Defense attorney Toby Shook, left, speaks to his client rapper Yella Beezy during a July 16, 2026 hearing in Beezy’s capital murder case at the Frank Crowley Courthouse in Dallas. Beezy, whose real name is Markies Conway, is accused of hiring a hitman to kill fellow North Texas rapper Melvin Noble, known as MO3.
Juan Figueroa/The Dallas Morning News
Dallas rapper Yella Beezy’s violence-filled lyrics are an artistic expression and shouldn’t be taken literally, according to his lawyers.
But to the detective and prosecutors handling the rapper’s capital murder case, the lyrics point to his guilt.
Whether jurors will be able to hear them is up to State District Judge Chika Anyiam, the presiding judge on the case.
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Beezy, whose legal name is Markies Conway, is charged with hiring a hitman to kill a fellow Dallas rapper who had been publicly feuding with him for years. Melvin Noble, known as MO3, was gunned down in a November 2020 ambush on Interstate 35 in Dallas.
The 28-year-old rapper stopped his car and got out after being approached by another vehicle, according to police. Video footage obtained by investigators showed a gunman from the other car get out and chase Noble before shooting him multiple times with a high-capacity rifle.
The alleged shooter, Kewon White, was arrested about three weeks later. Conway, 34, wasn’t charged until last year, when he was indicted by a grand jury. Two of Conway’s associates have been charged as co-conspirators.
The feud between Noble and Conway began in 2017. Conway’s lawyers have argued Noble initiated the beef with the better known and more successful Conway in an effort to raise his own profile.
The feud escalated in 2018 after the slaying of Noble’s friend, comedian Roylee Pate, which the rapper suggested in his song “2 Nineteen” had been orchestrated by Conway. Just hours after Pate died, Conway was shot and seriously injured in a drive-by shooting.
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Lead defense attorney Toby Shook filed motions seeking to prohibit prosecutors from presenting lyrics from both rappers’ songs at Conway’s trial.
The defense also asked Anyiam to keep out evidence about other shootings and assaults the men and their associates are alleged to have been involved in, including when Conway was shot multiple times while driving on Sam Rayburn Tollway.
Related: A timeline of the MO3 murder-for-hire case
Anyiam is expected to rule on the motions Friday. She also is expected to announce at that time which of the four defendants charged in Noble’s death will go on trial first. The first trial is set for Aug. 24.
An expert hired by Conway’s attorneys testified during the two-day motions hearing that jurors could wrongly interpret rap lyrics released by Conway after Noble was killed.
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Defense attorney Toby Shook, left, shows lyrics from a song written by rapper Yella Beezy to Erik Nielson, a professor at the University of Richmond and an expert on rap lyrics, during a July 16, 2026 hearing at the Frank Crowley Courthouse in Dallas. Beezy’s defense is trying to stop his lyrics from being submitted as evidence in his capital murder trial. Beezy, whose real name is Markies Conway, is accused of hiring a hitman to kill fellow North Texas rapper Melvin Noble, known as MO3.
Juan Figueroa/The Dallas Morning News
“Introducing lyrics like this is going to become a sideshow and would distract the jury from the actual evidence,” University of Richmond professor Erik Nielson said. “That kind of testimony can lead to a conviction of someone who is not guilty.”
Just because a rapper claims to commit violent acts in their music, it doesn’t mean they actually do. Like professional wrestlers, the tough talk and posturing is more performance than reality, said Nielson, who also co-authored Rap on Trial.
“It’s like they are actors,” Nielson said. “They are playing with different roles and they use different scripts.”
The public feuds and “beefs” rappers get into with each other are often done to draw attention to their music, he said.
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The highly publicized feud between rappers Kendrick Lamar and Drake is a good example. Lesser-known rappers like MO3 often start beefs with better known performers like Beezy to try to get attention and gain fans, Nielson said.
“They have these beefs to get clicks. The more clicks, the more sales, the more fan participation and the more people following you,” he said. “It’s very profitable.”
Related: Dallas police release images of gunman in fatal shooting of rapper MO3 on Interstate 35E
Dallas homicide detective Eric Barnes disputed Nielson’s testimony. Noble and Conway released songs with specific details of shootings and assaults the detective said have been linked to them, including the September 2018 shooting of comedian Pate. Pate publicly questioned whether Conway was actually from Dallas, the detective said.
Pate survived the shooting but died a few weeks later from his injuries. Just hours after his death, Conway was shot through his car door while driving on Sam Rayburn Tollway. Police identified the car used in the shooting and said it was registered to an associate of Noble.
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“This is as real as it gets,” Barnes said of the men’s rap lyrics. “We wouldn’t be sitting in this courtroom if this wasn’t real.”
Prosecutors also want to show jurors a video posted by Davarius Moore, a rapper known as Trapboy Freddy and a friend and collaborator of Conway’s. The video was posted shortly after Noble was killed.
Barnes called it a “celebratory” posting. The timing of it was significant, the detective said, because it was posted before anyone, including Noble’s family, had been notified of his death.
Among the evidence prosecutors want to introduce is a timeline of events — including shootings, confrontations, social media posts, media interviews and music releases — that they say lays out the escalating feud that led to Noble’s death.
Prosecutors Tommy Adams and Ricardo Vela Jr. argued the information is needed to prove Conway’s motive, intent and state of mind.
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Defense attorney Michael Mowla argued prosecutors are trying to paint Conway as a leader of a gang by presenting allegations of other shootings and assaults. Conway hasn’t been charged in any of them and there is no evidence he was involved, the lawyer said.
Mowla also argued that allowing the lyrics and videos into the trial would amount to punishing Conway for exercising his First Amendment rights through his music.
“They are artistic expressions,” Mowla said of the lyrics and videos. “They should not be used as character evidence and that is what [prosecutors] are trying to do.”