Wise Intellegient from Poor Righteous Teachers

Wise Intelligent: Hip Hop hasn’t really evolved. It has kind of digressed or regressed, so to speak. And at the same time, it is kind of stagnant in that when we look at this generation of Hip-Hop, the youth – everything that they do, from the sneakers they wear, the earrings in the girls’ ear – they all come from that 80s era. It is almost as if they haven’t created anything of their own yet. That is what gave birth to the throwbacks – the lack of creativity in this generation. They have to ‘throw back’ to that era when things were created and we were dealing with a more creative mindset.

As far as the content that we are dealing with in the music today, that came about, in my opinion, as a way of redirecting or putting leads on the people’s impulse to pursue revolution. They put leads in the form of gangster rap, pimpism, and hustlin’ culture on the people’s impulse for revolution to direct them into a self-destructive mindset and that’s where we are at right now. We are in that self-destructive mindset that the people went into based on leads that were put on that original impulse and desire to seek revolution. And it was planned. It was definitely planned. I was there when the transition was coming forth.

The Poor Righteous Teachers were signed to Profile Records and Profile Records had a couple of conscious groups and then they had Run D.M.C. and so on and so forth, but in the era of gangster rap we saw DJ Quik come in, we saw N 2 Deep come in, we saw Smooth Da Hustler come in at Profile Records, we saw these things happening right before our eyes. We saw the marketing dollars being redirected from the positive or socially conscious groups to the gangster rapper. We saw these things happening.

One thing that the 10% know is that whatever a person thinks, that will become their reality. Whatever a person thinks and believes to be true that will become their surroundings. And the 10% knew that Hip-Hop was very, very powerful in that era. We had youth braiding their hair up, wearing Afros putting on their medallions, seeking out the Qur’an, and even the Bible. We were just seeking knowledge in all forms everywhere. And they saw this and they knew that they had to stop this, so Counter Intelligence Programs came into effect and we got what we got and we have what we have today. That pretty much is the process in what happened in Hip-Hop.

We have to understand today, you know a lot of people like to say that ‘the artist is responsible, the artist shouldn’t say this’. I am not taking blame off of individuals that contribute to the self-destructive content in their music. But it is almost like blaming Jezebel for being born poor, but beautiful. It is almost like that (beauty) is the only thing she has to reach out and get the necessities that she needs. You know, the bare necessities. So she is using what she got to get what she wants, pretty much. And that is the science with poor people. Poor people can be controlled by the rich. There is a scripture in Proverbs that says, “It is the rich that cause the poor to sin”. Because the rich can make a poor man do anything for the bare necessities. And that is what the youth are. The youth are poor, living in poverty and want of all things. And when you are in such a condition it is easy for you to be led in the wrong direction.

When poor youth thought that they could rhyme positive, socially and politically conscious lyrics, and get record deals and sell records like Public Enemy, like KRS-One, like Poor Righteous Teachers, like X-Clan, they were doing it. The large majority of rappers were writing in a conscious format. Yet when they saw the shift, the youth made the shift also. Because they felt, ‘oh I can’t get paid no more doing that, so I have to do this.’ It is just like how at one point in my neighborhood, everybody was selling marijuana, everybody was selling weed. Everybody.

When crack came in 1982 and ’83 to my neighborhood, and they saw that crack was making more money, and there were more crack smokers, than weed smokers – weed wasn’t making enough money and they started selling crack. That’s what the poor kids do. They are going to do those things that they feel will get them what they desire.


Cedric Muhammad: You are right Wise, and even in some of the things that I have written on pertaining to the Congo, when the price of gold and silver went down, they started moving into mining col-tan and tantalum.

Wise Intelligent: Exactly!


