Execs sound a call to clean up hip-hop by Russell Simmons

[theprofessional]

Hip-hop leaders yesterday called on the music industry and broadcast outlets to voluntarily follow a new, tougher standard for language in the wake of the controversy about rappers' use of lyrics demeaning to women that followed former talk show host Don Imus' racist and sexist insults to the Rutgers women's basketball team.

Under the new guidelines, announced by the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, the words "bitch" and "ho" would no longer be broadcast on radio or TV, and would also be removed from the "clean" versions of CDs, along with the N-word. A coalition on broadcast standards is also planned to create guidelines for visual content.

"Our internal discussions with industry leaders are not about censorship," Hip-Hop Summit Action Network co-founders Russell Simmons and Benjamin Chavis said in a statement yesterday. "Our discussions are about the corporate social responsibility of the industry to voluntarily show respect to African-Americans and other people of color, African-American women and to all women in lyrics and images. "

The guidelines were developed after a closed-door meeting with music industry and broadcast executives and community leaders held at Warner Music Group Chief Executive Lyor Cohen's Manhattan home last week. Chavis said last night that the industry reaction to the guidelines was mixed yesterday - some executives supporting the effort, some opposing it and others looking to study it further. Each company will decide individually how, or if, it will comply with the recommendations.

"We understand they have First Amendment issues to wrestle with," Chavis said. "We believe in freedom of speech. But we also believe that with freedom comes responsibility. "

The recording industry already makes "clean" versions of many hip-hop CDs available, removing expletives from the songs. However, there is no industry standard and, in many cases, the words in question are left on the CD, as they are on many radio stations and television networks. The network said they should be removed because they are "utterly derogatory and disrespectful of the painful, hurtful, misogyny that, in particular, African-American women have experienced in the United States. "

The group also plans to hold forums with hip-hop artists and fans to promote a broader understanding of the issue. "Misogyny is a societal problem," Chavis said. "It's not an artists' problem or a hip-hop problem. "

The approach they propose is similar to one that hip-hop station Power 105 (WWPR/105.1 FM) launched last week, as it sought to curb material that could be seen as offensive or demeaning to women. "I don't know what will happen," said program director Helen Little. "We could see a decline in listeners because we play less offensive music. That is a possibility. ... But we wanted to take a proactive stance."