--KTi Vi 31\ --
DAILY NEBRASKAN
Rap banned
Warning labels: parental advisory or preliminary censorship?
Rap: poetry and
rhymes set to throb
bing, funk rhythm
patterns
Raptivist: politically
and socially con
scious rappers
Raw: hard, direct,
truthful, and
uncensored
Real deal: the truth
Red, black and
green: the colors of
black liberation
worldwide
Sample: a portion of
an existing record or
sound
Scoop: to pick up a
female
Scratch: manually
manipulating records
to create an abrasive,
percussive sound
Set: place to hang
out in the neighbor
hood
Seven digits: a
phone number,
preferably a
female’s
Shoot the gift: to
engage in conversa
tion, preferably with
a female
, Skeezer: a hip-hop
groupie
Skins: female sex
organ
Slammin’: high
form of praise
Steel: firearm
By Jeremy Fitzpatrick
f the Devil didn't make you do it, blame rap
music.
The belief that music has the power to negatively
influence behavior started in the United States the 1950s and
'60s, when rock ’n' roll became popular.
Today, messages of sex and violence found in some rap
music draw the same criticism. Some argue that, because of its
potential to fuel violence, rap music must be regulated. In
Lincoln, no official sanctions exist on the sale of music, said
Greg Graham, manager of Twisters at 48th and Van Dorn
streets.
Graham said no state or federal laws regulated what music
stores could sell or who they could sell it to. The only regulation
of music in Lincoln, he said, is voluntary record labeling by
record companies.
There are no laws, there is nothing at all, dictating what has
labels, what doesn’t have labels," he said. ‘Just what the record
companies decide may be controversial, they usually label."
The labels have a parental advisory that says the music
contains explicit lyrics. Graham estimated that about 75 percent
of the rap music that Twisters receives has labels.
Two University of Nebraska-Lincoln professors disagreed
about the effect music could have on behavior and about
wneiner music snouia De reguiaiea.
Richard Duncan, a UNL law professor who described himself
as a conservative, said he thought much of modem music,
including both rap and rock ‘n‘ roll, contained messages that
were harmful to society.
People who hear music with messages of violence and
crime could be influenced to duplicate that behavior, he said.
That doesn’t mean you listen to that music and you go out
and do (what it says), but it may influence you,’ he said. "Every
action begins with a thought, and the thoughts are out there in
the music"
Duncan said his biggest concern was the effect music had
on children.
"Much of music today is not m the best interest of kids," he
said. "It’s not telling them to do healthy wholesome things; it’s
telling them to do the reverse.
We are hurting our kids," he said. Their lives are messed
up."
The responsibility for any harm music does to society, .
Duncan said, lies as much with the companies that produce it
as with the musicians who write it.
"My real problem is with corporate America — the Time
Warners of the world — who are making millions of dollars off
the pain and destruction of millions of young lives in this
country, particularly in the inner city," he said.
These rap musicians driving around in their Rolls Royces,
these corporate executives driving around in their Rolls Royces,
are sort of fiddling while America bums."
Duncan said that, despite the detrimental effects of music,
he did not favor government censorship as a means of
regulating it.
"You might be able (legally) to limit access to children, but in
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-
What is important to children's develop
ment is that they are exposed to a variety
of ideas and opinions and are encour
aged to construct their own views.
- David Moshman
Much of music today is not in the best
interest of kids. It's not telling them to
do healthy wholesome things; it's
telling them to do the reverse.
-Richard Duncan
--9 9
Tm not sure it accomplishes anything," he said.
'It may even be a neon sign for kids looking at that
stuff."
Instead of censoring or labeling music, Duncan
said, people should boycott music they do not
approve of and the companies and stores that sell it.
Duncan said he was not concerned about the
argument that boycotts might go too far and cause
legitimate art to be stifled.
"I understand that a lot of significant art has
offended people over the years," he said. "But I donl
think the kind of music we are talking about will
stand the test of time.
"Ice-T is not Beethoven, and you don’t need to
be a music major to see he is not Beethoven."
Boycotts may even sen/e to encourage art,
Duncan said, by pressuring artists to change their
music.
iviayoe ice-1 ooes nave a great song in mm
somewhere, and if we tell him that his garbage is no
longer acceptable, maybe that song will come out,*
he said.
David Moshman, a UNL educational psychology
professor and a member of the executive board of
the Nebraska Civil Liberties Union, disagreed that
music could influence people in a negative way.
Moshman said he was not in favor of voluntary
record labeling. He said labeling could be a form of
censorship by discouraging record stores from
buying labeled music.
It’s not as clearly objectionable as government
censorship, but it leads in the same direction,* he
said.
Instead of labeling, Moshman said, people should
judge the value of music for themselves.
1 think it’s better that people make their own
judgments about music after listening to it rather
than have some board or some body assert their
own categories,* he said.
He also is against government censorship of
music.'
‘A lot of people who support censorship, I think,
have a kind of naive view that certain kinds of
behavior can be influenced in a direct way,* he said.
■What the psychological research shows is that sort
of behavior is much more complex.
"I think people are affected by their social
environment, including the ideas they get from their
social environment, but they put it together in their
own way and construct their own views.*
Moshman said that also was true for children.
Parents who are concerned about what their children
are listening to should expose them to more ideas,
not limit their exposure, he said.
"What is important to children’s development is
that they are exposed to a variety of ideas and
opinions and are encouraged to construct their own
views,’ he said. That's where I would see a
convergence between psychological research on
development and the traditional civil liberties view
that the proper recourse for bad speech is more
speech.’
For dealing with controversial music and children,
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used by the American Library Association. In that
system, children can check out any book, and what
they read is regulated by their parents.
Boycotting stores and music is a right Moshman
said he supported. But he also said boycotts could
be a dangerous way of dealing with controversial
issues if they stifled free expression.
*1 would support the right of people to boycott,
but I think these things could be dangerous and
should be used sparingly — and only in extreme
cases,* he said.
For example, Moshman said, he would support
boycotting a store whose music was devoted solely
to killing police, but not a music store that carried
Ice-T’s "Cop Killer* with its other music.
He questioned how those who supported
boycotts would determine what was or was not
acceptable.
*My view would be that there is no good way to
determine what ideas will be boycotted,* he said.
The Nebraska Legislature would have to pass
any state regulation of music. Two state senators
said they were opposed to regulation.
Sen. David Landis of Lincoln said he supported
voluntary labeling by record companies, but opposed
Please see banned on page 15
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don’t think you could do that,
and I don’t think it’s a good
idea,” he said. "You’d just
make First Amendment
martyrs out of (musicians) to
try and prohibit them, which
would just increase their sales
and make them almost
sympathetic characters."
He is not opposed to the
voluntary labeling of music by
record companies, but he
said he didn’t think labeling
was the solution.