HOW THE RADIO DESTROYS HIP HOP


Cedric Muhammad: So how much of this do you attribute to radio? For example, I was just listening to the song, "Freedom or Death" on the Pure Poverty album and Wise, I thought to myself, ‘this could never come out today (and be played on the radio)’. And today, we have seen, the lack of airplay for a song like Styles P.’s "I’m Black" and the phrase, ‘white man’ was edited out of the Kanye West song, "All Falls Down". We have written about that at BlackElectorate.com. So I wanted to know from you, what is your view on the role that you feel radio has played in the scenario you just described?

Wise Intelligent: Radio is the beast. You know, they definitely contribute to the dilemma in a very profound way. Their part cannot go unnoticed or ignored. They call themselves the home of ‘Hip-Hop and R & B’ and you know that they are targeting youth from the different shows that they have and I listen to the radio and there is absolutely no balance. There was a time where you could just take your record to the station and if the D J felt it, he just played it. Now, every radio station is playing the same ten songs, over and over and over again. Radio to me in large part is responsible, more so than anybody for the dissemination of the destructive influence into the Black community.

They will throw their little token ad on saying, ‘stop the violence’ or whatever they have for Mother’s day, ‘yeah my baby got shot and killed at a party, everybody stop the violence’. And as soon as that goes off (they are playing), ‘my metal go clap, your head will go back’. They are playing Beanie Sigel, and ‘kill a nigga’ music (laughter). You know what I mean? But that is the radio. And you listen to the Black radio you do not hear anything based on entrepreneurialism. There is no business network (promoted through) Black radio, unless you go to an adult contemporary radio station that is 40-years old and up. There is nothing for the youth to listen to, to teach them how to invest money in the stock market or anything. Hardly anything other than, ‘clap somebody.’ That is all you get.

Now, it is either ads for liposuction, plastic surgery, all types of this stuff on Hip-Hop radio stations. It is pathetic. Since Black radio sold its soul it has become a gossip column that contributes to the violence. – ‘a moment of silence for the dead Black race/ that measures life by the inches/ on the chrome set of spinners’. That’s where we are at.


Cedric Muhammad: I just wanted to know your view of - as you look at the evolutionary role of radio - the reemergence of the Star and Buc Wild show, which I find to be very important and interesting. One aspect of course is Star, who at his age of 41, operating in today’s Hip-Hop format, is one of the few good sources of historical information regarding the evolution of the culture and the industry. And then of course, I always find him to be very respectful of the Nation of Gods and Earths, and the 5% Nation Of Islam. So I wanted to just ask your opinion of Star, his show and what it represents.

Wise Intelligent: Man, I really enjoy Star’s show. I listen to it when I commute from Trenton, New Jersey to Philadelphia in the mornings. So I am checking it out. The thing is, a lot of people say they are just on that show acting ignorant. I have heard a lot of people say that in comments in reference to the show. Yet they make you think. If you are paying attention if you are doing the knowledge to the show, there is subject matter that is being discussed on there that is not being discussed on a lot of radio. I heard the term, ‘eugenics’ being discussed on his show. I am riding down the highway and I am like ‘oh’. I just heard the term eugenics come across the air, and they are discussing that, and they are breaking that down to a degree. And you don’t get that from a lot of radio disc jockeys. Some of them are afraid to be real and to be honest. And Star calls himself the original hater (laughter).

But it is objective, man. It is objective criticism. And the thing is you can’t say you dislike something without first analyzing it, understanding it. Star has a serious understanding man. And I say this to any individual that takes him lightly, you know - don’t be mistaken, that is a very intelligent Black man on that radio. That is a very intelligent Black man. And if you (laugher) come sideways (at Star) you better make sure that you did the knowledge, that you did your homework before you come at that Black man, because he is very knowledgeable, very well-read, a very thoroughly educated Black man. And it shows.

Some people they just don’t get the understanding. I like to say, ‘get knowledge, get wisdom, but in all of your getting get understanding.’ And that is what I get when I am listening to his show. You know even the personalities, the different characters he has on there, ‘Crossover Negro Reese’ (laughter), ‘White Trash Helene’ and so on and so forth. All of the characters contribute to a dialogue that is conducive to expanding your consciousness, point blank. That’s what I get out of their show. It expands your consciousness regardless to what your political view is, religious view or ethnic background.

