What's wrong about black music

Ebony, Sept, 1995 by Kevin Chappell

You can't get away from it. Pull up to a red light beside a carload of head-boppers blasting one of those new rap songs, and before the light turns green, you've heard talk of five sex acts, four murders, three rapes, two drug sales and one slap across the face of a "ho b - tch" who gets "outta line."

It's the in-your-face music of the '90s, the kind of music that pumps some kids and disgusts most old folks. All day long, all night long, all over Black America, graphic songs blare from home and car radios and portable music machines, invading the air, outraging Black women and politicians and polluting the minds of children.

What's going on here? Why have some forms of Black music reached such a low level, detonating a nationwide controversy, at a time when R&B and hip-hop musicians are achieving unprecedented crossover success and other African-American artists are excelling in traditionally White-dominated music categories?

Some say the industry that gave the world musicians like Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, and more recently artists like Wynton Marsalis and Whitney Houston, has never been better. After all, frank music, albeit not to the extreme it is now, has been around since the first blues song was sung. So, they say, why worry about it now?

But the opinion gaining steam across racial, political and socio-economic lines is that some segments of contemporary Black music are totally different than the racy songs of previous decades. Some of today's music, reformers say, is saturated with songs with the sole purpose of degrading women, celebrating promiscuity, promoting shady lifestyles and encouraging Black-on-Black violence.

Music has become X-rated, critics say, because some record industry executives and artists have refused to take responsibility for the influence their music has on young people. Many kids, unable to separate the twisted fantasies on records from the realities of life, have begun to think it's okay to do just about anything, says C. DeLores Tucker, chair of the National Political Congress of Black Women. "Our kids have adopted the gangsta culture as a direct result of this music," Tucker says. "We have kids killing kids, little boys raping little girls and both boys and girls memorizing every word of these violent and pornographic songs."

Tucker is spearheading efforts to publicly pressure record company executives to think about citizenship before profits. She has organized national meetings and news conferences to call for "gutter music" to be taken off record-store shelves and replaced by songs that celebrate love, respect women and brotherly love, and promote living right. "Why can't rap songs talk about a Black man going to work downtown in his three-piece suit?" she asks.

Some music executives say raunchy songs sell from the inner city to the suburbs because the music is a reflection of today's society. They see nothing wrong with bankrolling songs that have dirty words and ideas since they are protected by the First Amendment. Tucker, however, believes they distribute the music more out of disrespect for African-Americans than respect for free speech. "Tell me why are Black singers allowed to call Black women `bitches' and `hoes' and it's all right," she says. "But when Michael Jackson [offends White groups] he has to apologize and re-record his song?" she asks.

Rap artists also have defended their right to produce songs that talk about killing cops, cutting off women's breasts and smoking marijuana. Rapping about it and doing it are two different things, they have maintained since 1992, when rap first received a bad rap from Bill Clinton during the presidential campaign. Hurting their cause, though, are the much-publicized legal problems some of these same artists are now facing for allegedly having done - from rape to murder - what their songs advocate.

Critics say the low level of some of the music reflects artistic and musical immaturity. Dionne Warwick believes there's something to be said for spending years perfecting songs in recording studios and perfecting acts in night clubs. She doesn't like today's method of virtually swiping kids from their cribs and placing them in front of bright lights and big microphones. "It was definitely a different music scene 20 and 30 years ago," says Warwick, who believes veteran artists and smart consumers should demand better music. "We who set the standard can't continue to let it be lowered."

Andre Harrell, Uptown Entertainment founder and CEO, attributes this lower standard, in part, to the lack of Blacks in decision-making positions in the music industry. "Blacks are left in powerless positions at these record companies," says Harrell, one of the most successful and respected young voices in the music business. "And that's sad because, for the most part, White execs can't relate to our culture, issues or experiences, and don't want to. They make it clear to the artist that `I'm over here and you're over there, and your sole purpose is to make me money.' They don't care about nurturing them .... they don't want to hang out with them and they definitely don't want to meet their mammas. White executives are coming from a different perspective."