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[rock music plays]
[chairman] As chairman, a-- a brief statement, if I may.
More than 2300 years ago,
Plato recognized that music is a powerful force
in our lives.
That music forms character,
and therefore plays an important part
in determining social and political issues.
In Plato's words, "When modes of music change,
the fundamental laws of the state change with them."
Our culture powerfully affects individual character.
When we're constantly confronted
by that which is coarse,
we become coarsened.
Repeated exposure to song lyrics describing rape,
incest, sexual violence and perversion
is like sandpaper to the soul.
It rubs raw one's sensibilities,
resulting in a state of emotional numbness.
One becomes literally demoralized.
And it demands a response from each of us.
Not as self-appointed guardians of the national morality,
as some would suggest,
but as concerned citizens and leaders
of a great and lasting republic
that does not constitute censorship.
♪
[gentle harp music]
[Kat] Music is one of the most essential pieces
of human existence
and an art form that crosses all borders.
It has the power to lift your spirits,
to evoke a sense of community,
and to inspire creation and free thought.
In contrast, music can also be divisive,
derogatory, or downright offensive.
Over the last century,
music has become a multi-billion-dollar industry.
And with big business comes
corporate and political intervention.
With new platforms and avenues for artists to reach listeners,
the discussion of values and art is ever-evolving
and often a sign of the times.
Music censorship is any act
that implicitly or explicitly...
suppresses music,
um, that goes against the wishes of its creator
or its audience.
Based on the history of censorship
and the way in which it's been enacted,
it seems that censorship is a--
is making a political statement that says,
"This thing that we want to censor
and remove from the public,
it fundamentally does not belong in our culture
or our society."
Throughout the history of not just popular music
or recorded music, or even sheet music,
music has always been
an incredibly effective way
to connect to people.
You can have an idea,
you can express something to someone, uh, through music
that is heard by millions of people,
sometimes billions of people,
and can mean an awful lot to them,
and is probably one of the most ubiquitous,
if not the most ubiquitous form of art.
Almost everyone listens to music in some way, shape, or form.
And the reason popular music become such a target
is because it is so popular with young people.
It's always seems like it's about morality
and Christianity has sort of hijacked
what constitutes morality.
And so it's often backed
by religious institutions, religious groups.
And I believe with all of my heart
that it is a contributing factor
to our juvenile delinquency of today.
And why I believe that is because I know how it feels
when you sing it.
I know what it does to you.
And I-- I know, uh, the evil feeling
that you feel when you sing it.
But retailers have power to also censor
based on what they offer to sell.
Um, people who are in charge of radio programs
cannot play certain records,
so it's kind of all over the place,
but it depends on power.
Who has the power to make this decision
and implement it?
[blows raspberry] What is censorship?
It's a bummer is what it is, really. [laughs]
I think censorship, if you wanna just look at in general terms,
would be a limiting of...
specific kinds of speech or expression,
really, of any kind.
I don't know, what would it be?
It'd be like a moral barrier
that you're not allowed to cross, really.
This is who we are as Americans. We're puritanical.
We're fighting against ourselves at all times.
Um, and so that's what-- that's--
that's, I think, the core of all of this.
But that's part of art.
The thing about censorship,
and the thing about music containing
raunchy things is-- is not a new thing.
It's not a 21st century thing. It's not a 20th century thing.
This goes back to the beginning of music.
Uh, if you look at what Mozart did,
of course, we know all the great symphonies
and the operas and--
But if you look into his full catalog,
you'll see that he...
he wrote a lot of songs about farting and shit.
He really did.
And that-- that freaked out an awful lot of people.
If we fast forward, you know, there's--
there's all kinds of folk songs that have all kinds of, uh,
you know, innuendo and double meanings in them.
And then if you get to the blues, uh,
you really hear some pretty raw stuff.
And this became part of the foundation
for what rock and roll was.
♪ I got nipples on my titties ♪
♪ Big as the end of my thumb ♪
♪ I got something between my legs'll make ♪
♪ A dead man come, oh... ♪
♪ You make a dead man cum ♪
♪ But I really get her goin' ♪
♪ When I take out my big ten inch record ♪
♪ Of the band that plays the blues ♪
♪ Liquor just make her flinch ♪
♪ Seems she don't go for nothing ♪
♪ 'Cept for my big ten inch record... ♪
Starting a documentary about censorship
at the, you know, turn of the 20th century,
it makes sense because that is the moment
when we actually have a music industry.
When music is actually being made available
to the masses.
And I think that motivates the--
the decisions to censor things,
because there's a real concern
about mass communication, um,
and being able to have influence over the masses
through culture.
Then you have the 1927 Radio Act.
And so that's the kind of first time where it's like,
"Oh, we can take some more formal...
politically influenced, government influenced steps
to say, 'Okay,
no more obscene music on the radio station, okay?
Or you can get fined for this.'"
Until the Radio Act there--
there really wasn't a-- a government--
official government way
that they could regulate the music.
So, I-- The fact that that was a beginning
of acts and regulations,
and it ended up with the FCC by the 1930s,
that-- that had stipulations
about what would be bad for the community.
And for a lot of people,
obscenity was directly associated
with Black dance music.
Um, so it was a way of saying,
"Okay, we need to figure out a way to control this.
'Cause it's un-- it's uncontrolled."
So, I think that the kind of emergence of censorship
really comes in the 1910s
and really kind of starts to coalesce in the 1920s,
They were at the peak
of whatever media was at the time.
And Black music was only heard on a AM radio station
amongst Black people.
Uh, it didn't permeate, uh, mainstream easily.
Uh, a lot of it was already locked
into being just a-- a local cultural thing,
but it didn't spread across the world
through mainstream channels.
It was the sound and the lyrics
and the-- and who was singing it.
If the-- if Black artists were singing it,
oh, that was much more taboo
than if a white artist did a cover of it.
People are using their lyrics, they're using their platform
to bring attention to something, you know?
But that-- I think that that is also a very, very old
and longstanding job of artists in general,
is to use their art to-- to bring, you know,
to-- to-- to say something that they think is important.
I mean, Billie Holiday singing
"Strange Fruit"
and then trying to get that recorded
became a tremendous issue.
Because "Strange Fruit" was about lynching,
and-- and it was a--
Like a taboo thing to talk about,
even though it was happening.
♪ Blood on the leaves ♪
♪ And blood at the root ♪
♪ Black bodies swingin' ♪
♪ In the Southern breeze ♪
♪ Strange fruit hangin' ♪
♪ From the poplar trees ♪
[Kat] Billie Holiday's label, Columbia Records,
refused to record the song.
Holiday went around her contract to independent label, Commodore,
who put out the record.
"Strange Fruit" was widely banned from radio
when released in 1939,
but remains one of Billie Holiday's
most notable works.
I'd say most of the time when you wanna ban something
it's because, you know,
it's-- it's hidden close to truths
that you don't wanna acknowledge.
Um, it just might show that--
that the-- the idea
of what people say is the American dream
is based on-- on false knowledge,
you know, and it's not true for everyone.
So, I think, for me, "Strange Fruit"
and the banning of it, and Billie Holiday's struggle
and fight for that song show--
show the-- the power of it and--
and the responsibility that artists can have
if they accept it.
So, lots of censorship connected,
I think, with racism.
And so, with jazz,
especially in the 1920s,
you start having people fearful
of what this music was gonna do to society.
I think about jazz
as this kind of real paradigm shift
in terms of the music
and broader entertainment industry,
because it was the first time
that we had a clear music genre
that was being sold at an unprecedented rate.
And by the mid-'20s, it's just--
It's dominating the airwaves, it's dominating records.
And that's kind of unprecedented
because you had more of a variety of styles
prior to that time.
Jazz really takes over.
And, you know, it defines an age.
Um, and so I think
that really motivated a lot of fear
about this one thing
having so much cultural power
and influence over the masses.
[Rhiannon] It does shape the music.
How things are suppressed and what things are suppressed
then shapes the next generation
of content creators, of-- of music makers.
So-- That's just the way--
that's just always the way it is.
And it can create new genres that are amazing.
It can create songs that are classic.
It can also create a lot of,
um, it can disappear a lot of people, you know?
And shut down a lot of avenues of music
for certain kind of groups, so...
[Kat] While America began to adopt and co-op jazz
and the blues into the mainstream,
two major shifts in popular culture
were happening at the same time.
Television and rock and roll.
[Nuzum] Television and music have always had
an incredibly problematic history together.
Nail down the roof, gang,
because here's a new act that can blow it right off.
Popular music in the 1950s,
it really was the first time that teens had a music,
popular music that was separate from adult popular music.
Beforehand, that really--
That distinction really didn't exist.
Music was popular or not popular.
And-- and a lot of the battle lines in music
formed during that time,
during the early era of television.
[Wes] I think, uh, the youth
always wanna do something different.
They always wanna rebel against the status quo.
They wanna do something against the mainstream.
They wanna do something that's gonna shock
and repulse their parents.
And, uh, you know,
and I think that's just throughout history,
that's been the way it is.
I mean, that's the whole point of it.
You have to remember in the 1950s,
it was a very conservative time.
The Eisenhower era, uh, you know,
it was, uh, Leave It to Beaver time.
So, people were used to watching entertainers
like Bing Crosby or Perry Como.
Along comes Elvis Presley,
and this guy gyrated, he shook his hips on television.
Moms and dads were outraged that their sons or daughters
would see this.
Television events were literally events.
The nights that Ed Sullivan had Elvis Presley on,
it had an 80 share.
That means that 80% of the televisions that were on
were watching Ed Sullivan.
80%.
You know, the Super Bowl today
is lucky to get a quarter of that.
And now, ladies and gentlemen...
yes, that's right, Elvis Presley!