I really enjoy the Star and Buc Wild show, man, it is a good show and I think they touch a lot of good topics. Whether it is in passing or on the fly-by, things get addressed on there. That is the first radio show that I heard somebody even dare to mention eugenics, or dare to touch racial issues that they touch. They keep it clean. Star keeps it real clean and he don’t bite his tongue. He gets right to the point and lets the knowledge be brought forth. I respect that. You got to respect a man that stands on his square.


HOW BLACK RECORD OWNERS BECOME LIKE THE OPPRESSOR


Cedric Muhammad: Now, about three years ago I wrote something on BlackElectorate.com called, "The consciousness of Suge, Jay-Z and Wu-Tang". And I directed it at many of the fans of many of the conscious artists that we all know and love. And the point that I was trying to make was that I feel that there has been a blind spot in the knowledge that we have had and the understanding of it because we have totally equated business and doing trade among ourselves and others as capitalism and exploitative behavior. So I wanted to know from you, in terms of the fall of the prominence of conscious Hip-Hop, do you attribute that to a lack of understanding in our consciousness as it relates to the science of business and doing trade among ourselves and others?

Wise Intelligent: It is tough to say. It is tough to say. But I think a lot of it has to do with our desire to become the oppressor. A lot of us envy the oppressor so much that when we get into a position of power we become him. I know a lot of rappers who have did their thing, sold millions of records and then, in turn got their own record companies and record deals and so on and so forth and end up oppressing the artist the same way.

You had Puffy and the Lox, and the Lox are like, ‘yo we need to get off of here (Bad Boy Records), he is enslaving us.’ I mean, how is that even possible? That shouldn’t happen. But we envy our oppressor. But that’s what happens when the oppressed wants to replace their oppressor and become him. They don’t want to co-exist with him. They want to become him. And that is what the problem is. A lot of Black artists are living on a line, whereas our culture is a circle. European culture I define it as a line. Wherever you put your peg on that line, somebody is in the front, back or on top or the bottom, depending on whether that line is horizontal or vertical. That is their culture.

Our culture is a circle. You put your peg on the circle, I put my peg on the circle and neither one of us is in front, neither one of us is in back, neither one of us is on the top and neither one of us is on the bottom. It is a community. It is a circle. And that is what a lot of rappers don’t see. They don’t have that knowledge to see that. They are trying to adjust to, adapt, and live in a culture that is not conducive to their spirit. So a lot of them have become the oppressor. They have become sub-human as I always like to say. Because any time a Black man has abandoned his culture, his language, his people, and all of the things that make him, him; whenever he puts off from being Black to adopt a culture, religion, language of someone else – then he is no longer what he was and he is not quite a European, so he is somewhere in between. He is a subhuman.

He has demoted himself to the lower animals that he should not be respected, at all. There is no way he should be respected. He should not be respected. He deserves what happens to him in the world, when he refuses and rejects his own culture, his own people to be more like the European. And that is the problem right now with a lot of the Black leaders. They don’t want to turn us into a Black nation, they want to turn us into a sub-European nation. If they become the power and authority, they would set things up the same way. And we would have the same capitalist, imperialist structure, just ran by Black men. It is not going to be any change until this system is done away with. It is the system that is the problem. And until your leader is talking about changing the system and separating us ideologically from this system, then he is not the one to follow.

Davey D "The Clear Channeling of America"

AMY GOODMAN: Over 2,000 people converged in St. Louis, Missouri, last weekend for the second ever National Conference on Media Reform. Among the keynote speakers, journalist, hip-hop historian and radio deejay Davey D of Pacifica Radio station, KPFA. He talked about the Clear Channeling of America and the hip-hop generation. This is Davey D.

