“‘Banned funk’ is not an apology for crime or criminal” is a performative lecture based on the performative reading of a court decision redacted by judge Marcos Augusto Ramos Peixoto, Process nº 0002438-06.2014.8.19.0001 of the 37th Vara Criminal do Rio de Janeiro. In the piece of writing produced for the court sentence, Peixoto drew a portrait of Brazil’s law as a structure permeated by censorship traits. By inserting a type of philosophical thinking, in particular, the references to Foucault’s reflections about law and the invention of prison as constitution of modernity, Peixoto uses the case as evidence of the authoritarianism implicit in contemporary law and society. “‘Banned funk’ is not an apology for crime or criminal,” transports the reading of the court case outside the site of jurisprudence into the civic space the juridical builds, measures and surveys, with the aim to offer this legal text, the possibility of a wider expression.