[audience cheers]
[Kat] In 1956, Elvis signed the contract
to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show
three times over the course of only a few months.
By his third appearance in January of 1957,
the show filmed Elvis above the waist only
due to pressure from conservative groups.
♪ Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit ♪
♪ You ain't no...♪
Well, censorship has always been an-- an issue
for artists who were trying to push the boundaries of music,
which was sort of the point of rock and roll.
And they were a very mainstream...
show at a-- at a-- at a time
when rock was just starting
to break into some new territory.
Now, Elvis wasn't the only entertainer
that kinda got censored on The Ed Sullivan Show.
The Stones buckled under.
They changed the words,
"spend the night together"
to "let's spend some time together."
Sullivan asked them to make that, and they did it.
And they-- they were on Sullivan four or five times.
♪ Let's spend some time together ♪
♪ Now I need you more than ever ♪
[Bill] Jim Morrison and The Doors,
uh, they didn't want any drug influence,
but Morrison just went ahead and sang it
the way he wrote it.
♪ ...to you ♪
♪ Girl, we couldn't get much higher ♪
[Kat] The Doors were subsequently banned
from The Ed Sullivan Show.
Bob Dylan was instructed by Sullivan producers
to swap out another song in place of his protest song,
"Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues."
He refused the request and walked out.
[man] Did they censor you from singing what you wanted to
-on The Ed Sullivan Show? -Yes.
It-- it's more to it than just censorship there.
He said, "Can't you sing some folk song
like, uh, like The Clancy Brothers do?"
And-- and I didn't know any of their songs,
and so I couldn't be on the program.
That's what it came down to.
[Kat] Following the walkout,
Dylan was banned from the show,
and CBS-owned Columbia Records insisted
that the track be removed
from his upcoming Freewheelin' album.
The '60s progressed,
and platforms like The Ed Sullivan Show
became less important
as a flood of new ideas and art crept
into the American mainstream.
Free thinking expanded,
and major artists became open to new ideas
about sexuality,
politics, and religion.
And, you know, the most important thing,
all this brotherhood jazz
we've been talking about in church, all of a sudden...
-[man] It's here. -...you know, it's here.
It's like now.
-[man] Yeah. [indistinct]. -That's it.
[overlapping chatter]
Uh, I grew up at a time
where rock and roll genuinely was a soundtrack
of a social revolution.
You know, I think jazz cracked it.
You know, blues and jazz, like,
they went in with the machetes first
and started cracking the-- the impenetrable,
you know, forest of-- of convention.
And then rock and roll people
came fucking running through,
and it changed the world for real.
All music is coming out of a certain moment
in cultural time.
Um, and sometimes I think it's more overt
and sometimes it's hidden, but I don't--
I don't think there's ever music that's created
that doesn't have some sort of message
that we're getting from it.
Even if it's, you know,
could be by the book or by the numbers,
sort of super commercial music
that's still telling us something about, you know,
our-- our culture.
When I look back
and-- on how much more vividly I experienced
all the cool stuff about the '60s,
the uprisings, and all the new ways
of thinking about things
and how we could do things better,
I'm just so glad I was that aware
and connected it even then with the music.
And LSD enters a picture.
Music just exploded with ideas,
art and fashion, just with--
There was so much more there.
And we've never looked back.
And, of course, the envelopes keep getting pushed
and keep getting pushed.
I remember when Sgt. Pepper came out
and the BBC banned--
they wouldn't play "A Day in the Life of Sgt. Pepper,"
because in the song Paul says,
"I got on the bus and went upstairs
and had a smoke and fell into a dream."
And the BBC said, "Ah,
that must be because he's been smoking drugs."
And now I look back, you know, 50 years later
you think, "Gosh, really?
Did they-- Did the BBC really ban that?"
It wasn't status quo
and rock and roll has to be that,
or else it becomes just pop music.
But rock and roll in specific
needs to be irreverent
and as a result, dangerous,
because it makes people feel uncomfortable.
But in order to have
change and justice,
we have to feel uncomfortable.
We have to go through that window.
I think that-- I think of music as central to protest.
But I think protest is central to life,
and music is part of life,
and it's all sort of connected to one--
It's all one thing.
I think of music as something that people gather around.
That's the way you can connect with it.
So, music for me is very much protest-oriented
in-- in-- in the sense that it gives you a sense
of who else is in the room.
There is a connection there through the lyrics.
It's the shared feelings, shared ideas,
things like that, that draw you to it.
Especially when you're younger, like, that's a way to like,
find your people and like, identify, like, who you--
who you, like, get along with or--
or have these shared interests with.
You have to understand that in the 1960s,
we, of course, didn't have the internet,
we didn't have social media,
we didn't have ways for young people
to easily communicate with each other
across long distances.
What we did have though were songs
where a message could be disseminated
to a very large number of people very, very quickly.
The Vietnam War was extraordinarily unpopular.
And a lot of the sentiment
that young people felt
was transmitted and reinforced
by anti-war songs of the 1960s.
[Joe] Remember, it was peace and love.
And peace and love while, uh, seeming kind of vague,
uh, is radical.
At that particular time,
music that was coming outta the '60s and '70s,
whether it be Nina Simone, Archie Shepp,
everybody had a song where they had something to say.
Uh, they always made sure
that there was a message in the music.
♪ Don't tell me, I'll tell you ♪
♪ Me and my people just about due ♪
♪ I've been there, so, I know ♪
♪ They keep on saying, "Go slow" ♪
♪ That's what they say, "Go slow" ♪
Public Enemy and rap music and hip-hop came in the '80s.
So, we had a great blueprint to follow,
and thus, uh, helped me kinda create
the turn of being a raptivist using, uh, rap music
to be the best activist I could as a grown person.
♪ I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound? ♪
♪ Everybody, look, what's going down ♪
♪ Damn, was it something I said? ♪
♪ Pretend you don't see so you turn your head ♪
♪ Ray scared of his shadow, does it matter? ♪
♪ Thought of reperations got 'em playin' ♪
♪ With the population ♪
The culture was moving so rapidly,
evolving so quickly, um,
and music was one of the things that was driving it.
So, if you turn on the radio, you had a good chance of hearing
what was happening to people just like you.
These songs, and there are, you know, hundreds of them...
uh, explained what was going on,
why it was bad,
how it affected you,
and what you could do about it.
Kick out the jams motherfucker!
♪ War, huh, good God y'all ♪
♪ What is it good for? ♪
♪ Absolutely nothing ♪
I saw Woodstock when I was probably
ten or 11 years old, the movie.
And it just-- I-- I-- It was so radical.
I couldn't believe people were doing that.
And I thought-- And it was all music.
You know, it had a profound effect on me.
Like, thinking that's what I thought music was.
And when Hendrix did Star-Spangled Banner,
that was-- I couldn't even imagine
that someone would do that.
And it was so powerful.
Occasionally it broke through.
I mean, I was really lucky
on-- on-- on the [indistinct] here
and "Fixin' to Die Rag" being included
in the Woodstock movie.
And that was only possible
because the people involved in making the Woodstock movie
had come from social political backgrounds as filmmakers.
♪ And it's one, two, three ♪
♪ What're we fighting for? ♪
♪ Don't ask me, I don't give a damn ♪
♪ Next stop is Vietnam ♪
I think what's interesting is that the-- that there was--
there were institutions that were saying
a certain viewpoint about Vietnam War is acceptable,
and a certain viewpoint about the war is not.
There was a song by Barry McGuire
called "Eve of Destruction."
It was banned by radio stations
because radio stations really believe that, like,
"If we play this in some way,
it will like, you know, get in the way of democracy."
♪ I can't twist the truth ♪
♪ It knows no regulation ♪
♪ Handful of senators don't pass legislation ♪
♪ And marches alone can't bring integration ♪
♪ When human respect is disintegratin' ♪
♪ This whole crazy world is just too frustratin' ♪
♪ And you tell me... ♪
[Kat] As the '60s raged on,
artists increasingly spoke out for peace,
change and new ideas
despite pushback from the older generations.
However, by the mid-'70s, the war in Vietnam was over
and the hippie culture had lost its edge.
But the groundwork laid by those artists
created a new wave of diverse
and sometimes controversial musicians.
Are you standing on the verge of gettin' it on tonight, y'all?
Are you standing on the verge of gettin' it on?
♪ Gettin' it on ♪
[Kat] Edgier genres like funk,
glam and punk
began climbing the popular charts.
Again, stirring up concerns
of what ideas were being portrayed
by musicians
and the effect they have on culture.
People generally, before punk rock came around,
didn't even swear in music for Christ's sake.
There was some political stuff, you know, and--
But it was all in the folk music and stuff like that.
This was something completely new.
It was like, uh, putting a voice to the angst
and the anger of youth and all of this stuff.
So, the kids were out looking for shocking stuff
that they could horrify their parents with
and get kicked outta school and everything.
And, yeah, we fit the bill pretty good
when it... [laughs]
[reporter] Ontario police have seized two records,
deeming them obscene.
On the back cover, the rodent has been shot.
The titles have four letter words
we can't show you.
And the songs are full of descriptions
of bodily functions
that many people will find offensive.
I think, uh, just about everything
that happens in our world
and the way that our entire society
seems to feel that, uh,
they-- It's like they have a holier-than-thou attitude,
and they have to parade around the world
showing everybody else the error of their ways.
I don't-- I try not to take sides in my music.
I just portray the stories from a neutral point of view.
[reporter] As for the charges, Dayglo Abortions says
the police did them a favor.
Record sales are expected to climb.
Sometimes people I know who are DJs
wish I didn't, you know,
sing or use the word "fuck" so much
in Minor Threat songs.
But the irony
is that at the time when I was writing the songs,
a lot of times I deliberately seeded the songs
with the word "fuck" because it was a--
it was a, um,
it was a protest against radio.