DAVEY D: I have been involved with this sort of struggle about media accountability for a very long time. I think I can safely say when I speak, especially for a lot of us who are in communities of color, dealing with the onslaught of media injustice and distortion has been -- has forced us to be in the fight, whether we care to be in it or not. Turning on the evening news and constantly seeing depictions of black males as criminals, unintelligent, and every other negative pathology that people like to talk about, and the Bill O'Reillys of world make a good living off of misreporting, has forced us to be in this fight, and it's been going on for a long time. But there was a time where you wouldn't have this many people coming together to talk about reforming and changing the media, so give yourselves a lot of props for being out here, because this is a very strong showing.

The thing that I always tell people is that media -- at this point in time, 2005, we can no longer afford to treat media as a passive spectator sport. 2005, it requires us to step it up and be interactive. Interactive means that we hold everybody who is reporting the news, who is presenting information, who is on the airwaves that our tax dollars help pay for, we have to be in their faces 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every angle possible, whether you are coming at it from the low end, from the policy side, whether you are creating your own media to be competition to them, but we have to hold them accountable, because I can tell you as somebody who has been involved with some of these stations that have laid out some of the groundwork for some of these ongoing assaults -- and I worked for Clear Channel for a number of years -- that they spend a lot of time studying and figuring out ways to seduce and attract and lull a lot of the people who aren’t in this room to sleep and make it seem like what they present is something that is all good, and therefore, there's no problem, until one day we wake up and find out that there's a lot of things we don't know about, there's a lot of laws that have been passed, there's a lot of things that that are missing that are very important to our lives, but by then, the train has left the station. So it's up to us in this room to not only continue to do the work that we're doing, but also to inform creatively and intelligently all of those who may not find this issue very attractive. We have to do that.

That means we have a responsibility to first of all to truly know the full spectrum of this game. I often tell a lot of the rap artists before you get in the business, understand the game, that it's a business. Know the shot callers. If you don't know Rick Cummings or Jeff Smulyan or John Hogan or Doc Winters or Steve Smith or Kathy Hughes or Alfred Liggins, these are people from Radio One, Clear Channel and Emmis Broadcasting, Steve Rivers. If you don't know these people, then there's a problem, because these are the folks that shot-call what goes on these airwaves day in and day out. And when we talk about radio, especially urban radio, in every city in America, these stations are the number one or number two or number three station in the market.

So when we talk about a lot of the things about poor people and crime and prison-industrial complex and things that we need to do to change that, and we look at media as being one of these agencies that may be moving people in the wrong direction but has the potential to move them in the right direction if it's used creatively and effectively, then we’ve got to know that these are the people that are 40 and 50-year-old men and women behind the scenes, calling the shots, deciding that at 7:00 at night, you can hear the Yin Yang Twins talking about “wait until you see my d-i-c-k,” and that it’s not a problem. That is a 40-year-old man that makes that decision, but then we'll blame the artist and we’ll blame the kids for falling prey to the seducing techniques that these people do.

I'm very happy that there's a lot of us on the other side of the spectrum, that hip-hop spectrum, the communities of color spectrum, that have been fighting the good fight and really making some head waves. Malkia Cyril, who was here earlier from Youth Media Council, probably talked to you about the very effective campaign that we ran in San Francisco with a lot of local artists who looked around and said, ‘Well, you know, news and information is cool, but for us, it's the fact that local artists don't get on the airwaves.’ And so there was a well-heeled campaign that required us to monitor the stations and take notes and keep bringing the heat up. And we identified. We sat in a room and strategized. What's the weakness? And this is something that all of us can do. What's the weakness, so that we can make sure that when we shoot the shot that we hit it effectively. So in 2005, you go to the Bay Area, you do hear local artists on the radio, but that victory is not enough for us. That victory is not enough, because that's just a stall tactic so that they can continue to maybe misinform the community.

