[lbo-talk] Rap and Detroit

Leigh Meyers leighcmeyers at gmail.com
Fri Apr 29 13:59:15 PDT 2005


---- Original Message ---- From: Wendy Lyon To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Sent: Friday, April 29, 2005 11:27 AM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Rap and Detroit


> <...>
>
> I just can't agree with the idea that Cash (and other country/blues
> singers) get away with it because their tales of murder are
> accompanied by expressions of regret. The would-be censors don't
> listen for things like that. In fact, sometimes they don't listen at
> all - an instrumental Frank Zappa album once received an "Explicit
> Lyrics" sticker. The Cure were given a label for the song "Killing
> An Arab" despite the fact that the lyrics were simply Camus's "The
> Stranger" in rhyme.

Was it Sheik Yerbouti? I think the song in question was "Bobby Brown Goes Down"... something about Crisco, and fistfuck and wristwatch... ...not an instrumental, but I could be wrong.

The "Tipper Gore Committee" on record labelling (so much for "liberals") wasn't just after the "rappers".... Also in attendance were members of the heavy metal group Twisted Sister(who thought the whole thing was a joke, and acted accordingly), Tesla(they wrote a song about the experience), and Frank Zappa who told them that he was a PHD'd Musicologist and they couldn't tell him what he was doing wasn't art.

It's culturewars... not racewars as the driving force behind it all.

Fuck 'em. We win by the very fact that they have to label music at all!


>
> Those who are looking for offensive content can
> usually find it if they want to - and I sincerely believe that they
> would have found it had "Delia's Gone" been recorded by one of the
> hip-hop bands it shared a record company with. I can't prove this, of
> course.

Oh yeah... I used to play Black Sabbath albums backwards to look for the secret messages too... but all I ever heard was "The walrus was Paul"... Ah Well.

I'm gonna go bite the head off a bat now...

Leigh



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list