'No more hip hop cursing'
2007-04-25 09:17
New York - Prominent US hip-hop
executive Russell Simmons on Monday recommended eliminating the
words "bitch," "ho" and "nigger" from the recording industry,
considering them "extreme curse words."
The call comes less than two weeks after radio personality
Don Imus's nationally syndicated and televised radio show was
cancelled amid public outcry over Imus calling a women's
basketball team "nappy-headed hos."
Simmons, co-founder of the Def Jam label and a driving
force behind hip-hop's huge commercial success, called for
voluntary restrictions on the words and setting up an industry
watchdog to recommend guidelines for lyrical and visual
standards.
"We recommend that the recording and broadcast industries
voluntarily remove/bleep/delete the misogynistic words 'bitch'
and 'ho' and the racially offensive word 'nigger'," Simmons and
Benjamin Chavis, co-chairmen of the advocacy group Hip-Hop
Summit Action Network, said in a statement.
"These three words should be considered with the same
objections to obscenity as 'extreme curse words'," it said.
Ho is slang for whore and commonly used in hip-hop music
while nigger, a derogatory term for blacks, is among the most
highly charged insults in American culture. The slur "nappy,"
used by Imus, describes the tightly curled hair of many African
Americans.
Changing stance
Monday's statement changed course from another one by
Simmons and Chavis dated April 13, a day after Imus's show was
cancelked, in which they said offensive references in hip-hop
"may be uncomfortable for some to hear, but our job is not to
silence or censor that expression."
The Imus controversy stoked a debate in the United States
about how to deal with inflammatory words that are widely
considered highly offensive but at the same time commonly and
casually used in youth culture.
US black leaders such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson
have led the charge to suppress offensive words while many
artists have argued for freedom of expression.
New York City
declared a symbolic moratorium on the so-called N-word in
February.
'It's not about censorship'
"Our internal discussions with industry leaders are not
about censorship.
"Our discussions are about the corporate
social responsibility of the industry to voluntarily show
respect to African Americans and other people of colour, African
American women and to all women in lyrics and images," the
statement from Simmons and Chavis said on Monday.
The network recommended the formation of a Coalition on
Broadcast Standards that would consist of leading executives
from music, radio and television.