So you have other people like my man, Raheem Pierre, who has decided to go around the country, interview people from the inner city, get their perspectives, talk to artists and then he brings to the forefront a documentary that he's going to drop in June called Radio Politricks, to make sure the community understands what it takes to run a radio station and how these people are misleading us and abusing the airwaves. So these people deserve props.

In New York City, 2002, 2003, radio veteran Bob Law was sick and tired of the way that we were being mistreated in the media, so he brought together more than a thousand people and held a tribunal in Harlem and brought everybody out there to talk about what was on the radio. Six hours later, there was an earful that the city council people and everybody had. Started a campaign called “Turn Off the Radio Campaign.” People didn't pick this up.

Fast forward to this year, Hot 97, which was one of the targeted stations, that’s Emmis Broadcasting, decided to play a parody song making fun of the Asian community. They figured, ‘You know what? These Asian folks, they're kind of small in number. They don't know anything. Nobody is going to hear them.’ But they didn't realize that some of those Asians that they pissed off were very good friends with the people from the Turn Off the Radio Campaign. So blacks and Asians and Latinos all came together and brought the heat to Emmis Broadcasting, made their stocks plummet, started strategically going, ‘You know what? We're not going to talk about the deejays, Funkmaster Flex or Miss Jones, and none ever these people. We want to know Jeff Smulyan’s name. We want to know Rick Cummings’s name. We are going to put them on blast.’ And we started sending emails to advertisers. And people -- this got everybody involved. The hip-hop community from all over the country was supporting the effort in New York to the point that they had to call a meeting.

And here is this. This is what we're up against in 2005. Hip-hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa is sitting in the room. People like Rosa Clemente from our sister station BAI, an activist well known in New York, is there. DJ Kuttin’ Kandi, all these people who mean something to our communities are sitting in the room, intelligent human beings. They're asking for community access. They’re asking for racial sensitivity. And more importantly, saying, you know, every time we turn on the radio, we hear your deejays using the n-word and the b-word and other disparaging words that we say we don't want to hear anymore. White program director who never programmed an urban station in his life sat up there and looked these people in the face, looked Afrika Bambaataa in the face, the man who started the hip-hop movement that he is making money off of, said, “No, we can’t stop using the n-word because we don't want to lose our lower demographics.” This is in 2005. This is the fight that we're dealing with.

So, when you turn on the radio and you go, “What's going on?” it is not the people in our neighborhood that's making these decisions. Let me just quote, I think it was Rick Cummings or Jeff Smulyan who said, “Well, you know, we don't know what these young people -- we don't know what's going on with these young people. How do I know? I'm a 50-year-old white guy. I don't know about hip-hop.” Then why the hell do you have a license for the number one station in that market? This is the fight that we have.

But we are winning it. First thing I tell people all the time, recognize our victories. We shifted the conversation from talking about the artists and the shortcomings of the deejays to talking about the shortcomings and the lack of responsibility of the broadcast owners. So, that's a major victory right there. And we will continue to bring the heat.

Big shout out to the folks from Industry Ears, who decided that, you know what, these folks are doing a smack-fest where they get sisters to smack each other until they start bleeding, and then the corporation, Emmis Broadcasting, gives them $500 when one of them gives up. Well, they didn’t think hip-hoppers were smart. We’re all 30-plus. We all have houses and homes. One of them was a law student, found out that it's a violation of New York state laws to have a pugilistic competition, and then one of the fools from Emmis went on "Hannity & Colmes," and said, “It’s just like a boxing match.” So a few phone calls later and Eliot Spitzer and a few city council conversations brought him up on charges and said, “You can’t have a pugilistic competition. You are violating New York City state law.”

These and others are victories that are taking place. And these victories come because of several things. One, we communicate with each other. Two, it’s not about the individual, and it’s not about one organization, but it's about all of us looking out for the future generations that are coming up that are being seduced by these broadcasters day in and day out, who think it's okay for them to do the things that they do because they don't live in the East Oaklands, they don’t live in the Southsides of Chicago, they don't live in the Harlems. But what we do, and we have to deal with the nonsense that they leave. So we're committed to it.