Like, I didn't wanna go on the radio, fuck the radio.
The radio belonged to the commercial world.
So, um, once I got involved with punk, really,
I turned the radio off, and I was into that.
It completely changed my life.
Um, from there, I'm-- I'd-- I'd never seen,
um, or even it ne-- Had never occurred to me
that going to see a band
could be a dangerous thing,
that you are in danger,
not only from people in the audience,
but possibly from the band themselves.
And that really turned me on.
I don't know, there's just a feeling, there's a frequency,
a-- a rhythm that you connect with.
Um, but there-- there is just something--
there's something dangerous about rock and roll
that-- that draws people into it.
People are trying to express their selves
through that type of music a lot more
than the people who are trying to make commercial pop
or-- or-- or marketable type of music.
They don't care, they're doing it
because they love it.
They wanna make sure that they hear the messages
or hear the type of music they wanna hear out there.
And, uh, I do think it's very important.
It's very important.
The Plasmatics, we're definitely a political band.
We were making a statement,
and, uh, Wendy always used to say
that we're gonna draw a line in the sand
and then we're gonna step over that line.
And we always did.
We always pushed the envelope every chance we had.
And it definitely freaked out the mainstream America.
They weren't used to seeing somebody
who was so at ease with their sexuality
and with their strength and with their power.
And she was doing things
that the male performers were doing,
but she was getting arrested and beat up for it.
[man] You were, uh, arrested in Cleveland
and Milwaukee in 1981.
Police said, you simulated, says here, Wendy,
you simulated a sex act and made obscene motions
during your performance.
These charges were, uh, subsequently dropped.
You didn't even go to trial.
So, it took every penny I made for two years
to fight that.
I mean, and the-- It was a ridiculous trumped-up charge.
It was-- I was brutally, um,
beaten up behind the club.
They, um, police told me
they'd seen me on Fridays the night before,
and they thought I was an incarnate of the devil.
And they were waiting there for me.
And they attacked me and beat me unconscious,
beat other people.
They didn't like me because my band was made up
of [bleep] and [bleep].
-[man] They said that? -[Wendy] That's what they said.
And that's what they were--
that's what I was being hit with a nightstick for.
And it took every penny I made.
In 1984, I was arrested in Amarillo, Texas
for disorderly conduct and abusive language.
Uh, it was a misdemeanor.
But still, to actually have a charge and a court case
in 1980s
for cursing on stage,
uh, seemed insane.
[man] T-minus ten, nine, eight...
[Kat] Summer 1981 brought change
that reinvented the music industry.
MTV rocketed to the peak of popular culture.
Music became a much more visual medium,
and suddenly the focus of artists, labels and censors
shifted to videos and the image of an artist.
[man] Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll.
I remember MTV coming up.
I was a suburban kid at that time...
and we couldn't believe
that something like this existed.
It's-- it is the equivalent
of going from black and white to color as a music fan.
This is it.
Welcome to MTV, Music Television,
the world's first 24-hour stereo video music channel.
And a common thing
for all different types of censorship
is things don't get censored...
because they happen to exist in the world
and have a lot of drugs in them, or sex or violence.
It's the things that are most popular with kids.
So, in some ways,
the videos become the tipping point.
It comes with your basic cable package.
Um, there weren't mechanisms for kind of weeding that out
or parental controls at that time,
and it's in your house.
And if you have a TV in your kids' bedroom,
which I did...
how do you control that?
How do you-- you know,
this is your domestic quote on quote "safe space."
And it's there
and there's nothing you can do about it
except maybe, you know,
scare the shit outta your kids, which is what my mom did.
So, I didn't watch it. [laughs]
Well, MTV was a big game changer in television.
In the mid '80s it came along and woke everybody up.
Prince, Boy George,
uh, Cyndi Lauper.
They became very graphic.
And suddenly you had a new generation of artists
who were visual.
And you saw a lot more sex and flesh
and spandex on television.
MTV were like jet packs...
strapped to your career.
A video is a great enhancement,
but you have to have a good song to start with.
So, "We're Not Gonna Take It..."
uh, certainly stood on its own,
but damn, it did not hurt to have those rocket boosters
strapped to our career.
[Kat] "We're Not Gonna Take It" became
one of the most popular videos of the 1980s.
It was the group's crossover top 40 hit
and Twisted Sister's only certified gold single.
As MTV became the most popular way
for teens to consume music,
the channel also became
one of the industry's lead censors.
And with videos driving record sales through the roof,
having a video ban could be costly for both labels
and their artists.
Queen's 1982 video for "Body Language"
was officially the first video banned from MTV,
but it wouldn't be the last.
♪ Don't talk ♪
One of the highest-selling artists in the '80s and '90s
was Madonna,
who consistently leaned into controversy
and used the focus of conservative censors
to her advantage.
♪ For you to justify my love ♪
[Nuzum] I remember I recently saw the video
for "Justify My Love,"
and I couldn't believe that that was a problem.
And at the time, it was like an event.
And it was like, I think, uh, MTV showed it,
and they showed it like one time, right?
And it became this huge thing.
With women, I suppose, it became,
uh, a more crowded space.
And the more, um, the more explicit,
um, the less dressed,
the more sexually available the woman was presented,
uh, the popularity seemed to-- seemed to grow.
Madonna knew that to get attention,
she'd have to stir the pot a little.
She'd have to do things that were outrageous.
She attacked the Catholic church.
She was more sexual
than most people were in videos at the time.
MTV was only a couple of years old.
Uh, we were still
in Reagan's very puritanical America.
So, she knew that if she was a little outrageous,
it would go a long way.
That's what happened.
You know, sexuality is something that's...
you know, constantly,
you know, a problem for people.
But you know, sex and religion
and, uh, authority
and all kinds of things that she pushes against
were just a natural expression.
[Kat] The religious imagery
in Madonna's "Like a Prayer" video,
sparked outrage and protests as far as the Vatican.
Pushback even resulted
in the loss of a $5 million ad campaign with Pepsi.
It's like religion is the third real issue.
♪ We have confidence ♪
When Sinead O'Connor was on Saturday Night Live,
of course, she grew up in-- in-- in Ireland,
which has a very complicated history
with the Catholic Church.
During that performance, she held up a--
a photo of the Pope
and started to shred it.
Fight the real enemy.
[Nuzum] That literally destroyed her career.
She became toxic.
If you look at any archive of Saturday Night Live,
um, that episode is been destroyed
from the face of the Earth.
It's not in a box set,
it's not available for purchase, it's not in the download.
You can't question religion
or question religion's,
uh, totality,
um, a little bit.
[Kat] While questioning religion and tradition
seemed new in pop music,
it had been happening more and more overtly
in the heavy metal and hard rock genres,
culminating in what was deemed the Satanic panic.
Today's heavy metal music is categorically different
from previous forms of popular music.
The extreme violence, extreme rebellion,
substance abuse,
sexual promiscuity and perversion
and Satanism.
I know personally of no form of popular music before,
which is had as one of its central elements
the element of hatred.
Satan, Satan, Satan, he is God, he is God.
And then the laughter.
I'm not saying that if you listen
to heavy metal music,
the devil will make you kill your mom.
His primary goal is to take you to hell with him.
If Satan can get you to kill for him, great.
That's icing on the cake.
I was a hippie and I was living in a utility closet,
if you can believe it.
And all I really had was a ch-- couple changes of clothes,
a bedroll and a bunch of records.
And I tell people, my first pastors
were Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix.
I just knew without anybody telling me
that what I was listening to
really had taken me in a very bad direction.
And-- and the sexual immorality, the occultism,
the rebellion, the nihilism, all that kinda stuff,
just I looked at it and thought,
"How in the world can I have ever imbibed
this type of stuff?
But I heard a still small voice say,
"Well, you know, you know a lot about the culture,
why don't you-- And you've been impacted by it.
Why don't you put something together?"
So, I did, and it gradually grew and grew and grew.
And-- and I can't tell you the number of--
number of people that have walked up to me
at a conference and said, "Your--
My parents made me listen to your stuff when I was a kid,
and I just hated your guts."
Shrill sounds at sufficient volume
can congeal proteins in the liquid media.
So, a soft egg placed in front of a speaker,
at some of the louder rock concerts,
can midway through the concert
become a hard-boiled snack
for the weary headbanger.
Does anybody have any salt here?
[Kat] Videos like the ones produced
by Reel to Real Ministries
were distributed to churches and religious groups
around the country,
and were viewed by many parents as legitimate warnings
of the dangers of certain popular music.
[narrator] Are you ready for truth about rock?
[thunder rumbles]
1984 was the height
of the Reagan era.
And Reagan,
uh, in the United States, he brought in
a conservative sort of movement
and mentality.
It is the American sound.
It is hopeful, big hearted, idealistic,
daring, decent and fair.
That's our heritage, that's our song.
And I've always found, if you look throughout history,
whenever there's been a very strong conservative,
um, presence, uh, in the world,
you will see a reaction to that
in a very non-conservative way.
At the time, let's also remember that 1985
is the beginning bubbling boil
of the Satanic panic movement,
of concerns that there was satanic messaging
hidden inside of music,
concerns that there are artists, or actually occultists
trying to recruit children
into being occultists as well.
And that was considered a like real thing.
Art is a very evocative medium
of communication.
Lots of rock and roll artists,
lots of musicians have acknowledged this,
that it just goes in and changes you.
So, there are some artists, no question about it,
that epistemologically, self-consciously satanic,
they have embraced a satanic philosophy worldview.
[Sakis] They want, uh, wanna destroy everything, yeah.
We were 16 years old, 17 years old.
We listened the bands that, um, praise Satan.
