MOTION #69: THIS HOUSE WOULD BAN
MUSIC CONTAINING LYRICS THAT GLORIFY VIOLENT AND CRIMINAL LIFESTYLES
Recurrent themes in
discussions on popular culture are the origins and impact of violent imagery
and music. Outlandish, atavistic and brutal content seems to be a naturally
occurring part of imagined and narrative culture. All societies experience violent
conduct, many societies tell stories involving violence, and most societies are
likely produce cultural expressions that glamorise violence in some way.
Debates over the
content and censorship of these forms of media have become increasingly prominent
as mass production and communication technologies have enabled books, songs and
images to be circulated to ever wider audiences.
During the last two
decades, the musical genre known as hip hop has found itself at the forefront
of this debate. Throughout the 1980s a trend towards realist lyrics that
reflected the poverty and dispossession of the black communities from which hip
hop emerged led to the creation of the “gangsta” rap genre, which fixated on
gang violence and drug consumption. Feuds between commercially successful
rappers during the 1990s culminated in shootings and deaths. Links between hip
hop music and violence in inner city areas remain largely unexamined. However,
hip hop’s apologists point out that gangs and crime are more closely linked to
poverty and poor policing than to rap lyrics.
In January this year,
a large “urban” music event in south London was disrupted when police officers
conducted searches of eighteen performers and a number of young people, looking
for concealed weapons. Such searches are justified by the terms of a risk
assessment form- a “696”- that organisers of events in London venues must
complete and submit to the police, at the risk of losing their licence. The
form requires organisers to state the type of music being performed at their
event. Up until 2008 the form asked organisers to give “demographic” details of
an event’s likely audience, including their age and race.
“Proposals of this
type often tend to focus on one particular musical genre. In the case of the example
above, the genre targeted for increased regulation is hip hop. Many critics,
from both inside and outside the hip hop industry have noted its increased
focus on themes of gang violence, misogyny and aggressive materialism.
Those at the most
extreme end of the critical spectrum claim that feuds between hip hop artists
demonstrate that it is an art form that trades exclusively in images of cynical
brutality, and that by equating thuggish behaviour with a glamorous lifestyle,
it encourages other individuals to act in a similar way. As noted above, this
viewpoint is often used to make the case that hip hop’s fans are likely to
engage in criminal behaviour.
The use of 696 forms
to shut down urban music events or to justify intensified policing at concerts
touches directly on many of the issues contained in principle. Plainly, closing
down a musical event based on a tenuous connection between the style of the
music that will be performed and the behaviour of the audience is denial of
self-expression. Crucially, however, the disproportionate targeting of hip hop
and associated musical forms by the police, taken alongside comments made by
high ranking politicians such as David Cameron also suggests that it is seen as
an inferior form of speech, one that can be freely censored and displaced
because it contains no socially valuable content.
The capstone of this
misleading approach to the sometimes violent and controversial content of hip
hop music is the attitude of public authorities to those who consume and produce
it. Broadcasters of hip hop music have been accused of encouraging knife crime
and violent muggings; stickers advising ‘Parental Guidance’ are regularly
attached to hip hop albums. At the height of civil unrest in London during 2011
the prominent historian David Starky commented that ‘A particular sort of
violent, destructive, nihilistic gangster culture has become the fashion,’ and
that ‘Black and white, boy and girl operate in this language together. This
language, which is wholly false, which is this Jamaican patois that has
intruded in England [sic].’
The result of such
comments is the demonization of hip hop artists and the infantilisation of
their fans. Both these trends are effective in obstructing free speech. Once
again, they deny the veracity and authenticity of a particular type of free
expression under the aegis of protecting the public from criminality. In
addition, such comments seek to portray the audiences that hip hop attracts as
gullible and overly impressionable, adding an additional stereotype to a
constellation of already damaging assumptions.
Reactionary attempts
to shut down music venues and censor hip hop are no replacement for an
equitable and even handed assessment of the content of hip hop music. Violence,
even in its glamorised form, will always be part of popular culture, but it is
telling that we only begin to find it objectionable when it threatens to bring
the problems and realities of life at the margins of society into the
mainstream – when fictional glamour reflects too closely on real-life social
breakdown.”