Young women up in Boston, we got to give them a major shout out, because they got sick and tired of what was going on. And they decided to start their own radio station. Big shout out to my crew in Los Angeles. They started their own. Big shout out to people like FreeMix and all of those with websites and podcasters. These are communities of color doing their own thing, creating their own media, trying to not only counteract what's going on, but to make themselves competitive and hopefully surpass some of these people who are misusing the airwaves today. So those people deserve props, and I wish that those stories could be told in more fuller detail. But I'm going to represent for them tonight and give them a round of applause, because they're not here, but they're hard at work.

Lastly, as I close, the big white elephant that's in the room, that we're getting ready to deal with, the big white elephant that is determining a lot of the stuff that we have to deal with day in and day out, the big white elephant that is saying, you know what, we are going to play these nasty songs for seven-year-olds in the middle of the morning, we're going to keep some of these beasts going on, because it makes us money, etc., etc. The payola word. A lot of people don't like to talk about it. The commissioners are here. We are making these recordings and making it known that what is on these airwaves is bought and paid for by corporations. We gotta deal with that because nothing else that we do will matter, if you got big-time money funding some of the nonsense that we're up against right now. And it doesn't stop with the records. Maybe some of the news things that we hear as Commission Adelstein had alluded to, maybe those are bought and paid for, too. So don't talk about the war effort. You’re paid not to. Let's not play any of the anti-war songs – there are four compilation albums out by hip-hop artists. Not one of them gets on the air? Who is paying for that not to happen?

And in closing, all of us got to continue to do three things. One, communicate with one another. Continue to network with one another. Use each other's resources and, more importantly, recognize that all of us have strengths, and that we should use these to our full advantage to make sure that next year when we come to this sort of gathering, that the landscape has significantly changed for the better. Thank you very much.

AMY GOODMAN: Davey D, hip-hop historian, Pacifica Radio producer at KPFA at DaveyD.com, speaking at the National Conference on Media Reform last weekend in St. Louis, Missouri.

Kaiser Youth Market Study

Youth Market

a. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation Study released in 2005, 74% of 8
to 18 year olds listen to the

Radio…. That’s more than listen to a CD, tape, or MP3 player

b. The Kaiser Study also found that 84% of 8 to 18 year olds have a Radio in
their bedroom -- that’s more

than have a TV (68%) and a lot more than have a computer (31%)

c. Over one-third of 12 to 24 year olds noticed stations playing fewer
commercials (36%) and shorter

breaks (39%) in the Arbitron/Edison Media Spot Load Study

d. The same Spot Load Study found that younger listeners (12 to 24) are more
likely to increase Time Spent Listening to Radio when a decrease in spot
loads is perceived

NY Radio billing

Here are BIA's estimated 2004 ad revenues for New York stations. The number in parenthesis is where that station finished in the last Arbitron ratings.