[laughs] Venom, Bathory,
[indistinct], Hellhammer.
You know, we grow up with all those bands.
To be a metalhead was a really big thing.
We were arrested many times for the police.
We were stopped [indistinct] to have problems everywhere.
We tried to be in the USA many times,
we didn't-- We couldn't, uh, go there.
Okay, you can-- You want to believe,
you can believe.
But let me say that this is bullshit.
Okay? I have the right to say that.
The thing about rock and hip-hop
is that it's controversial by nature.
Hip hop artists or rock artists
tend to be pushing the boundaries
in terms of content and sound,
attitude, what they wear.
All these things are-- are dangerous to some people.
We're talking about illegal acts.
Do you have any evidence-- evidence that any teenager
has ever listened to these albums
and gone out and practiced sex with an animal
or sex with a dead person?
Do you have any evidence that they haven't?
Why is the evidence necessary?
I think the evidence is that we have statistics today
that show that our teenagers in America are in trouble.
[Kat] Parents and censors feared
that the growing popularity of darker theme music
was beginning to negatively influence
a generation of teenagers.
Some of the biggest names in heavy metal like Metallica,
Ozzy Osborne, and Slayer
were blamed for murders or suicides
committed by their fans.
[reporter] Heavy metal mania, it's sweeping the world.
Music has never been more violent,
and critics say kids are killing themselves
and each other because of...
[Lars] Come on. Let's be realistic. All right?
You have a kid who listens to, like, some music
by some band who writes some lyrics.
I mean, if, at the end of the day,
they unfortunately would end up, you know,
either killing themselves or whatever,
then you would ex--
suspect that the-- that the sort of--
the source of the problem is something
that should hopefully be a lot larger than,
you know, some rock band, you know,
playing some, you know, open chords on a guitar.
[reporter] John McCollum shot himself in the head
the night of October 26th, 1984,
while listening to the music of Ozzy Osborne.
The police photo shows the headphones
were still on when he died.
[Ozzy] The boy must have been pretty messed up
before he ever heard an Ozzy record.
I mean-- I mean, I can't help that, you know.
I feel very sad for the boy,
and I felt terribly sad for the parents
because as a parent myself, I would be--
I'd be pretty devastated if something like that happened.
But no if-- and I-- and I had thought about this,
if it was-- if the boot was on the other foot,
I-- I couldn't blame the artist.
Uh, but then you look at the numbers.
So, Ozzy Osborne is heard by how many tens of million by now?
Hundred million, 200 million people.
They didn't all go hurt anybody or themselves.
And even the one person who allegedly committed suicide
because of the song "Suicide Solution,"
we at Spin proved that was wrong
because we found out that he actually killed himself
before the song was released.
So, he couldn't have heard the song.
When something bad happens,
people want to be able to blame somebody.
They want to be able to point to something and say,
this is why this bad, horrible, random thing happened.
[officer talking on police radio]
[Kat] No case grabbed the public's attention
more than the infamous Judas Priest's
subliminal message trial,
which claimed hidden messages were in the song
"Better by You, Better Than Me."
[reporter] The suit claimed that subliminal messages
in the Stained Class album drove Raymond Belknap
and James Vance to shoot themselves
with a sawed off shotgun
in a Nevada playground in December of 1985.
["Better by You, Better Than Me" by Judas Priest playing]
♪ I can't find the words, my mind is dead ♪
♪ It's better by you, better than me ♪
[man] What was your kind of music?
Um, Western, the old '50s,
I was, um, used to some of the music.
My dad used to play classicals...
like The Singing Nun, the Grand Canyon,
um, Around the World in 80 Days.
The court case we run through in 1990...
was pretty much...
a-- a-- a stitch up, really.
No, they couldn't really attack us on...
lyrical content.
So, somebody came up with the idea
of a subliminal message, which is very, very clever.
And I think this is how they got it to court,
because their argument was this,
uh, "There's a subliminal message on that record."
And somebody will say, "Well, I can't hear anything."
And they will say, "That's because it's subliminal."
And that's how it got to court.
You see, they convinced people in power
that that was good enough for a hearing.
And then it was up to us, you see...
to prove that something you couldn't hear wasn't there.
[Ian chuckles]
[Rob] It's the whole business of free speech in it,
in its widest spectrum.
The whole media, uh, the worlds of com--
media communications, books, uh,
filmmaking, everything you can conceivably think of
in the art world is at stake here,
and we are here to defend it.
You can't prove
that a person takes the message--
The sender sends a message and it does something.
You can't really prove that.
There are other contributing factors.
No one is an empty vessel.
Not even a baby is an empty vessel.
You bring into the world, into any situation
what you think and experience and believe.
And you surround yourself with things that reflect that.
So isn't that, Ozzy Osborne or Judas Priest
made my child commit suicide.
It's that my child had so many feelings inside of them that--
that the music of AC/DC or Judas Priest
or-- or whom-- or Black Sabbath,
is how they felt they had to express themselves.
And that's a really different-- different perspective.
♪ Better by you, better than me, uh ♪
♪ You can say what I only can see, uh ♪
[woman] Thank you.
The "uh" is the exhalation of breath?
-Yes. -[woman] Okay.
Uh, is that a normal part of your singing?
That's the way I've always sung.
That's just my style.
[Ian] The only thing they found, you see,
was a combination of sounds.
It was basically an exhalation of breath.
Rob was singing "Better by you, better than me, uh."
And the closing of a hi-hat cymbal. [tuts]
And after about 100 times of listening to this,
you might be able to convince yourself
that it did sound something like the words "Do it."
But, uh, it didn't in reality.
It was nonsense, absolute nonsense.
So, it-- In essence, it was a huge waste
of time, effort, and resources.
[woman] Are there subliminal "Do its"
on the "Better by You, Better Than Me" song?
Absolutely not.
[Kat] The case against Judas Priest was dismissed.
But to understand how music and the law began to intertwine,
we have to go back a few years to the mid-1980s
and the start of the most influential non-government group
who monitored music content,
The Parents Music Resource Center.
It was 1984,
and Twisted Sister was at the height of their career.
And, uh, we were on the road
and we started hearing, uh, people talking,
'cause we certainly didn't watch the news,
that there was this group,
The Parents Music Resource Center,
made up, comprised of some Washington Insiders' wives,
uh, that was,
uh, talking about censoring rock music.
And we kinda just laughed it off.
Why-- why-- How can radio stations
broadcasting across the country
be scared of a bunch of assholes like the PMRC?
I hate to say that England is ever better than America
'cause usually it isn't, you know,
but in that case, it is.
These people would get laughed off
the face of the fucking Earth in England.
I-- I just don't believe that anybody could attach
any importance to what a bunch of shitheads like that
have to say about anything.
Glorifying incest, there are songs about rape,
thrill killing, uh, sadomasochism.
There's a song that goes, "Not a woman, but a whore,
I can taste the hate, well, now I'm killing you,
watch your face turning blue"
by a group that has sold two million copies
of that particular album.
They're very popular with young kids.
[interviewer] You said that, "The more records we sell,
the more drugs we get, and the--
and the drugs are fantastic."
[all laugh]
We already cleared that one.
The PMRC was a group of Washington wives
who apparently had nothing better to do
than to listen to their kids' records
and get offended by them.
Uh, the lead person was Tipper Gore,
wife of Al Gore,
and, uh, she was absolutely outraged
by what she heard her kids listening to.
I bought the Purple Rain album
for our 11-year-old.
And, uh, I didn't know that "Darling Nikki" was on it,
and I felt that it was inappropriate for her
and her eight and six-year-old sister
to hear a song describing a girl masturbating
in a hotel lobby with a magazine.
Uh, I had no warning.
In fact, all I knew was from the me--
that Prince was the new creative,
uh, teen idol on the scene
and had just received a Grammy award.
So, I would've appreciated it
if I had known that before purchase.
♪ I knew a girl named Nikki ♪
♪ I guess you could say she was a sex fiend ♪
♪ I met her in a hotel lobby ♪
♪ Masturbating with a magazine ♪
[Steve] Now, the movie is an R-rated movie, first of all.
So maybe that should have tipped her off
that there might be some content
not appropriate for her 11-year-old.
But she heard the song "Darling Nikki,"
which has, you know,
lyrics that include masturbation
and-- and just highly sexualized content.
And she got very upset and she started this movement
of other politically connected wives in Washington DC,
and they had the connections
that made it possible for them to actually
get news media attention, to get congressional hearings.
Has rock and roll finally gone too far?
A growing number of people think so.
Today they took their case to a US Senate hearing.
Their complaint, that rock lyrics and videos
are crossing the line into trash and smack.
[Senator Danforth] Next, um...
witness or witnesses, Susan Baker
and the Parents Music Resource Center.
Mrs. Baker, thank you very much for being with us.
Please proceed.
The Parents Music Resource Center
was organized in May of this year
by mothers of young children.
The outrageous edge of rock and roll
has shifted its focus from Elvis's pelvis
to the saw protruding from Blackie Lawless' codpiece
on a W.A.S.P. album.
Rock lyric have turned from, "I can't get no satisfaction"
to "I'm going to force you at gunpoint to eat me alive."
Now that more and more elementary school children
are becoming consumers of rock music,
we think it's imperative to discuss this question.
What can be done to help parents
who want to protect their children from these messages
if they want to?
I think anyone who objectively looked
at the proposals of the PMRC...
uh, could immediately say that the...
impact of what they were doing
was so much more negative and dangerous...
than any potential benefit if there was any.
Now, they weren't censoring anything.
They were simply asking, you know,
for parents who have young kids buying records,
can you place a sticker on the records
that might be considered,
uh, a little too intense for young years?
Uh, this created a whole bunch of debate about censorship.
It created a whole bunch of debate about artistic freedom.
