator on the thread notes, “Why would your investigator listen to your music? Lol, I have so much other crap to worry about to even think about trying to listen to my subject’s music s/he wrote.”
Whether your music is on Soundcloud or Spotify, mass monitoring of online media isn’t currently part of the security clearance process. However, anything public is up for grabs, so to speak, so post your content wisely.
The areas checked during a security clearance investigation include things like residential history, employment, criminal records, credit reports etc. If you’re not drawing a paycheck from your explicit content with a need to add “rapper/artist” to the SF-86, there is no reason a background investigator will be listening to your music.
That being said, conflicting reports amongst your reference interviews could cause a triggered enhanced subject interview (TESI), which is usually necessary when issues or discrepancies from the other checks are present and need further information or clarification. For example, a colleague notes that they have heard you rap about drug use, robbery and murder and are concerned about your trustworthiness. If this comes up enough during the background investigation, perhaps things could slow in obtaining a clearance as investigators look to verify what’s true.
