Now, as a father, I can no longer allow my children to listen to songs currently playing on the radio. While taking my children to school in the morning, I have to dodge from station to station trying to avoid sexually explicit, raunchy conversation by the show host. Picking my children up from school at 3pm, when the latest record plays, it’s a disaster waiting to happen.
The lyrics are disrespectful, degrading, and poisonous to a young mind in development. I have worked way too hard for my children to be instantly influenced by this crap. Revolting against all that I teach them? I think not!Once upon a time the profanity in music was hidden so well with clever DJ scratches, “radio” versions almost sounded better than the original. Radio stations used to have strict regulations for the music that contained explicit words, such as the b-word or ho.
Today, lyrical content is so explicit, even the “clean” version is problematic. It appears radio stations have compromised to please the artist and an industry that continues to push the already blurred lines of what is acceptable to say and suggest in music. That makes it 10Xs harder for me to be a fan of Hip Hop/R&B and parent at the same time. I have to protect my children because radio stations no longer feel a sense of moral responsibility and this is where the problem lies.
I can recall legendary Philadelphia natives Gamble & Huff writing a song “Message In Our Music.” What is the message in our music now?