Pros
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Cons
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Classification, not censorship. We should expect fans of an art form that is subjected
to public criticism and vilification to leap to its defence. Some of these
aficionados- whether the medium in question is cinema, fine art or pop music-
make the case for the value of their favourite mode of expression by
overstating its positive effects.
Hip hop has long been the focus of controversies
surrounding violent music. Hip hop is closely associated with low-level
criminality, as noted above. A number of highly successful hip hop artists
have been attacked or killed as a result of feuds within the industry and
links between managers, promoters and criminal gangs.
As the academic John McWhorter has pointed out in
numerous publications, the positive political and social impact of rap music
has been massively overstated, as a result of highly charged media coverage
of hip hop-linked violence. As a
result, attempts to address some of the hips hops most objectionable content-
lyrics that are misogynist and blankly and uncritically violent- have been
condemned as unjust assaults on the right to free expression. Attacks on
negative content in hip hop have been made all the more emotive, because they
appear to be an attempt to restrict the speech of members of vulnerable and
marginalised communities.
Side proposition agrees with McWhorter that listening
to music that contains violent themes will not, in the absence of other
factors, cause individuals to behave in a violent way. However, the content
of rap, and its strong links with the youngest inhabitants of marginalised,
stigmatised urban areas mean that it damages the developmental opportunities
of teenagers and young people, and harms others’ perceptions of the communities
they live in.
Hip hop trades on its authenticity – the extent to
which it faithfully portrays the lived experience of the inhabitants of
deprived inner city areas. The greater the veracity of a hip hop track, the
greater its popularity and cache among fans. Musicians have gained public
recognition as a result of being directly involved in street crime and gang
activities. 50 Cent, a high profile “gansta” artist owes his popularity, in
part, to a shooting in 2000 that left him with 9 bullet wounds. This supposed
link to reality is the most dangerous aspect of contemporary hip hop culture.
Unlike the simplistic make-believe of, say, action films, the “experiences”
related by rappers are also their public personas and become the rationale
for their success.
Rap, through materialist boasting and sexualised music
videos tells vulnerable young men and women from isolated neighbourhoods that
their problems can be solved by adopting similarly nihilistic personas. The
poverty that affects many of the communities that hip hop artists identify
with does more than separate individuals from economic opportunity. It also
confines the inhabitants of these communities geographically, politically and
culturally. It prevents young men and women from becoming aware of perspectives
on the world and society that run contrary to the violence of main stream
rap. With television dominated by the gangsta motif, marginalised youngsters
are left with little in the way of dissenting voices to convince them that
hip hop takes a subjective and commercialised approach to the lives and
communities that rappers claim to represent.
In effect, controversial hip hop is capable of
sponsoring violent behaviour, when it is marketed as an accurate portrayal of
relationships, values and principles. Under these circumstances, adolescents,
whose own identity is nascent and malleable can easily be misled into
emulating the exploits and attitudes of rappers.
Side proposition advocates the control and
classification of controversial forms of music, including but not limited to
hip hop. Consistent with principles 1 and 10, classification of this type
will follow similar schemes applied to movies and videogames. Assessments of
the content of music will be conducted by a politically independent organisation;
musicians and record companies will have the ability to appeal the decisions
of this body. Crucially, the “ban” on music containing violent lyrics will
take the form of a categorisation scheme. Content will not be blocked from
sale or censored. Instead, as with the sale of pornographic material in many
liberal democratic states, music found to contain especially violent lyrics
will be confined to closed off areas in shops, to which only adults (as
defined in law) will be admitted. Its performance on television, radio and in
cinemas will be banned. Live performances of restricted music will be obliged
to enforce strict age monitoring policies. Online distributors of music will
be compelled to comply with similar age restrictions and intentionally exposing
minors to violent music will be punishable under child protection laws.
