NEXT Thursday and Friday the University of the West Indies will host a symposium, “Transforming Values and Attitudes: Policy Challenges for Jamaican Society”. Attending will be policy makers, scholars, along with media and entertainment industry leaders who will examine the critical factors underlying the deepening social disintegration in Jamaica today and suggest remedies.

One of the sessions for Friday afternoon, titled, “Constructive and Destructive Music Lyrics — from Bling Bling Culture to Social Transformation” will, in all probability, generate heated debate over the extent to which popular music, such as dancehall and hip-hop, reflects or causes social decay.

In doing some research around the issue, a colleague brought to my attention, the remarks of a 10 year-old boy from New York, Molefi Henrik McIntosh, delivered to over 1,000 people at the Million Youth Forum held at Bethany Baptist Church on Thursday, February 6. I have decided to share it in its entirety as I believe his insights offer useful guidelines for analysis of this complex issue.

“My name is Molefi McIntosh, I am 10 years old and maintain an A average at Cush Campus School. I am a member of the Committee to Eliminate Media Offensive to African People (CEMOTAP). I am the youth respondent on the issue of entertainment and ‘edutainment’.

“I intend to march in the Brooklyn Million Youth March of 2003. One of the issues I hope will be addressed by the March is racism in hip-hop music. I love hip-hop music but my independent research shows that almost 100% of the lyrics are racist and anti African. None are anti-Semitic but all are anti-kemetic.

“With the help of my parents I obtained the names and lyrics of Billboard’s top 15 hip-hop R&B lyrics. I then made a chart where I counted the number of times the ‘N’ word was used to describe Africans, the ‘F ‘word or the ‘MF’ word was used and the word ‘B’ to describe Black women. I also counted the number of times the words ‘Cracker’, ‘Honkey ‘or any derogatory words were used to describe whites or any word at all to refer to Jews.

“Next I looked at whether the issue of racism was dealt with at all. I did this by listing the nine areas of people/people activity in which racism operates as described by Neely Fuller and Dr Francis Cress Welsing. Those areas are labour, law, politics, education, entertainment, economics, religion, sex and warfare. If those areas are not addressed then racism cannot be fully addressed.

“These are my findings. The ‘N’ word is used 25 number of times in the top 15 records. Eleven of the top 15 records use either the ‘N’ word. the ‘B’ word or the ‘F ‘word. Zero use the word ‘Cracker’, ‘Honkey’ or any word at all referring to whites or Jews. Nine of the top 15 records have sex and/or crime as their main subjects. Three of the top 15 address economics. None address the areas of labour, law, politics, entertainment or education. One addresses the area of religion.

“None address the impending war in Iraq or the three to five million Africans killed in wars on the African continent over the past eight years. None address the issue of political prisoners. None address racism. My conclusion is that hip-hop music does not address our number one problem. When it addresses the areas of life in which racism operates, it gives incorrect messages.

“The top 15 records say that spending rather than producing equals wealth. The top 15 records use degrading words to describe Blacks but not whites or Jews. I love hip-hop music. I love the beat and I love the music but it needs to be improved and it needs to help our people progress and advance. I would like to see this topic addressed at the 2003 Million Youth March.”

Molefi, using research techniques and analytical skills that belie his age, gets to the heart of the problem that many thoughtful cultural critics of hip-hop in urban America and dancehall in Jamaica have been grappling with for many years: The music helps to bring awareness to the conditions of suffering and injustice faced by neglected communities but it is derided for the vulgarity of much of the lyrics, its degrading treatment of black women and it does not point a way out.

The singer and rights activist, Sabrina Williams, made the point at a symposium, ‘Women in Reggae’ at the UWI last Saturday to mark International Women’s Day (March 8).

According to Basil Walters’ report of the symposium, (Observer March 11), Sabrina lashed out against male artists for focusing exclusively on negative stereotypes. “Them bun homosexuality, dem talk bout dem gal and how dem baad inna bed, vanity and possessions — dem money, dem car, dem jewellery. Violence is another thing — informa fi dead and dem kind a things.”

Cultural reggae artiste, Jessy Jender, took a similar position on Man Talk with Simon Crosskill (TVJ, March 2), “licking out against all slackness” in most of the contemporary dancehall lyrics. Instead of serving “to liberate” the music “a carry we way down inna Sodom, whoredom and prostitution”, he insisted.

‘Bassie’, of the group TOK of Chi Chi Man fame, conceded to Crosskill that the artiste has “a responsibility” for the message in what a 14 year-old caller to the show described as this “out-of-order music” that assaulted her on the bus although it was not played at home. But he insisted that the artiste was a mirror, reflecting the “hard-core” reality of Jamaican society.

I believe the people who make the music must seriously address these concerns. On the positive side, some changes are emerging, if slowly. One of them, noted by Mutabaruka, poet and talk show host, (Cutting Edge, Irie-FM), is a strong anti-rap music sentiment in the US led by young black women opposed to being described in the lyrics as “whores and bitches” (Observer, March 13).

Another is the attempt, over the past two years or so, to shift hip-hop towards social and political activism through the hip-hop Summit Action Network (HSAN), a federation of rap artistes, industry executives and civil rights activists to confront racism and other community issues.

Chaired by Russell Simmons, the most influential business figure in hip-hop music, HSAN has its critics, some of whom see it as a cover for rap’s image of violent, gang-themed, sexist lyrics and the bling-bling culture of flashy cars, gaudy jewellery and expensive life-tyles, far removed from the urban reality of their raw material.

Benjamin Chavis Muhammad, HSAN president and CEO and the keynote speaker for the symposium here next week, believes there is now less gratuitous sex and violence in the music than ever.