Black women crusade against 'gangsta rap.'

Jet, Jan 10, 1994

Black women's groups recently urged the start of a national crusade to persuade the music industry to clean up violent "gangsta rap" lyrics that they said demean and threaten women.

In nearly two hours of speeches in Washington, DC, they called for picket lines around stores selling violent rap but stopped short of asking for a formal boycott of "filthy" rap records and the radio and television stations that air them.

C. DeLores Tucker, head of the National Political Congress of Black Women, said the groups will put pressure on producers and distributors of rap music to "stop the wholesale marketing of this kind of music across America."

"We don't want to use the word boycott, but we want to bring to the community what this rap is all about," she said.

"We're asking people to put picket lines around these stores to stop this," she said, adding that she was also upset by the allegedly "pornographic" illustrations she said accompany many rap records.

"We're going to mount a major crusade and believe me, women know how to stop what they don't like," Tucker said.

Defenders of "gangsta rap" have said its lyrics are protected by the First Amendment's guarantees of freedom of speech.

Tucker said her organization has asked constitutional experts to research the issue in light of the violent nature of some of the lyrics.