This approach has the advantage of limiting access to
violent content only to consumers who are judged, in general, to be mature
enough to understand that its “message” and the posturing of singers does not
equate to permission to engage in deviant behaviour.
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Crime and deviance
existed in marginalised communities long before the creation of pop music or
hip hop. Side proposition is attempting to claim that a particular genre of
hip hop is harming efforts to improve living standards and social cohesion
within these communities.
Many of the problems
associated with poor socialisation and a lack of social mobility in inner
city areas can be linked to the closed, isolated nature of these communities
– as the proposition comments correctly observe. However, these problems can
be traced to a lack of positive engagement between these young people and
wider society.
Violence may be
discussed or depicted in popular culture for a number of reasons, but it is
still comparatively rare- especially in mainstream music- to celebrate
violence for violence’s sake. Violence is discussed in hip hop in a number of
contexts. Frequently, as in British rapper Plan B’s single Ill Manors, or
Cypress Hill’s How I Could Just Kill A Man, descriptions of violent behaviour
or scenarios serve to illustrate negative or criminal attitudes and
behaviours. These forms of conduct are not portrayed in a way that is
intended to glorify them, but to invite comment on the social conditions that
produced them. As the opposition side will discuss in greater detail below,
the increased openness of the mainstream media also means that impoverished
young people can directly address mainstream audiences.
Proposition side
contends that the impression of the world communicated to potentially
marginalised adolescents by pop culture is dominated by the language and
imagery of gangsta rap. Proposition side’s argument is that, in the absence
of aggressive and negative messages, a more engaged and communitarian
perspective on the world will flourish in schools and youth groups from
Brixton and Tottenham to the Bronx and the banlieues. By controlling access
to certain hip hop genres, young people made vulnerable and gullible by the
desperation of poverty will supposedly start to see themselves as part of the
social mainstream. Nothing could be further from the truth. Why? Because
efforts at including and improving the social mobility of these young people
are underwhelming and inadequate. Social services, youth leaders and
educators are not competing to be heard above the din of hip hop – they are
not being given the resources or support necessary to communicate effectively
with young people.
The nurturing environment that proposition side fantasises
about creating will not spring into being fully formed if hip hop is silenced
and constrained. The existence of an apparently confrontational musical genre
should not be used to excuse policy failures such as the disproportionate use
of the Metropolitan Police’s stop and search powers to arbitrarily detain and
question young black men.
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Hate speech. The enforcement of the laws proposed in this article will be fraught,
complex and difficult. However, the difficulty of administering a law is
never a good argument for refusing to enforce it.
The censorship of the written word ended in England
with the Lady Chatterley and Oz obscenity trials, but this liberalisation of
publication standards has not prevented the state from prosecuting hate
speech when it appears in print. It is clear that, although we have more
latitude than ever to say or write what we want (no matter how
objectionable), standards and taboos continue to exist. We can take it that
these taboos are especially important and valuable to the running of a stable
society, as they have persisted despite the legal and cultural changes that
have taken place over the last fifty years.
Hate speech is prosecuted and censored because of its
power to intrude into the lives of individuals who have not consented to
receive it. As pointed out in Jeremy Waldron’s response to Timothy Garton
Ash’s piece on hate speech, hateful comments are not dangerous because they
insight gullible individuals to abandon their inhibitions and engage in race
riots. Hate speech is harmful because it recreates- cheaply and in front of a
very large audience- an atmosphere in which vulnerable minorities are put in
fear of becoming the targets of violence and prejudice. Additionally, hate
speech harms by defaming groups, by propagating lies and half-truths about
practices and beliefs, with the objective of socially isolating those groups.
Gangsta rap does all of these things, yet legal
responses to the publication of songs containing such lyrics as “Rape a
pregnant bitch and tell my friends I had a threesome,” have been timid at
best. Even if we maintain our liberal approach to taboo breaking forms of
expression, we can still link hip hop to many of the harms that hate speech
produces.