We were on the "Filthy Fifteen."
They had a list of 15 bands they were targeting,
and we were, you know, we were in--
there was metal bands there, like Priest and AC/DC,
but it was also Cyndi Lauper and Prince.
So, it was sort of-- it was--
I didn't perceive it as, like,
a personal attack in the beginning.
[Tipper] We are asking the recording industry
to voluntarily assist parents who are concerned
by placing a warning label on music products
inappropriate for younger children
due to explicit sexual or violent lyrics.
We now propose one generic warning label
to inform consumers in the marketplace
about lyric content.
The labels would apply to all music.
Now it's important to clearly state
what our proposal is not.
A voluntary labeling is not censorship.
Censorship implies restricting access
or suppressing content.
This proposal does neither.
Labeling is little more than truth in packaging.
By now, a time-honored principle in our free enterprise system.
And without labeling,
parental guidance is virtually impossible.
Well, PMRC came out and in fact, at the hearings,
they held up Wendy's solo album, the WOW album
as something that, uh, you know, children shouldn't see.
That just fueled the fire for the youth
who wanted to go buy these records.
They wanted to say, hey, "If I'm not supposed to be
listening to this, I'm not supposed to be seeing this.
That's what I wanna get."
And then let's not forget W.A.S.P. with the chainsaw blade
coming out of the guy's crotch.
They really didn't like that either.
[Pastor Jeff] Violence permeates the album
as well as their stage show,
which has included chopping up
and throwing raw meat into the audience,
drinking blood from a skull,
and until recently, the simulated rape
and murder of a half nude woman.
This single is available
in record stores across the country.
The cover features the crotch piece
that lead singer Blackie Lawless wears on stage.
In this picture, there's blood dripping down his stomach,
hands and off of the blade between his legs.
The song that accompanies this photo
is "(Animal) Fuck Like a Beast."
The Rolling Stones on their album Undercover
also sang a sadomasochistic activity
in the song "Tie You Up (The Pain of Love)."
"You dream of it, passionate, you even get a rise from it.
Feel the hot cum dripping on your thigh from it."
[Steve] It was really disappointing
that the only major artist
to come and speak to the hearing
was Dee Snider and Frank Zappa.
And you didn't see Bruce Springsteen,
you didn't see all the other artists
that were important at that time.
Madonna, they weren't there. They didn't show up.
If they had shown up, it would've had an impact.
You know, honestly, if they didn't invite me
to participate at those Senate hearings,
I wouldn't have cared.
I wasn't political at all.
But to me, I saw the opportunity
to carry the flag into battle.
That's how I saw it in my mind.
It was a maelstrom of media attention.
It was for that moment,
the center of the world.
That's where everybody was watching.
All over the world they were watching.
And, uh, I'm in the back and I meet Frank Zappa.
The one thing I remember is
we were both concerned
of what John Denver's stance would be.
He was not the rocker.
Uh, at that point in his career, he was as a--
as America as apple pie, as they say.
I'm here to address the issue of a possible rating system
in the recording industry.
These hearings have been called to determine whether or not
the government should intervene to enforce this practice.
May I be very clear that I'm strongly opposed
to censorship of any kind
in our society or anywhere else in the world.
We do have some authorities.
We do have some responsibilities here.
And, uh, they're not all clean-cut John Denvers.
The only thing we have to fear, as President Roosevelt said,
is fear itself.
I'm not afraid of anything.
I'm not afraid of what my children might see--
But most respectfully, President Roosevelt
never heard these records.
[all laugh]
You know, I see a video of me
walking into those-- to that testimony.
I am mystified... [laughs]
...at the cockiness and the confidence
that I had rolling in there.
I'm-- I'm proud of myself watching it, but wow.
You know, it's-- I guess it takes...
being too young and stupid
to get how serious the situation is.
But there was just a moment
where that little child in me was just like,
"Whoa, this is serious."
Next, we have, uh, Mr. Dee Snider,
the Twisted Sister Freefall Talent Group.
[man] What?
-[indistinct] Twisted Sister. -Yep.
That's the group.
[Dee] You know, they were looking at my picture.
They were looking at, you know, all these--
this imagery
and figuring, "Oh, this is the guy we want.
This is the poster boy for heavy metal.
Everything that's wrong with it.
And, uh, we're gonna make a fool out of this guy."
And whoever decided to bring me
in had not vetted Dee Snider,
they would've known that the picture that they saw
was not representative of the man...
behind the makeup.
I'm 30 years old.
I'm married. I have a three-year-old son.
I was born and raised a Christian,
and I still adhere to those principles.
Believe it or not, I do not drink,
I do not smoke, and I do not do drugs.
Ms. Gore claimed that one of my songs, "Under the Blade"
had lyrics encouraging sadomasochism,
bondage and rape.
I can say categorically that the only sadomasochism,
bondage and rape in this song is in the mind of Ms. Gore.
Parents can thank the PMRC for reminding them
that there is no substitute for parental guidance,
but that is where the PMRC's job ends.
There is no authority who has the right
or the necessary insight to make these judgements.
Not myself, not the federal government,
not some recording industry committee,
not the PTA, not the RIAA
and certainly not the PMRC.
[Kat] Following the Senate hearings in 1985,
the PMRC and the Recording Industry
Association of America
agreed to implement a labeling system.
And in 1987, Ice-T's Rhyme Pays
became the first album to be labeled
with a PMRC warning sticker.
But even after reaching the agreement,
this warning wasn't widely seen until years later
and left a lot of legal gray area to consider.
[chuckles] I guess it wouldn't be any surprise
that sooner or later
punk rock would get in the rifle scope
of the Parents Music Resource Center
and Tipper and her pals.
When the Dead Kennedys released their latest album,
Frankenchrist, it bore the following label.
The poster is a graphic depiction of genitalia
that has been on display in some European museums.
You see, a woman charged
Jello Biafra and the Dead Kennedys
with distributing harmful material to a minor
when her 14-year-old daughter bought the album.
This case was considered precedent setting
by many in the entertainment industry
and it finally went to court last week.
[Jello] They thought I'd just pay a fine
and then they could go after Ozzy
and Prince and Madonna and the rest.
You know, looked a year, year and a half in jail,
a $1,500 fine.
But, um,
even if I was only fined ten bucks and a plea bargain,
I wasn't gonna plea bargain.
And so, what they hope to accomplish
is to set the kind of ugly chain of precedence.
Or even if you walk out and get coffee
for the director of a movie
that someone else puts an X rating on
later on,
you could be prosecuted for the whole movie.
[woman] Guilty by association, you mean?
Yes, in other words,
guilt by association to the point
where people won't wanna associate to create good art,
they'll be scared and for good reason.
And anytime anybody is afraid to say
or create what they believe,
that in itself is censorship.
The poster one was really-- That was incredible
that they got in so much trouble over that.
But...
I think in some ways they-- they're, you know...
The Dead Kennedys were provocateurs.
You know, Biafra was--
He was itching for a fight.
This is censorship,
even if it's not what Mrs. Gore says
she is advocating.
All people want to know, where music is concerned,
is some information, the same kind that's available
in the other entertainment media so they can make decisions
about their younger children, and protect them
from explicit sex and violence in the media.
Because young kids can't handle it.
Your poster is so obscene
that you can't even put it on television,
but it's available to kids
in-- At any age in the record store.
So maybe kids can make up their own minds,
instead of having you make up their minds for them.
-Parents should-- -We will be right back.
[Bob] You know,
no other rock journalist editor
wanted any part of it.
And they found Spin, and thought,
"Well, we'll ask this guy." And I went, "Yes.
When? How do I get there?
Send a car now."
You know, saying something isn't censorship.
Unfortunately, doesn't make it not censorship,
unfortunately, and I think you're a very charming
and very lovely lady, and I believe
you're very well intentioned,
but I think that what you're doing
is potentially very, very dangerous.
I don't think anybody is enough of a surgeon
that they can precisely cut off
that which is dangerous to society
and protect everything that, uh,
potentially makes society grow.
And I actually out argued to Gore politely
rather than-- I didn't call her a Nazi,
which Jello Biafra did, I kept saying to him in the--
the commercial break, "Stop doing that," you know.
And-- Because that's what they wanted.
Because then they say, "Oh, look at this terrible person,
this rock star, his name's Jello Biafra,
his band's called the Dead Kennedys.
That's what we're up against."
And at the end when the show was over,
Tipper Gore came up to me, she was literally trembling.
She said, "I don't know why we're fighting.
I-- I'm against nuclear war."
I said, "Well, on that point we agree." [laughs]
[Kat] Jello Biafra's trial was
eventually thrown out of court.
But this trial further opened the door
to legally ruling art to be obscene.
In 1989, Miami hip hop group 2 Live Crew
would find themselves on the front lines in the battle
for controversial artistic expression.
Well, my name is Jack Thompson.
I live in Miami, Florida, and have since 1976.
Some would call me the, uh,
uh, chief censor
in the United States when it comes to music.
So, what I did was,
I sent the transcribed lyrics
of the As Nasty as They Wanna Be album
to all 67 sheriffs in the state of Florida.
And in doing so, I said,
"Here is an album
being sold in your jurisdiction.
It's being sold,
uh, we know, to kids under the age of the age rating."
So that's how-- That-- that's what lit the fuse.
We-- we gonna pave the way for everybody else
like we always do, going into court,
and fight everybody, and, you know--
But right is right, you know.
We're opposed not against the group,
we're opposed against the lyrics, the obscenity.
In America should be freedom of speech.
But then at the same time, they say, "Watch what you say."
I heard the album, I was--
And I went inside, and I-- I cried.
[crowd chanting] 2 Live Crew! 2 Live Crew!