1. WLTW $70.2 million (1)

2. WINS $60.6 million (7)

3. WCBS-AM $55.7 million (17)

4. WFAN $52.5 million (20)

5. WXRK $52.2 million (12)

6. WHTZ $48.6 million (6)

7. WQHT $40.8 million (4)

8. WPLJ $39.6 million (20)

9. WKTU $38.4 million (14)

10. WSKQ $36.9 million (2)

11. WCBS-FM $34.1 million (9)

12. WAXQ $33.5 million (10)

13. WRKS $28.8 million (3)

14. WQCD $27 million (16)

15. WBLS $25.5 million (13)

16. WABC $24 million (8)

17. WWPR $23.9 million (5)

18. WOR $19.6 million (19)

19. WQXR $15.4 million (15)

20. WPAT-FM $14.8 million (10)

21. WMCA $8.3 million (36)

22. WNEW $7.9 million (22)

23. WEPN $7.8 million (29)

24. WADO $7.7 million (23)

25. WBBR $5.1 million (30)

26. WCAA $4.1 million (18)

27. WLIB $4 million (24)

28. WWRL $2.7 million (36)

29. WQEW $1.9 million

Originally published on May 23, 2005

Charlotte Post Image persist

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Alter State of Hip HopWar over words, image persistsBy Cheris F. Hodges cheris.hodges@thecharlottepost.com
Back in the day, the message in hip-hop was clear: Don't push me because I'm close to the edge.
Hip-hop star ­ and Charlotte Bobcats minority owner ­ Nelly is part of urban music's new breed.
associated press photo/andrea a. dixon
Nowadays, hip-hop is a myriad of messages, and critics say that message is violence, drugs and sex.
"There is an imbalance in the message," said Paul Porter of Industry Ears, a consortium of entertainment and broadcast industry professionals dedicated to promoting justice in media. He added that 75 percent of hip-hop songs played on broadcast radio have a message of sex, drugs and violence and that's marketed to teens.
"And the whole theory that broadcasters tell the public is bull," he said. "You can turn your radio off, but those are public air waves. And there are too many other ways for children to get the negative information."
Porter recalled hanging out with his 8-year-old nephew who was on the Internet watching a Ying Yang Twins video. "Parents can't be with their children 24 hours a day," he said.
But music videos and radios are always around. On Charlotte radio, songs like Trick Daddy's "Sugar (gimme some)" and the Ying Yang Twins "Wait (The Whisper Song)" are popular not just on urban station like WPEG (98) FM, but hit music stations WNKS (95.1) and WIBT (96.1).
Porter said this shows radio stations aren't to blame for what's played, but their parent companies.
"We're being held under corporate hostage. I don't blame WPEG, I blame Infinity (the parent company of WPEG and WNKS). They send a corporate play list in," Porter said.
Essence Magazine has launched a yearlong look into how the images portrayed in hip-hop songs and videos effect young women.
At press time, an editor from the magazine had not returned a call to the Post. But according to the web site, "When we search for ourselves in music lyrics, mixtapes and DVDs and on the pages of hip-hop magazines, we only seem to find our bare breasts and butts. And when we finally get our five minutes at the mic, too many of us waste it on hypersexual braggadocio and profane one-upmanship. The damage of this imbalanced portrayal of black women is impossible to measure. An entire generation of black girls are being raised on these narrow images. And as the messages and images are broadcast globally, they have become the lens through which the world now sees us. This cannot continue."
But Joe Wiggins, director of urban communications for TVT records, home of the Ying Yang Twins and Lil' John and the Eastside Boys, said if people don't like the music, they don't have to listen to it or buy it.
"Because of the way hip-hop has grown, its critics have grown 10 fold," Wiggins said.
"Everyone always has an opinion. But I don't think any organization in America should believe in censorship."
WPEG morning show host "No Limit" Larry Mims said some of the same people who complain about the music aren't doing anything to give artists an alternative.
"They're not offering the artists any jobs," he said. "It's not our job to be the parents. If you don't like the artist, don't buy the CD and don't support the artist."
WPEG, said Mims, won't play certain songs that have suggestive lyrics during the daytime. "We play those songs at night when the kids should be in the bed. We do keep the kids in mind."
When "Wait" hit the airwaves, Wiggins said that it was because the song was leaked from a recording session.
"I don't know if it would have been released to radio," he said.
The song, which has an infectious beat and very provocative lyrics, has drawn sharp criticism.
Wiggins said the artists didn't record "Wait" to be malicious and public demand was strong enough for the label to release the song.
When asked if record companies have a moral responsibility about the songs it releases, Wiggins didn't have an answer.
"That's a good question," he said. "I think that's debatable and should be asked of all genres of music."
Mims said the debate over hip-hop lyrics shows that the genre is in the forefront. "They talked about Rock and Roll the same way," he said. "It wouldn't make sense to attack something at the bottom."
Other Arts & Entertainment Articles in this Issue: Exhibit a look into teens' frame of mind
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NY TIMES on Hip Hop