Gangsta rap gives the impression that African-American
and Latin-American neighbourhoods throughout the USA are violent, lawless
places. Even if the pronouncements of rappers such as 50 cent and NWA are
overblown or fictitious they enforce social division by vividly discouraging
people from entering or interacting with poor minority communities. They
damage those communities directly by creating a fear of criminality that
serves to limit trust and cohesion among individual community members.
Finally, violent hip hop is also defamatory. It propagates an image of
minority communities that emphasises violence, poverty and nihilism, whilst
loudly proclaiming its authenticity. It is completely irrelevant that these
images of minority communities are produced by members of those communities.
It is on this basis, however protracted the process of
classification must become, that the content of hip hop songs should be
assessed and censored. Liberal democracies are prepared to go to great
lengths to adjudicate on speech that could potentially promote racial or
religious hatred. The same standards should be applied to hip hop music,
because it is capable of producing identical harms.
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It is usually the
task of movie classification organisations such as the MPAA and the British
Board of Film Certification to judge whether the content of a film should be
cut or altered. In most cases these groups will be politically independent,
but may be politically appointed. They will make the decision to cut content
based partly on the criteria described above. A movie will only be censored
if it contains shocking or offensive images used in a way that suggests that
violence is glamorous, entertaining or without consequences.
There is a broad
consensus in western liberal democracies on what constitutes a highly
shocking or offensive image. For example, in even the most permissive
societies, open and public images of sexual intercourse would be considered
problematic. Similarly, graphic depictions of violence against vulnerable
individuals would be open to wide condemnation. The thing that unifies each
of these categories of image is that they can be easily understood and
interpreted by the majority of people. Even a casual observer can understand
that pornography is pornography. This is part of the reason why some states
try to control extreme images – because they are both powerful and emotive,
and easy to produce, display and distribute.
However, music and
lyrics are different from images. Language contains a degree of abstraction,
depth and nuance that only the most unconventional (and non-commercial) film
could replicate. This is problematic, because it is much harder for censors
and members of the general public to agree on an exact definition of an
offensive statement or form of words. Complex legal processes are used to
determine whether or not offensive statements are sufficiently offensive to
be classed as hate crimes. Even more complex are the legal procedures used to
determine when an individual’s reputation has been damaged by allegations
published in books or periodicals. It will be much harder for ratings or
certification boards to decide when a particular song is violent or offensive
due to the range of meanings and ambiguities that are built into language.
For example, the verse
“Got a temper nigga,
go ahead, lose your head/ turn your back on me, get clapped and lose your
legs/ I walk around gun on my waist, chip on my shoulder/ ‘til I bust a clip
in your face, pussy, this beef ain’t over,”
can either be seen
as a series of boastful threats, delivered directly by the musician, but it
could also be reported speech – a lot of hip hop music is based on narratives
or performer’s accounts of past events. It could also be intended to invite
condemnation of the behaviour of the character that the speaker has assumed.
Hip hop artists frequently use alternative personas and “casts” of characters
to add depth to the narrative dimension of their tracks. Under these
circumstances, the process of classifying and censoring potentially violent
lyrics is likely to become laborious. More important than the expense that
this process will entail is the possibility that the chilling effect of a
prolonged classification process will cause music publishers to stop
promoting hip hop, metal and other genres linked with violent imagery. Lack
of funds will curtail innovation and diversity in these genres.
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Defending hip hop artists’ right to free speech. The intervention of the state is necessary in order to
ensure that aggressive forms of hip hop remain accessible only to adults,
especially in neighbourhoods and home environments that are not part of a
cohesive, caring community. Some degree of public control over the content of
hip hop will also help to preserve the diversity, accessibility of the genre
in the face of commercial dominance by violent forms of rap.
Mainstream success in hip hop has become synonymous
with gangsta rap, and with artists who have backgrounds that lend veracity to
their lurid verses. However, many of these supposedly “authentic” experiences
consist of little more than exaggeration and invented personas. When being
interviewed about the controversial content of her son’s single “Fuck tha’
police”, the mother of rapper Ice Cube commented that “I don’t see [him]
saying those curse words. I see him like an actor.”
