Warner disses gansta rap

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Sept 18, 1995 | by Tony Munroe

It has been a cruel summer at Warner Music, the nation's largest record company. In his much-reported "Hollywood speech," Senate Majority Leader and White House aspirant Bob Dole attacked the music publisher's parent company, Time Warner Inc., for peddling gangsta rap -- a popular genre criticized for its often vulgar, violent and misogynistic lyrics.

Meanwhile, a scorched-earth shake-up in Warner Music's management ranks has sent many of the record industry's most prominent executives packing. Four senior managers, including some of the company's staunchest defenders of gangsta rap, have left. The company insists the firings have nothing to do with the gangsta controversy, but in August, Warner was negotiating to unload its 50 percent stake in Interscope Records, the Los Angeles label that includes gangsta heavy-weights Snoop Doggy Dogg, Tupac Shakur and Dr. Dre.

"In the Hollywood speech, Senator Dole said that shame was a powerful weapon, and it seems he's been proven right," says Scott Reed, campaign manager for the Kansas Republican. "Time Warner has done the right thing." Analyst John P. Reddan of Moran & Associates in Greenwich, Conn., agrees: "A lot of these guys that are absolutists on the First Amendment live in communities that are airtight. They don't have to live in the communities that bear some of the cost" of gangsta rap.

Others suggest Time Warner's apparent decision to drop Interscope is motivated less by good corporate citizenship than pragmatic self-interest. "The economics of their cable business are far more important than the economics of their rap business," says a Wall Street source. Time Warner has a huge stake in pending legislation that would allow it to enter the telephone business. "They don't want any regulatory glare on a division as small as this," says the source.

The housecleaning at Warner Music, which includes labels such as Warner Bros., Atlantic and Elektra, was orchestrated by Michael Fuchs, chairman of Time Warner's HBO cable unit who took over at Warner Music in May. Since then, Fuchs has fired Doug Morris, who headed Warner's three domestic record labels, and Mel Lewinter, who was president of Warner Music U.S. In August, Danny Goldberg was ousted as chairman of Warner Bros. Records. Warner Music U.S. Senior Vice President Ken Sunshine left in August as well. Both Goldberg, president of the California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, and Morris were defenders of Warner's gangsta-rap acts.

"It's a generally applauded series of actions that Fuchs has taken," says Porter Bibb, a Time Warner shareholder and investment banker. Warner Music has been hobbled by a dated management style that didn't jibe with Time Warner's bottom-line approach, according to company watchers, who say Fuchs is consolidating an operation that for decades was more a series of profligate feudal baronies than a hard-nosed business.

But within the entertainment community, cynicism is rife about whether Time Warner really is changing its tune. "They'd love you to think that this is about cleaning up their act, but it's not," says one California-based TV producer and screenwriter. "When they [Time Warner] have to go to the regulators at the FCC or wherever for their next big deal, they'll claim it was all socially responsive."

Many in the record industry, however, resent that Time Warner seems to have been cowed by the forces of censorship and politics. "They're trying to prevent a genre of music from happening, from thriving," says an industry executive. "It's art reflecting life. What's wrong with that?"