Published: May 12, 2005African-American teenagers are beset on all sides by dangerous myths about race. The most poisonous one defines middle-class normalcy and achievement as "white," while embracing violence, illiteracy and drug dealing as "authentically" black. This fiction rears its head from time to time in films and literature. But it finds its most virulent expression in rap music, which started out with a broad palette of themes but has increasingly evolved into a medium for worshiping misogyny, materialism and murder. Readers<http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/article3/readers_opinions_header.gif>Forum: Today's Editorials <http://forums.nytimes.com/top/opinion/readersopinions/forums/editorialsoped/todayseditorials/index.html?page=recent>This dangerous narrowing of hip-hop music would be reason for concern in any case. But it is especially troubling against the backdrop of the 1990's, when rappers provoked a real-world gang war by using recordings and music videos to insult and threaten rivals. Two of the music's biggest stars - Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. - were eventually shot to death.People who pay only minimal attention to the rap world may have thought the killings would sober up the rap community. Not quite. The May cover of the hip-hop magazine Vibe was on the mark when it depicted fallen rappers standing among tombstones under the headline: "Hip-Hop Murders: Why Haven't We Learned Anything?"The cover may have been prompted in part by a rivalry between two rappers that culminated in a shootout at a New York radio station, Hot 97, earlier this spring. The events that led up to the shooting show how recording labels now exploit violence to make and sell recordings.At the center of that Hot 97 shootout was none other than 50 Cent, whose given name is Curtis Jackson III. Mr. Jackson is a confessed former drug dealer who seems to revel in the fact that he was shot several times while dealing in Queens. He has also made a career of "beef" recordings, in which he whips up controversy and heightens tension by insulting rival artists.He was following this pattern in a radio interview in March when a rival showed up at the station. The story's murky, but it appears that the rival's entourage met Mr. Jackson's on the street, resulting in gunfire.Mr. Jackson's on-air agitation was clearly timed to coincide with the release of "The Massacre," his grotesquely violent and misogynist compact disc. The CD cover depicts the artist standing before a wall adorned with weapons, pointing what appears to be a shotgun at the camera. The photographs in the liner notes depict every ghetto stereotype - the artist selling drugs, the artist in a gunfight - and includes a mock autopsy report that has been seen as a covert threat aimed at some of his critics.The "Massacre" promotion raises the ante in a most destructive way. New artists, desperate for stardom, will say or do anything to win notice - and buzz - for their next projects. As the trend escalates, inner-city listeners who are already at risk of dying prematurely are being fed a toxic diet of rap cuts that glorify murder and make it seem perfectly normal to spend your life in prison.Critics who have been angered by this trend have pointed at Jimmy Iovine, the music impresario whose Interscope Records reaped millions on gangster rap in the 90's. Mr. Iovine makes a convenient target as a white man who is lording over an essentially black art form. But also listed on "The Massacre" as an executive producer is the legendary rapper Dr. Dre, a black man who happens to be one of the most powerful people in the business. Dr. Dre has a unique vantage point on rap-related violence. He was co-founder of Death Row Records, an infamous California company that marketed West Coast rap in the 1990's and had a front-row seat for the feud that led to so much bloodshed back then.The music business hopes to make a financial killing on a recently announced summer concert tour that is set to feature 50 Cent and the mega-selling rap star Eminem. But promoters will need to make heavy use of metal detectors to suppress the kind of gun-related violence that gangster artists celebrate. That this lethal genre of art has grown speaks volumes about the industry's greed and lack of self-control.But trends like this reach a tipping point, when business as usual becomes unacceptable to the public as a whole. Judging from the rising hue and cry, hip-hop is just about there.