The existence of pornography attests to the market for
forms of media that fulfil base and simplistic human fantasies. Much the same
can be said for the violent and cynical content of rap singles. Unlike the
relationship between cinema and pornography, however, many commentators
appear to regard gangsta rap as being synonymous with hip hop – a position as
deceptive as a film critic claiming that all movies are inevitably tied to
pornography.
The significant public profile and poor regulation of
hip hop have meant that gangsta rap fans have become the genre’s dominant
class of consumer. The amount of money that fans are willing to spend on
singles, albums, concert tickets and associated branded goods means that
labels that cultivate relationships with gangsta rappers have become the
gatekeepers of the hip hop genre in general. “Conscious” rappers, who do not
glorify violence, along with musicians working in other hip hop genres must
work with labels that promote acts containing violent lyrics in order to
publish their own music.
Either consciously, or by design, the terrain of
contemporary hip hop is hostile to musicians who are not prepared to discuss
“guns, bitches and bling” in their work. This constitutes a significant
barrier to rappers ability to communicate novel messages and listeners’
ability to receive them. It could be called a market failure – the pervasive
public presence of gangsta rap has effectively denied an audience to other
rappers.
Classification has the potential to maximise the
freedom and effectiveness of musical expression by hip hop artists who choose
not to trade in brutality and misogyny.
The alternative is to allow hip hop to continue to be
dominated by businesses such as Death Row Records, Low Life Records and
Machete Music. This will lead to hip
hop as a medium becoming inextricably linked with violent lyrics and the
dubious businesses practices of gangsta labels’ bosses. Popular disengagement
is much more likely under these circumstances, and will actively deny a
voice, and opportunities, to musicians with a different perspective on hip
hop.
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Banning one type of
hip hop is not an effective way to intervene in a market that is in danger of
dismantling itself.
Governments are not
record companies. They are not in a position to make nuanced judgements about
the content, meaning and themes of singles and albums. In short, the state
cannot be relied on to understand when a musician has produced a work of
violent fantasy, or a piece of social commentary with broad appeal.
The state can
perform a positive correction for inequalities and failures in the hip hop
market by subsidising niche or experimental performers, in the same way that
is provides financial support to opera, theatre and the fine arts.
The policy that proposition side seem to be advocating,
however, would only do further harm the reputation of hip hop. Once
officially censured by the state- which is still seen as a significant moral
authority- it is likely that the public profile and popularity of hip hop
will be further damaged. The ambivalent position of hip hop in popular
culture, as both a commercially successful medium and the subject of wide
scale condemnation, is a significant opportunity for the medium, rather than
a spectre of its imminent demise. However, larger record companies will be more
likely to disengage from hip hop culture if they believe that their
businesses affairs might be compromised by intrusive government legislation.
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Hip hop is a diverse genre. The quote that opened this
discussion is taken from a song by the English surrealist rapper Scroobius
Pip. His albums cover themes entirely different from those found in “gangsta”
rap. Similarly, artists such as MIA, Optimus Rhyme and the Wilcania Mob have
used hip hop to discuss the conflict in Sri Lanka, computer games and life as
a member of the aboriginal community in Australia. Each of these artists
share a single common link. They all cater to a relatively niche market and
have encountered little in the way of mainstream success.
Rappers who write lyrics about cynicism and aggression-
from Slim Shady to JayZ- have recorded numerous number one tracks and
attracted a wide range of industry accolades. In 2006 the founder of Death
Row records, a major gangsta rap label, was found to have assets valued at $7
million. It is clear that rap discussing crime and violence is the dominant
genre within hip hop. It is clear that there is a significant popular and
public appetite for rap of this type.
As the comment opposite notes, there will always be a
need for classification boards, as gratuitous or pornographic content will
always form a significant part of the media landscape. Moreover, despite
efforts to control access to such content, pornography and wilfully violent
movies continue to make money. Hip hop appeals to a similar market – individuals
seeking to indulge violent fantasies via the safe, sanitised environment of
their iPod’s headphones, as discussed above.
There are no nuances of context and meaning to discuss
in gangsta rap, only potentially damaging content that, at best, should be
regulated and monitored.
