May 4, 2007
Sharpton Marches For Cleaner Lyrics
The firing of Don Imus has caused many to take a look at language in not only media, but music. As previously mentioned, Al Sharpton is one looking to clean up what we hear, and yesterday he led a march against racist and sexist lyrics, targeting the major labels. Around 400 others joined him in a march around midtown, outside companies like Universal Music Group. The topic reportedly carried over to a private gathering at the Apollo later on, for what would have been James Brown's 74th birthday.
The march, a group which included several of James Brown's children, shouted things like "Decency Now" and "Enough is Enough." Sharpton said, "We're saying there must be one standard. You can't have different standards for different people. Once we finish with the record companies, we must deal with the HBOs and others." He went on to say, “Just like you can’t make records against gays, you can’t make records against Italians or Jews, why do we allow those records?” TMZ (who have video of the march) points out that "the soapboxer has a history of firing off blatantly offensive slurs himself -- for which he's reportedly never apologized."
"The Ceo of Hip Hop" Russell Simmons (and his Hip-Hop Summit Action Network) have been speaking out about making a change as well, and specifically removing these three words from the recording industry - which has gotten responses from just about everyone. But how are the major labels responding? Warner Music Group made the following statement: "We take issues regarding the role of women and minorities in society very seriously. ... We edit explicit lyrics, including those that are the focus of the current public debate, from content."
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hypocrite
not a hypocrite.
sharpton has been crusading for less offensive lyrics in hip-hop since way before the imus incident, by the way.
russell simmons is more of a a hypocrite. this is a little long, but i'm not sure anyone else has pointed it out yet, so i'll take a moment:
in the terrific documentary Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes, which came out last year, and which is focused exclusively on violent and degrading lyrics, the filmmaker accosts Russell Simmons at a marketing event (Michael Moore-style) and asks him what he things about the "bitches and hos" language that pervades hip-hop. He looked as nervous as Phil Knight did when confronted with evidence that Americans do actually want to make shoes at factories. He stuttered his way through a simultaneously non-responsive and dismissive reply. at that moment, i lost respect for russell simmons. Contrast with Chuck D, whose condemnation of such lyrics sets the tone for the entire film.
so THEN fast-forward 8 months or so, and there is all kinds of MARKET (not merely political) pressure on simmons to do something (because of Imus), and only then does he come out against degrading lyrics.
so there you go.
But Sharpton isn't going after the artists writing these offensive lyrics, just the record companies? Shouldn't they be protesting in front of Fitty's mansion?
the day hbo and suzie greene can no longer say "shut the f*** up, you stupid motherf****** c********" is the day i give up on free society, and life
to adm:
Sharpton publicly bashed former NYC Mayor David Dinkins as "a n----r whore," and once referred to his political opponents as "recycled white trash." Sharpton has also never publicly renounced his 1991 inflammatory public remarks against "diamond merchants" -- after which a Harlem mob singled out a random 29-year-old Jewish rabbinical student -- and stabbed him to death.
During a recent debate at the National Action Network Convention, Sean Hannity resurrected the bigoted soundbites from Sharpton's past ...
like i said, hyporcite
hi a., i am aware of these incidents. the rabbinical student accusation against sharpton is recycled GOP trash, btw.
ps. i meant to remove the "not a hyprocrite" line from my original comment before posting it. i acknowledge that there is a strong argument to be made for his being hypocritical given his past use of offensive language.
however, it's bothered me throughout that people have attacked sharpton for not speaking up sooner, when in fact he has been speaking up for a long time...it's just that no one was paying attention until two things happened: (1) a white person (imus) got involved, and (2) people had found a potential new opening to attack sharpton. it also bothered me that many, many, many people were attacking sharpton when they should have realized the issue was not about him. it was about imus.
similarly, with the hip-hop lyrics issue, i wish more people would spend time debating the issue at hand, rather than making it (yet again) a debate about whether sharpton should apologize for offensive remarks he made years ago.
anyway, with all of that said, i hope people will seek out the hip-hop documentary i mentioned in my first comment. it aired on pbs (independent lens) a few weeks ago. it gives great context for this issue.
POPE
It is insensetive to use derotatary language to anyone. However, when we call ourselves a name or answer to it - be it deregatory or otherwise - we cannot turn around and tell someone/anyone, whether the person is of the same ethnicity as us or not, that they are not allowed to call us that name. By referring to one's self as by any name, the person tacitly agree to be called that name. I am not saying that the young ladies deserved to be called those names by such an insensetive oath but, has anyone taken a poll to find out whether any one of them use or have used those same words to address friends and/or collegues or when speaking about someone they are not fond of?
I happen to work for one of the major 4 labels and I'm not sure they're protesting the right things. You can't really get mad at rappers for using derogatory language, actually you can, but the view seems to be that record labels both force them to use the language they choose AND are responsible for censoring it for public consumption. Personally I think both of those things are ridiculous, in the rap game kids relate to what they know, and to a great degree its bad language and everything that comes along with it. Yes, I understand that the Rap game has tremendous influence and that if no one had ever talked about a 26" Giovanni rim they probably wouldn't be part of the cannon of street vernacular...so the same can be applied to the misogyny towards women and African Americans. Leaving that though:
Protest the record companies for making money off of propagating hate, but spinning it like 'the recording industry has a responsibility to keep things clean' is insane, the only thing that's keeping the recording industry alive at the moment is hip-hop music.
In Sum, the record companies should be well aware of the fact that they're making money off a certain amount of hate which they are pushing through every media port they have. Even if they cleaned up the masters of all songs there would still be tons of underground versions that had the swears because its what people want. So if Sharpton wants to protest something, it should be the nature of the way record companies do business, and I certainly hope that R.Kelly and 50 Cent have letters going to their homes asking them to kindly tone it down, because as 'artists' they are the ones making the creative decisions, not the record company, which is essentially just a bank.
Hip hop is already a parody of itself, dying a slow death anyway.
Way to go Russell ! What's next individualism ? Oh wait thAT'S WHAT HE'S BITCHING ABOUT !
Al Sharpton just might have a shred or credibility with intelligent people if he would apologize for his slander of Steven Pagones in the Tawana Brawley hoax. Until I hear from his lips the kind of sincere apology that Don Imus publicly expressed, I wouldn't believe Al at midnight if he said it was dark outside.
"many people were attacking sharpton when they should have realized the issue was not about him. it was about imus."
After all these years, one of the few things in life that I am certain of is that it is ALWAYS about Al Sharpton.
YOU PEOPLE DON'T GET IT!
they aren't marching to BAN those words from hip hop.. all they want is to get those words off of CLEAN VERSIONS of albums. every major rap album is released in both explicit and clean forms... but as of now, the three words they're trying to outlaw are STILL ON the clean copies. all they want is those censored on the ALREADY HEAVILY CENSORED ALBUM
i seriously don't see why this is such a big deal...im a vulgar motherfucker and i actually agree with them.