Lend me your ears

The most recent silently raging debate in sweet St. Lucia and in some other parts of the Caribbean is the banning of music with sexually explicit lyrics and glorification of violence. Where have I heard that before? Hmmm! One of our local pundits whom I enjoy listening to on occassion but don't always agree with spoke about this on the evening news commentary a couple weeks ago. To make his point he spoke about the popular music of his time; namely the musical masterpieces of the mighty sparrow. He pointed out the fact that while sparrow sang about anything and everything his most popular songs were about women and the exploration of their great beyonds. I snickered a bit when he made the point, because I too have made that point to some of my older colleagues.

While sparrow and the calypsonians of his time and even now were crafty in their lyrics and used not so obvious ways to speak about the act of sex and the private or not so private parts of a woman, the fact remains they sang about what how local talk show idiots, sorry host, refer to as smut. Albeit nicely packaged smut, but smut none the less. Not that I think it is smut either way.

For the most part the people hooting and hollering about the content of the songs on the airwaves are adults. Adults are particularly offended when you speak directly about the facts of life in raw unfiltered language; it reflects a lack of decorum (not that adults have really taken up the responsibility of guiding the youth in a more positive direction by their own actions, I too am guilty of such irresponsibilty). Ok, you have young listeners. Edit the damn music, or if it is too profane/violent don't play it or play it late night. You know most of the artist who sing these songs are in their late twenties, the record label owners are older than most of them likewise the radio station owners.

By chance has anyone ever heard of prohibition. That didn't stop the consumption of alcohol; it actually resulted in quite a lucrative illegal enterprise.

Our politicians, pundits, know-it-alls, and all round idiots keep looking for plasters to stop the hemorrhaging. It has not worked in the past and it won't work now. Banning music won't stop the rampant violence and the abundant exchange of bodily fluids, neither will it increase it, it may very well spawn something else.

Strangely, some of these songs have so much explicit content, that by the time it is edited and played on the air it has nothing more than the beat of the song left; and pieces of speech in between making the artist sound like he/she stutters. And seriously, with the internet and the ability to download pretty much anything, do these people really believe that the youth they are trying to protect from such lyrics won't gain access to the songs and the artist. Really!

Let's find some more meaningful solutions to our societal problems and stop making very lame attempts to address the symptoms.