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Violent imagery can
serve different purposes. Calls for a ban on
music that references or glorifies violence are frequently based on an overly
simplistic understanding of contemporary and popular musical genres. It is
instructive that the loudest voices of protest raised against violent content
in hip hop and rock music are, overwhelmingly, white, middle class,
middle-aged newspaper columnists. Any ban created under these circumstances
would reduce the diversity and depth of popular musical genres, by preventing
musicians from commenting- in any way- on violent events.
Banning particular
musical tracks due only to the fact that they discuss violent acts would be
damaging to the creative industries and would not reflect methods currently
used to classify and restrict content appearing in other media. Criminal acts
are punished when an act results in a damaging outcome and because that act
is performed with a particular dishonest or malicious intention. Generally,
someone cannot be found guilty of murder if they did not intend to kill their
victim. Similarly, it is unusual for films or videogames to be censored or
banned because they happen to depict violent acts. The intention that
underlies the use of graphic images or words must also be examined. As BBC
director general Mark Thompson noted when discussing the controversial
religious content of Jerry Springer: The Opera with freespeechdebate.com
“… Jerry Springer I
saw without feeling that it was offensive to me because the intention of the
piece was so clearly a satire about an American talk show host and his world
rather than the religious figures as such.”
Classification
boards will look at the context in which an offensive act is shown. The
violence of war is portrayed vividly in Saving Private Ryan, but the film has
not been banned on this basis. Private Ryan portrays violence and suffering
in order to remind us of the inhumanity that pervaded the Second World War.
It uses violence to make a didactic point, to move its audience to sympathy
and disgust. If a film were to use images of extreme violence or suffering as
a form of entertainment, inviting the audience to take pleasure in brutality,
a classification board would try to restrict or censor its content.
Comparably, “violent”
music can use brutal language and themes to make moving and engaging
observations about the world. Violent music does not automatically glorify
violence, nor does it cause its audience to see violence as something that is
glamorous.
Listened to out of context, without any attempt to
critically analyse the imagery of the song and the intentions of the artists,
it is easy to condemn many acclaimed examples of popular music as containing
violent lyrics. By giving into the populist pressure that is represented and
generated by newspaper columnists and talk show hosts, we risk creating a
chilling effect, not only on mainstream hip hop culture, but on any other
musical form that dares to discuss themes that fall outside narrowly and
arbitrarily defined limits of social acceptability.
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Modern policy making does not rely on the force of law
to bring about social change. This is an archaic approach to addressing the
harms and deficiencies that might appear in communities.
We can reasonably assume that any ban on violent lyrics
will be linked to wider reaching education and information campaigns that
attempt to address misogynist attitudes and violent crime. Concerns expressed
above that other hip hop genres, and musical innovation in general, might
suffer could be adequately countered by offering subsidies and support to
non-confrontational forms of hip hop. In this way legal regulation and policy
interventions could help the music industry to address the more pernicious
aspects of hip hop, while promoting its more innovative side. This reflects
the state’s role in promoting and safeguarding free speech, by giving those
who do not have access to public forums the means to have their voice heard,
while ensuring that the principle of free speech is not abused or used to
limit the liberal freedoms of others.
These contentions adequately address the problems that
the opposition side links to the distribution of illegal and unregulated
content via the internet. The implication that a ban on music containing
violent lyric might increase piracy is irrelevant – states will still act to
address all forms of piracy, and measures taken against the violation of
copyright online will be just as effective against prohibited content.
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A ban will be
ineffective. A new legal
prohibition on any type of behaviour or conduct can only be set up by
investing large amounts of political capital in order to transform vague
proposals into a legislative document and then into a fully-fledged law. This
expense can only be justified if the ban is effective – if it is seen as a
legitimate use of a state’s power; is enforceable; and if it brings about
some form of beneficial social change. The change being sought in this
instance is a reduction in the violence, criminality and social disaffection
that some people associate with hip hop music and its fans.