And I received word
that a judge in Fort Myers
had issued a ruling in response
to the sheriff receiving these transcribed lyrics
that As Nasty as They Wanna Be
was probably obscene, there was probable cause,
uh, to find that it was obscene.
This obscenity approach is, on one hand, kind of genius
because it avoids all the First Amendment protections
of a piece of expression.
So, it's a genius attack of going after it for obscenity
rather than saying it's too sexually explicit
or it's inappropriate for children or whatever.
Take it all the way, and say it is the worst thing
it could possibly be, which is obscene.
And the weirdest part of the whole thing
is that such an audacious claim about a piece of music,
and it actually worked.
A judge actually ruled that it was obscene.
And as a result, all these other things could happen.
And if you look at performing the music in public,
they were arrested for it.
There was someone who was charged
with distributing obscene materials
to minors for selling a copy of a 2 Live Crew album.
It is treated basically the same as pornography.
If it's freedom of speech,
it should be truly freedom of speech.
It shouldn't be because this group deems it unfit.
It shouldn't be that way.
Those are the fucking rules.
Those are the rules that everybody agreed on.
I think there's a limit on what warrants protected speech.
And I think speech that--
that harms, that incite violence,
that revels in extreme depictions
of violence against women,
uh, is not worthy of free speech protection.
I-- I don't think it's artistic.
It contributes to a broader cultural narrative
that is harmful to women.
This is our national anthem.
Okay, can we have a moment of silence
for our national anthem?
♪ Somebody say, "Hey ♪
♪ We want some pussy" ♪
♪ Somebody, somebody ♪
♪ Somebody say ♪
♪ "Hey, we want some pussy" ♪
♪ Hey, we want some pussy ♪
[Betty] Uh, I think the sexuality or, uh--
That is depicted in music or any expression,
at least it-- it causes people to talk about it.
And I think maybe that's healthy,
you know, to at least talk about it.
♪ 'Cause I won't say please ♪
♪ Just nibble on my dick like a rat does cheese ♪
You know, there are people out there that say
that all the-- the arrests and the hoop on all that
are the best things that ever could have happened to you guys.
And that's why y'all are, uh-- Are making money.
It is actually helping us, and we're selling more records.
I mean, we're on a totally different level now
than we were last year this time.
And, you know.
[Alan] That they were more famous for being in court
than, uh, for any of their music.
Um, so we did have a period of time
where there was a lot of discussion
about what should and should not be put on record,
uh, and-- and-- and put on sale.
Every year is a different thing.
I mean, last year it was, uh, Public Enemy.
And the year before that, they would say,
"If you go to a rap concert, your--
your kid might get killed," you know.
And now it's this year, it's 2 Live Crew.
Next year it'll be somebody else.
The PMRC sticker was an admission
that it shouldn't be sold to kids.
It was an adult album with an adult sticker on it
sold despite promises by the industry
and by 2 Live Crew, uh, to other people's children.
When people talk about 2 Live Crew,
they often focus on the-- At the end of the day,
the obscenity ruling was overruled.
Goodness wins.
And when I look at that,
I think, at first,
it pretty much destroyed their career.
It affected mainstream views towards rap.
Um, it required them
to shell out an enormous amount of money
to defend themselves.
And was disruptive for years of their life.
How is that a win?
[interviewer] Has it been expensive?
Oh, yeah. Cost a lot of money.
I mean, made a lot of lawyer's wealthy.
It blew open the door.
Um, which led to the parental advisory sticker
of that rap is something
that needs to be controlled and regulated.
It mainstreamed that idea,
and gave it root
in a way that has never become unrooted since.
It wasn't NWA, it wasn't Public Enemy,
it was 2 Live Crew.
[Kat] 2 Live Crew's follow up album,
Banned in the USA
was the first album to receive the now common
black and white parental advisory label,
which has become industry standard
on any music deemed offensive.
The-- They did get the warning sticker through,
and that was fine,
but there were some consequences of that.
For example, Walmart refused to carry any records
with a, uh, parental advisory sticker on it.
That hurt sales of artists who were
into the raunchy sort of stuff.
And at the time, Walmart was one of the biggest
sellers of CDs and records in America,
in the world.
And the industry is not anybody's fucking friend,
especially music's friend, doesn't give a shit about music.
It's into commodities, and it's into investing
in a fucking specific commodity.
Doesn't care about the people that made it or anything.
Certain stores would not carry sticker records.
And then it went one step further.
I never even imagined this one,
but it wasn't until I did my movie Strangeland in 1997,
and I found out that the soundtrack
for my album had a Kid Rock song
called "Fuck Off" that was removed.
And then there was other songs, uh, on there
that words, like-- Did the censorship,
where they flipped the tapes.
It goes... [imitates tape screeching]
...in the middle of the song.
And I got a lot of pushback from people
who were on the soundtrack, these metal bands going,
"Hey, what the fuck? What did you do?"
And it wasn't us.
It was the record labels
bowing down to the major stores,
because they wanted that Best Buy sale.
It's all about sort of controlling youth culture,
controlling what they have access to.
Um, and I-- It was an effective form of censorship.
It was probably one of the most effective forms
of censorship that I've seen.
Those labels, that-- that was it.
You go into the music store, you--
There's a label on that CD or tape,
I'm not going home with it.
So, it was incredibly effective.
I-- I wasn't doing album art
that necessitated having those stickers on.
But, uh, what I found is very interesting was,
I remember talking to somebody at a record label
and he was-- he was-- I said, "What do you think
about all these stickers and, you know,
is it doing any good?"
And he said, "Oh, it's doing the opposite."
He said, "Kids are now thinking, "Oh, great.
I don't have to go, and look for
these records with [indistinct] lyrics
'cause they're already telling me
with a sticker on the front.'"
So, it has-- had an adverse effect, you know.
Well, those things sold 10 times.
Literally, I heard this from executives,
10 times what they expected to sell.
So they sold a million copies instead of a hundred thousand.
They were selling through the roof, every label.
Britney Spears had one on her.
I mean, everybody was trying to get a sticker.
Well, it's, you know, you know, you tell a kid
not to do something, and he's gonna do it.
It's, um, yeah.
I think-- I think that the PMRC did sort of backfire
because I think that, to a degree, um,
putting a warning label on a record
saying "This has cuss words on it,"
is like a candy to a baby.
You know, like all the teenagers are going,
"Well, fuck yeah, man,
I-- I wanna listen to that then."
I wasn't opposed to the sticker,
that Fear of a Black Planet got in 1990,
the first year they distributed the sticker.
But also, I was very clear on saying
that they didn't do their homework enough to realize
that within that album of Fear of a Black Planet,
there wasn't anything derogatory
or overused, cursing.
It was just theory.
Matter of fact, took a smack at racism in the United States,
Fear of a Black Planet and also Around the World.
And-- and to get a sticker for that,
I thought was just lazy. For what?
Because the group is named Public Enemy?
That's just laziness.
I'm saying, we didn't mind getting a sticker anyway.
We wore it like a badge.
[Kat] The rise of the parental advisory label
coincided with the rise of gangster rap,
a controversial sub-genre of hip hop,
which began appearing on the top 40 charts
by the early '90s.
We are not against rap,
we're not against rappers,
but we are against those thugs who disgrace
our community, our women,
who disgrace our culture,
and who have absolutely nothing
of redemptive value to offer,
except the legacy of violence and sexual assault
and foul language.
[audience applauding]
Anyone will tell you or show you examples
in their life when they have not been heard,
and they've had to make a louder noise.
People describe something
almost with a journalistic
level of authenticity,
and yet, what they're talking about,
about being worried about walking down the street
and being shot,
that's the expression of reality
that makes some people very uncomfortable.
There's ignorance. Ignorance is dangerous.
Race, uh, has been at the core, the foundation
and the institutionalized platform
of, uh-- Of the United States of America,
and therefore, out the world-- Throughout the world.
So, yeah, there's a lot of situations
that people don't think is race-based,
but it sprouts out of that.
And, you know, people don't holler until they hit.
"It's gonna go away. It's a fad.
We don't have to worry about it."
And then it doesn't, right?
And then-- then it's like, "Well, we have to take steps
to censor this then."
Hip hop, or is it art or is it poisonous?
[announcer] Coming up next on Geraldo,
is rap music killing your kids?
I think it was a real signal to parents
and, you know, to conservative religious groups
that this is-- This is happening.
"Like, buckle up."
You don't-- You don't understand it.
You're not a part of it, so how can you, like,
make a judgment on it, you know what I mean?
It's-- it's like--
It's non-relatable to you.
So, of course, like, if you don't understand it
and then you-- All you see is
negative aspects surrounding it,
you are going to have a-- a negative opinion about it.
But it has seemed to have continued to get
more aggressive, more hardcore.
And often, the gangster rap depicts women, you know,
that they-- they like to be violated.
They like, you know, big penises.
They're always sexually voracious.
They can't be satisfied.
Um, they wanna be treated like this.
You know, sure, a lot of those lyrics
about gang violence and murders
and even attacks on women and everything else,
they're very explicit.
But it was all
an attempt to paint a picture,
for people outside,
"This is what we have to go through every day."
All of these things go into rage.
Now, like, look, does-- Do I think it's, you know--
[laughs] Do I think it's a good thing for people
to be hearing this stuff?
No, but like, obviously, there's a reason for it.
And again, I'm like, "Why don't we look
at the underlying reason for this rage, you know,
and stop talking about the-- the piece of music?"
You know, and stop glorifying it too, you know?
'Cause when you-- you try to--
You try to take it away or censor it,
then people just want it more.
And you had, you know, NWA and Ice-T
and, um, the Geto Boys
and a bunch of others who were, uh, singing about--
Rapping about life in the streets.
And that was pretty intense, because life in the streets,
you know, is pretty intense.