Laws do not create
changes in behaviour simply because they are laws. It is unlikely that the
consumers of hip hop will refrain from listening to it. The ease with which
music can be distributed and performed means that any ban on violent songs
will, inevitably, be ineffective. File sharing networks and cross border
online stores such as eBay and Silk Road already enable people to obtain
media and controlled goods with little more than a credit card and a
forwarding address. The total value of all of the music illegally pirated
during 2007 is estimated to be $12.5 billion. The same network of file
sharing systems and data repositories would be used to distribute banned
music if proposition’s policies became law.
Current urban music
genres are already defined and supported by grassroots musicians who
specialise in assembling tracks using minimal resources before sharing them
among friends or broadcasting them on short-range pirate radio stations. Just
as the internet contains a resilient, ready-made distribution network for
music, urban communities contain large numbers of ambitious, talented amateur
artists who will step into fill the void created by large record company’s
withdrawal from controversial or prohibited genres.
Although a formal
ban on the distribution of music has yet to happen within a western liberal
democracy, similar laws have been created to restrict access to violent
videogames. Following widespread reports of the damaging effects that exposure
to violent videogames might have on children, Australia banned outright the
publication of a succession of violent and action-oriented titles. However,
in several instances, implementation of this ban led only to increased piracy
of prohibited games through file sharing networks and attempts by publishing
companies to circumvent the ban using websites based in jurisdictions outside
Australia. Similar behaviour is likely to result in other liberal democracies
following any ban on music with violent lyrics.
If banned,
controversial music will move from the managed, regulated space occupied by
record companies and distributors- where business entities and artists’
agents can engage in structured, transparent debate with classification
bodies- to the partly hidden and unregulated space of the internet. As a
consequence it will be much more difficult to detect genuinely dangerous
material, and much harder for artists who do not trade in violent clichés to
win fans and recognition.
As discussed in principle 10, effective control and
classification of controversial material can only be achieved if it is
discussed with a high specificity and a nuanced understanding of the shared
standards that it might offend. This would not be possible under a policy
that effectively surrenders control of the content of music to the internet.
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This argument makes a claim of bias against academics
and commentators who portray the audiences that hip hop music is targeted at
as vulnerable. Unfortunately, this is a viewpoint that is closer to the truth
than the aspirational narrative provided in the opposition side’s case.
Hip hop emerged from environments that were extremely
poor and that had been pushed to the margins of society. This situation has
persisted until well into this century. The cyclical effects of racism and
discrimination continue to be felt in minority communities. Although
anti-discrimination laws now protect access to employment and government
services, inequalities in cultural capital and high-impact policing have led
to the exclusion of large numbers of young men from the social economic
opportunities that are made available to middle class society. Under these
circumstances, it is entirely appropriate to describe the adolescent
inhabitants of impoverished urban communities as vulnerable.
Poverty- either financial or of opportunity- breeds
desperation. An individual placed in a situation of urgent need will not have
the ability to reason clearly. This is especially true of young people
undergoing the difficult transition to adulthood. Adolescence is
characterised by a desire to test the boundaries of social norms and parental
authority. Therefore, expression that legitimatises and encourages ever more
dangerous forms of rebellion should be kept out of the hands of young people.
They are unusually susceptible to the behavioural distortions that side
opposition goes out of its way to deny.
We limit the content of the media that children and
young people can consume all the time, recognising that the process of education
and socialisation changes the individual’s relationship to wider society and
their ability to which forms of behaviour will best help them to live freely
and happily.
Children and teenagers are more impressionable than
adults. Similarly, the rate at which individuals mature and develop can vary
wildly. We recognise that, for example, exposure to pornography or violent
cinema could have serious behaviour consequences for young children.
Objections to the restricted availability of pornography are nonsensical,
given that they do a great deal to protect children, and present only a minor
inconvenience to an adult’s attempts to access such material.
Although we do not place onerous restrictions on the
ability of adults to access media of this type, we can be strict in
regulating children’s access. This does not constitute a permanent form of
censorship, but instead fulfils the broad remit that the state is granted to
protect its citizens. Moreover, classification of expression that is geared
toward protecting the vulnerable also aids in protecting the primacy and
utility of free speech itself. Free expression- as has been restated
throughout this exchange- can harm as easily as it liberates. In some
instances, the state must temporarily restrict the access of certain classes
of people to certain forms of free expression, in order to ensure that free,
frank and controversial discussion and expression can take place in society
in general.
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A ban will further
marginalise young members of impoverished communities. Hip hop is an extremely diverse musical genre.
Surprisingly, this diversity has evolved from highly minimal series of
musical principles. At its most basic, raping consists of nothing more than
rhyming verses that are delivered to a beat. This simplicity reflects the
economically marginalised communities that hip hop emerged from. All that
anyone requires in order to learn how to rap, or to participate in hip hop
culture, is a pen, some paper and possibly a disc of breaks – the looped drum
and bass lines that are used to time rap verses. Thanks to its highly social
aspect, hip hop continues to function as an accessible form of creative
expression for members of some of impoverished communities in both the west
and elsewhere in the world.
Point 7 suggests that
free speech flourishes when we respect believers but are not forced to
respect their beliefs. Free Speech Debate discusses this principle in the
light of religious belief and religious expression. However, it is also
relevant when we consider how our appraisal of an individual’s background,
culture and values affects our willingness to accept or dismiss what she
says.
The positive case
for banning- or at least condemning- hip hop often rests on its ability to
reinforce the negative stereotypes of impoverished and marginalised
communities that are propagated by majority communities. Critics of hip hop
note that black men have often been stigmatised as violent, uncivilised and
predatory. They claim that many hip hop artists cultivate a purposefully
brutal and misogynist persona. The popularity of hip hop reflects the
acceptance of this stereotype, and further entrenches discrimination against
young black men. This line of thinking portrays hip hop artists as betrayers
or exploiters of their communities, reinforcing damaging stereotypes and
convincing adolescents that a violent rejection of mainstream society is a
way to achieve material success.
Arguments of this
type fail to recognise the depth of nuance and meaning that words and
word-play can convey. They are predicated on an assumption that the consumers
of hip hop engage with it in a simplistic and uncritical way. In short, such
arguments see hip hop fans as being simple minded and easily influenced. This
perspective neglects the “recognition respect”, the recognition of equality
and inherent dignity that is owed to all contributors of a debate. Moreover,
it also bars us from properly assessing the “appraisal respect” owed to the
content of hip hop and other controversial musical genres. When hip hop is seen
as being inherently harmful, and as being targeted at an especially
impressionable and vulnerable part of society, we both demean members of that
group and prevent robust discussion of rap lyrics themselves. Academics such
as John McWhorter see only the advocacy of violence and nihilism in lyrics
such as
“You grow in the
ghetto, living second rate/ and your eyes will sing a song of deep hate”.
But these are words
that can also be interpreted as astute observation on the brutality that is
bred by social exclusion. In point of fact, there is little in the previous
verse, or those that follow it,
“You’ll admire all the numberbook takers/ thugs, pimps and pushers, and
the big money makers”, that could be interpreted as permitting, popularising
or endorsing violence. That is, unless the individual reading the verse had
already concluded that its intended audience lacked his own critical
perspective and understanding of social norms and values.
Even if an observer
were ultimately conclude that a particular hip hop track had no redeeming
value, a broad interpretation of point 7 suggests that he should, at the very
least, credit its artists and listeners with a modicum of intelligence and
reflectiveness. When we approach music with a custodial mind-set, determined to
protect young listeners from what we see as harm or exploitation, we prevent
those individuals from access a form of speech that may be the only
affordable method of expression open to them.
Just as we allow individuals the right to be heard in a
language of their choosing (see point 1), we should also accept that
perspectives from marginalised communities may not appear in a conventional
form. Under these circumstances, it would be dangerous for us to curtail and
marginalise a form of speech geared toward discussing the problems faced by
impoverished young people that has, against the odds, penetrated the
mainstream. We are likely to deepen existing prejudices by viewing rappers
and their fans as infantile, impressionable and in need of protection.
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