Uh, especially, when it comes
to the relationship with the police.
["Sound od da Police" by KRS One playing]
♪ Woop-woop, that's the sound of da beast ♪
♪ Woop-woop ♪
["Crooked Officer" by Geto Boys playing]
♪ I wanna put your ass in a coffin, sir ♪
["No Surrender" by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony playing]
♪ Let me catch you slippin' ♪
[Alan] And, uh, that created an awful lot of issues
for some people,
especially the broadcast industry,
but also in record stores.
Uh, you know, Ice-T, for example,
had his song called "Cop Killer."
And that created all kinds of issues.
Um, you know, with-- with-- with, uh,
police departments and others demanding
that the record be withdrawn from sale,
which is a form of censorship.
[Ice-T] For every one of those fucking police,
I'd like to take a pig out here in this parking lot,
and shoot 'em in their motherfucking face.
["Cop Killer" by Body Count playing]
♪ I'm 'bout to bust some shots off ♪
♪ I'm 'bout to dust some cops off ♪
[gunshots popping]
♪ I'm a cop killer ♪
♪ I know your mama's grievin' ♪
♪ Fuck 'em! ♪
♪ Cop killer ♪
♪ But tonight we get even ♪
The Body Count album
had a number of calls
for people to kill the police.
Uh, the issue was whether or not Time Warner...
should be, uh, selling that album.
You know, "Cop Killer" didn't lead to the death
of a single police officer, I'm pretty sure,
any more than the Terminator led to a-- a police station
full of cops getting murdered.
It's the same thing.
It's-- it's-- it's entertaining. It's not all actual facts.
I don't fucking have two Bentleys,
but in my rap, I might say, I have two Bentleys.
I don't have fucking $15 million,
but in this fucking rap, I got $15 million.
You understand what I'm saying?
It's like you gotta understand, you gotta know,
and be able to decipher out what's real and fake.
And if you can't, stay the fuck away from it.
Leave it alone, like, let us be, let us be great.
If you are a distributor of music,
you have a certain amount of liability.
You are the target, because you are the one
that is the conduit of-- of the music to the consumer.
So, you have a responsibility
to your shareholders and ownership
to make sure that you're not doing anything
that is against the law.
The-- the fact that that alone,
like, a-- a song,
a set of lyrics provokes so much backlash that it gets...
recalled.
That, you know-- That really says something
about America and race.
And we address the Time Warner shareholders meeting
and, uh, I spoke along with Charlton Heston,
which was an interesting experience.
"Die, die, die, pig, die.
Police, I know your family's grieving, [bleep] them."
Catchy little number, isn't it?
That effort wound up being successful
in that Time Warner,
uh, pulled the album Body Count,
uh, from store shelves worldwide because of the clear advocacy
that police officers,
whether Black or white, be killed.
[reporter] Sales of the album Body Count surged
following Tuesday's announcement by artist Ice-T.
He is dropping the controversial track "Cop Killer"
from all new copies of his record.
[Ice-T] I'm gonna pull the song off the record.
What I'm saying is, song's off the record, shut up.
All right? That's what I'm saying.
I'm not apologizing to 'em.
[reporter] But one senior record industry executive
told the Associated Press that Ice-T's decision
sets a dangerous precedent,
which will encourage future protests
to limit free speech.
So, this is always-- My question is, you know,
okay, you wanna get rid of something?
Well, what is it?
And a lot of people are just knee-jerking,
and they're just like, "Oh, well, that's the bad thing.
That's the bugaboo."
You know, you can't advocate banning
something that you don't even know what it is.
You know, 'cause then-- then-- then I start going,
"Well, you're not actually talking about--
We're not talking about music anymore then, you know."
[Kat] Cop Killer has still never been re-released,
and the song is unavailable on most streaming sites,
though Body Count continued to perform it live.
Hip hop and the police have often
had a tenuous relationship.
But gangster rap and "Cop Killer"
pushed it further than ever before.
Police began to look at rappers and labels as criminal entities.
Leaked documents revealed the FBI had open files beginning
in the early '90s on the Wu Tang Clan,
Jay-Z and Roc-A-Fella Records,
Sean Combs and Bad Boy Records,
and numerous other popular artists.
Furthering the criminal pursuit of rappers,
in 2000 California passed Penal Code 182.5,
a criminal conspiracy law that states
that active gang members can be charged with crimes
committed by other members,
even if they weren't involved in the crime.
What we were seeing now
is some singers,
some rappers who are accused of a crime,
are hauled in front of a judge,
and their lyrics are held up as a...
uh, mirror or an example
of the character of the accused.
Can s-- Because you write these lyrics,
can they be used against you
if you are, in fact, charged with a crime?
Uh, it's-- it's a real slippery slope.
Um, June, yeah, I believe it was June--
Juneteenth 2014.
I'm at home, sleep.
I woke up, like, "Man," I just heard a gang,
like a-- a, like, kinda like little voices.
I could hear-- [hissing] Like, almost like whispering.
I jumped up and I opened the door,
and as soon as I opened the door,
it was AR-15 and just big guns in my face.
"Get down, get down, get down, get down."
I'm like, "What's going on?"
Like, they got the whole entire block is blocked off
with tanks, many tanks,
and on the side of the tanks,
it's dudes in black gear, full riot gear.
In my mind, I'm like, I-- I-- I asked my girlfriend,
I said, "Did you do something?"
I had to ask her because I knew I hadn't done anything.
So, I'm like, "Did you do something?"
Like, this is like some--
you're coming to get some bank robbers
that just robbed three banks,
full shootout and everything, you know what I mean?
So, I'm like, "It has nothing to do with me, for sure."
Get downtown.
The detectives walk up to the car
after, like, three hours of me sitting
and say, uh, um, "Do you want to talk to us?"
I said, "I have nothing to talk to you about.
Like, I don't know what you're talking about."
He was like, "Well, if you don't want to talk to us,
we gonna take you to jail right now for murder."
I was like, "I talk-- now I know-- I-- I know I ain't--
I know I ain't killed nobody.
So, I'm like, "All right, I'll talk to you, whatever."
So, we go upstairs.
First thing he says to me is, "Look, Brandon, we know
that you don't have anything to do with these murders
or anything to do with these shootings,
but because of the stuff
that you talk about in your music,
we can charge you with these nine murders."
I start laughing.
I say, "Yeah, bro, these nine shootings."
I'm like, "Yeah, right.
There's no way in the world you could charge me
with some shootings based off of something
that I was talking about on my music."
I said, "Was I--" I said, "I definitely wasn't talking
about the shootings that you guys have on paper.
Like, I'll be out before you know it.
Like, I'll-- for sure I'll get bailed out tomorrow."
He's like, "No, bro, you have a million-dollar bill."
I was like, "There's no way. I haven't done anything."
I mean, like--
like, I'm saying it, and it sounds crazy.
It was even crazier sitting, going through this shit.
You're like, "Like, listen to yourself right now.
You are telling me I don't know anything about this,
but you wanna charge me with conspiracy on some shit
that you're telling me I don't know--
you are telling me I don't know about 'em,
so how the hell you gonna charge me with this shit?"
But they said, "Based off of, uh, Penal Code 182.5,
hey, you could be held liable, bro."
It's crazy.
Except I have became a documented gang member
at, like, the age of 12-- 11 or 12.
My man, my-- my-- my man--
um, you know, that's the-- you know,
the, uh, guy that's filming,
um, has on green pants right now.
So, him being with me, we-- we're in my neighborhood
in Lincoln Park, Southeast San Diego.
We're walking to the store.
He could be-- he could be, you know,
uh, labeled a gang member because of the color pants--
color pants he has on, and he's with me.
An associate they could tie you
basically to the same stuff that they're--
or-- or charge you
like they're charging me as a gang member
with the same stuff, you know what I mean?
Just based off of him walking with me,
talking to me and wearing the color that he's wearing.
You know, coming to the Black community,
charge you for-- basically charge you
with being who you are.
I can't help that. This is what I seen every day.
If I grew up in La Jolla,
maybe I might be rapping about doctors and lawyers.
They basically told me I can go home, man.
Like, "You can go home right now today with probation.
Just-- just sign probation.
You can go home now after being in jail for eight months,
facing life in prison, still facing life in prison."
I-- I can't do it because my sons like to rap.
So, if I say, "Okay, I'll take this time,
or I'll take this probation,
then you gonna do the same thing to my son.
And I just couldn't let that happen.
So, I said, "You know what? Nah, man, I'm not taking it.
I'm gonna go to the box
because I know I haven't done anything wrong.
I know I haven't done anything wrong,
so come on, let's go," you know?
[Kat] Tiny Doo and his co-defendant
were released in 2015.
Upon the release, the two men successfully sued
the state of California for $1.5 million.
But Penal Code 182.5 is still being used today.
And in May of 2022,
a 56-count indictment in the state of Georgia
named rappers Young Thug,
Gunna and more than two dozen other artists
from their label, YSL,
as alleged conspirators in a criminal organization.
Many of the charges quote lyrics from the artist
as evidence of criminal conspiracy.
As of this production,
many of the artists are still awaiting trial.
But a new bill
called the Restoring Artistic Protection Act,
or RAP Act,
has been recently introduced to Congress
that seeks to limit the use of lyrics as evidence,
which could vastly affect this in future trials.
With all the mechanisms in place to label, rate,
silence or deplatform music
deemed defensive or dangerous,
it raises the question,
to what extent are people actually influenced
by darker suggestive music?
I think art as a concept or entertainment is neutral,
depends on what you do with it.
Uh, but I believe stuff like that
does degrade our society
because culture has an effect on people.
If Beethoven's works can uplift the human spirit,
then the other...
musical art can degrade the spirit.
The idea that music can make you do things
that you are not, uh, otherwise inclined to do,
is a very convenient idea
and is absent of any actual evidence.
Despite being researched literally thousands of times,
no one has ever given an iota of proof
behind the idea that music makes you do things
that you weren't otherwise inclined to do.
You know, this is the-- the timeless question.
Does violent
imagery music words
lead to violent actions?
Yes, there is the case,
there is the case of the tormented teenager
who do-- who goes out
and shoots somebody or shoots himself
or takes his own life or her own life
because of something they heard.
But they could have also read a book.
They could have read Alice in Wonderland
and found that somehow.
Uh, anybody that's going to commit a violent act,
uh, is gonna do that
regardless if they're listening to a song
that's promoting that or not.
Does it inspire that idea
with somebody, like a listener?
Possibly.
So yeah, music does make people feel a certain way.
But at the end of the day, I don't--
I'm not gonna sit here and say,
"It's the music that makes you do what you wanna do."
A feeling is something different
from me going out committing a crime.
Now, I'm not gonna say the song made me do it.
Nah, nigga, you wanted to do that shit
because you wanted to do that shit.
Period.
Uh, you know, people are different
and they create music for different reasons,
but I think they should always be aware
of what they're saying with it.
You know, I don't know that people always are.
'Cause, you know, it's like, great--
with great power comes great responsibility.
We do have a lot of power.
You know, as entertainers,
like, we can touch everybody in that audience.
You know, everybody who's listening to the radio.
Uh, the band is responsible for transmission.
Can't control the reception.
It-- I think I had this idea
that it was a-- of an effective form of communication.
It is not an effective form of co--
it is a powerful form of communication,
but it's not an effective one.
And do I think I have responsibility?
I do. Yeah, I do.
But not everyone does.
And I'm not saying everyone should.
I'm just saying that I do.
And I think if-- if people are gonna send a message,
you know, they need to be really clear on what that is.
Of course, once it's made, people will react to it
as-- as they react to it.
And they may-- they may get a message
that the people didn't intend at all.
But I think it-- you can at least start with...
knowing what you're trying to say.
You know, for better or for worse.
The media likes to focus in
if they can find a musical connection
that works for them.
We have no idea what music Jeffrey Dahmer listened to.
I hear it was Barry Manilow,
and I really think Barry Manilow should have been banned,
and his records burned
because of what Dahmer did.
No, I don't know who Dahmer listened to.
The point is, we don't hear about it
unless it's some, you know, the evil rock and roll.
When it's evil rock and roll, or now, you know, hip hop
or something like that,
they-- they're-- the media is so fast
to focus in that-- on that as a reason that it happened.
[TV show theme song playing]
[reporter] Authorities in Littleton, Colorado
are securing the scene of a deadly school shooting
so they can make a final body count
as the community and the nation struggles
to come to grips with the carnage.
[Nuzum] Columbine is-- is a really interesting
and unfortunate chapter in...
how you look at music and music expression
and the attempts of people to control that.
You see that following the shooting,
you know, as-- as is often the case,
people start acting like, "What was the motivation?
What inspired this?"
And these kids, um, all wore trench coats
and wore dark clothing.
And so,
it was immediately assumed
that they had been inspired by popular culture
to dress this way, to act this way.
You know, the guys that-- that did that,
um, sort of fit that profile.
You know, when something like that happens, it's so tragic
and that you can't wrap your head around it.
But people want an answer and they want somebody to blame.
So, they just-- I think-- think that's--
unfortunately that's what they did,
is they just picked heavy metal or Marilyn Manson
and said, "This is the problem.
And, you know, we've said it before.
And-- and here's the proof."
The famous mass murder
at the high school there in-- in Colorado,
they were deeply
into a lot of, uh, dark nihilistic music.
And to suggest that that did not provide a-- a mood,
uh, in which the seeds
of whatever dark seeds was growing inside of them,
uh, is naive.
And someone decided...
that these two were fans of Marilyn Manson.
And there were calls to action
from the local level to the national level,
internationally
that Marilyn Manson should be punished,
should he be culpable in this crime.
And it was later established
that even after he had a number of concerts canceled,
had to-- had to defend himself,
that the two young men
who were responsible for the Columbine shootings
actually thought he was a goofball
and didn't really think very much of him at all.
In that moment,
it was so horrific what they had done
that it was, so-- it--
I think it makes people feel calm and safe
if they can point to something
and say, "Okay, that's what it-- it is.
We just need to get rid of that."
And Marilyn Manson looked terrifying.
And so, I think it was an easy scapegoat.
And if we can blame it on music and video games,
then we don't have to take actual responsibility
for our culture of violence
or the-- you know, the lack of mental health support
and how easy it is to get a gun.
[chuckles]
[Kat] The internet and social media
have changed the landscape of the music industry
and given rise to the importance of public opinion.
And more than the law, the church or the PMRC,
public opinion always wield the most power.
And this has been happening
long before we have the term "cancel culture."
[reporter] Some teenagers have said--
uh, have repeated your statements that,
"The Beatles, I like the Beatles more than Jesus Christ."
What do you think about that?
Well, originally, I was-- I was pointing out that fact,
in reference to England,
that we meant more to kids than Jesus did,
all religion at that time.
I wasn't knocking it or putting it down,
I was just saying it as a fact.
It doesn't matter about people not liking our records
or not liking the way we look or what we say,
you know, they're entitled to not like us,
and we're entitled not to have anything to do with them
if we don't want to or not to regard them.
This is Doug Layton and Tommy Charles.
We're reminding you
that our fantastic Beatle boycott is still in effect.
We have not forgotten what the Beatles said.
[Kat] As artists increasingly
put their personal lives in the public eye...
their fans are more often confronted
with the separation of art...
and artist.
There's the music and then there's the person.
Can you separate the two?
I mean, Michael Jackson, for example,
uh, you know, unproven,
but, you know, highly suspected of being a child molester,
you know, but at the same time,
one of the greatest artists of all time.
So, what do you do with his music?
A lot of censorship has come in the form of public opinion.
[audience cheering]
[Bush] They can say what they wanna say,
and just because they shouldn't have their feelings hurt,
just because some people don't wanna buy their records
when they speak out.
I mean, it-- it's, you know, freedom is a two-way street.
And now that looks completely different in the 21st century
because of the internet, because of social media,
um, that it is very easy
to get people on board for something,
like something, share something
without them really fully thinking about it critically.
I think it's easier from afar
when you're sitting on your phone at home
to tell someone they're canceled,
to tell someone that what they did is wrong
and they don't deserve to do their thing anymore,
or just be.
I think when you're in front of that person,
that's different.
And that mediation, that online mediation
has made us, you know, a-- just a little more judgy.
And, you know, as-- as a feminist myself,
I absolutely advocate for conversation,
for allowing people to create change.
Because if all we do is cancel them,
we're not actually creating change.
We're just telling them to have the same feelings,
to do the same thing, but be quiet about it.
And to cultivate change,
you need to have nuanced critical conversations
that is beyond the like button on Facebook.
It's definitely a different landscape now, um...
because everybody's able to voice an opinion
and-- and-- and put their-- their, uh, opinion
on what is and is not acceptable in a-- in a public way.
Uh, it's a dangerous time to be an artist,
I think, in that regard.
Yeah, if you-- when you-- when you apply censorship
to any art form,
specifically music or lyrics,
it's like-- it's like, uh...
trying to write with a--
you know, a gag in your mouth.
Uh, free speech is-- is-- is utterly,
absolutely, completely important
to any art form.
During history,
people that went extreme
changed the world, okay?
Not the people that go-- go with the flow.
If you go with the flow, just live there.
You know, we only come once here
in this life, in this planet.
So, we have to live-- we have to move forward
for the next generation.
You can't worry about, um...
turning anybody off when you're making the art.
The business of music
and-- and the creation of music and art,
it's two different worlds.
If we fight for the right of free expression,
we fight for the opponent's right
every bit as much as ours.
And we have to.
And it means nothing if we don't.
You can't talk about freedom of speech
if really all you want is freedom of your speech.
It's all or nothing.
You can't-- you can't, like, draw a line.
You could-- you decide for yourself
who you're gonna listen to,
but you can't say they don't have a right to be there.
I mean, that-- I-- I feel like that's part
of, uh, the music--
the musicians and artists' mission statement,
because you have to be able to, uh, have that freedom.
If you can't, then you can't explore
all the-- the depth of humanity.
You just can't.
You can't expect music to be different
from what else is happening in society,
whether it's war, whether it's drugs,
whether it's youth culture.
What-- whatever else is happening,
the music's gonna reflect that
by-- by the mere nature of what music is.
You know, which is why we should be really careful
of, you know, what that message could be.
We-- I think we should just be really, um, intentional
about what we're putting out there.
I don't think we're always intentional...
as musicians.
I am the things I am
because I learned...
from the past
and I've seen the mistakes of the past,
and I'm better for them and educated by them.
Just ignoring them, blocking them out,
removing them from history...
is gonna remove an important educational tool
to young people.
And that-- that's it.
♪
Defendant Jeffrey Williams and associate of YSL
released a song on YouTube
titled "Slime Shit,"
where the lyrics state,
"Hey, this is that slime shit, hey.
YSL shit, hey.
Killing 12 shit, hey.
Fuck a jail shit, hey.
Cooking white brick.
I'm in the VIP
and I got that pistol on my hip.
Hey, this that slime shit.
Fuck, fuck the police.
Fuck 'em in a high-speed.
Hundred rounds in a Tahoe.
I'm prepared to take 'em down.
Got banana clips for all these niggas acting monkey.
This that slime shit.
This that mob shit.
Fuck the judge, YSL, this that mob life."
An overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy.
Act 61--