Evening Exchange; Music Video Medium

We are that you know I think this is a problem to be defeated. Thank you. This is the condom for the evening exchange July 28th 1992. Who's responsible for creating the music videos that our children seem ties but

regulates which videos pour over our airwaves. Hi I'm cold. Join us tonight at 7:00 an evening exchange for the second half of our two part series on the music video industry and how it affects the younger members of our society. Tonight we'll talk with the director of music videos of the Music Video Pick a music program director and a psychologist. That's all tonight at 7:00 right here on the exchange. We talk with those behind the scenes of the video you're

so what's up next. The next day. Hello I'm Kojo Nandi welcome to evening exchange. Last night we heard the views of five young adults about the sexual images they see in some music videos. Tonight we'll talk with those directly involved in the industry. Joining us tonight are radio personality and host of new video connection. Candy Shannon music video director Billy Woodruff. Black Entertainment Television is director of music programming. Lydia Cole. Publisher of Sister 2 Sister magazine Jamie Foster Brown and psychologist Dr. Pat Fisher. Well we saw the young people last night talk about what they see in their opinions about videos. The impression that I got from that discussion is that it would

appear that nobody anywhere takes any real responsibility or feels any real obligation about what these young people see every day. Newspapers get letters to the editor articles magazines get articles that contain profanity or the lewd references. They routinely edit them out or decide not to publish them at all. To what extent are those decisions made in the recording and music video industry's list talk to the people who know the most about this first. Let's talk to Lydia Cole from Black Entertainment Television is what guidelines are you operating under for music programming ability. Within our music programming department we do feel that we have a social responsibility to our viewers. However at the same time we do have a relationship with the record companies and we are in a competitive business. We are not the only ones in the music

video game and taking all of that into account. We often request edits on videos. We often get videos in for screening and they are everything that we get in does not get on the air for various reasons some of them because of the quality others because of violence because of sex. And then those that what we attempt to do is to give everyone a fair chance. So if there is any conceivable way that the video can be edited and still get on the air we do that. We request edits we request our US we request video edits and we also talk to the labels and let them know how we feel about the kinds of videos that they send us. Do you ever get complaints. Oh we get lots of complaints. We get we get lots of letters from viewers from parents and we respond to them. We respond

to each of them and we let them know that we do care about what we put on the air. As a programming respond to those letters do you actually change things if you get enough letters from viewers objecting to it. I think we do. We don't. However we do. It's what we do we don't respond based on one letter. OK. OK. Because that's really not see I'm just open. Exactly. However if we get a large number of calls or letters on one particular video or that type of video then I take it to my boss. I'm not in a position. I go as far as I think I can and then when I get to a point where I feel that it could possibly infringe upon our relationships with the labels which provide us with the videos and it's something that I have to be concerned about then I take it to my boss and then we determine how far we can go and

where we should go from there. OK I want everybody else to jump in whenever they feel like it but one more question for you right here. To what extent would your boss say look this is too bad. I don't care if we absolutely suffer for our relationship that we have with this very profitable label for us. We're not running it. It's happened before I care. I can't speak for him and I tell you exactly what the example would be. But I can say that it has happened before. I will also say that it doesn't happen often but it has happened. The first video we ran on the program we won yesterday was by sort of mix a lot and it isn't and explicitly and explicitly long reference to women's behinds and it shows that shows women's behinds and what a lot of people would consider lewd and vulgar ways you can all comment. But Candy Shannon you host a music video show music video connection. What do you do when you see something that grates on your nerves but you don't really know.

Music video connection course runs on a broadcast channel not on a cable channel and operates under the standard broadcast practices so there makes a lot won't make it on the show. The show has been on since the evolution of music videos as a matter of fact. So we have been having this discussion 10 years ago. No we wouldn't. This discussion belongs now. Because then my experiences the music industry in the video industry responds to the public. These things are commercials for the artists. They are really not there if enough people respond negatively to something I dare say you'll start to see a change. Now there are a lot of cynics and hardcore people and you have to try to figure out what they're really aiming this at but we don't pay for video. They give those videos to us they spend a lot of money producing these and they are there to help your kids and my kids and to go out and buy records. So at Channel 9 to first to go back to say

for the music video connection. I once talked with the producer about it and four and he says you know I have kids and if I can't sit down and watch this with one of my sons It doesn't make it on the show. Well so as to facilitate our discussion for those of you who may not see that on a nationalist who may not have seen it on our last show let's take a look again at Sir Mix a Lot with his baby got back video. Why would he be eluding. Me.

And there you have it Jamie Foster Brown has long experience in the music video business. She has been a producer of music video shows and she is a critic of music videos. What do you think of when you see stuff like that and I mean you're obviously the publisher of a magazine about women mostly for women called Sister to Sister. What do sisters think when they see sisters like that. Well unfortunately today a lot of the young women that are coming up don't know to think anything about it. And that's where the problem last because they have not been sensitized to the fact that. When men talk about women like that they're putting in men and said I want their ornaments their things to be used and let go more left alone and I can't get men to understand what it means to see that unless I give them this other image. If if white men.

Had black me again showing their muscles off with their tea or the heavy lawyers or even in a collar like me and what a man will have a woman in the car like she's on THE LEAD. If a white man had a black man in the column the least it would be hell breaking out there and that's the only way I can get the guys to understand the subliminal messages that are being sent to the children making women think that the only way that they can get love or attention from a guy is having a big time and opening their little legs to receive sex and that's what this is wrong. Obviously you know that because there's a lot more to it. Also when the the industry preaches we're talking safe sex we're talking condoms and everything there's a lot more to sex than just having a condom on. There's a psychological trauma there when the guy uses a girl or a girl uses a guy and discards her. There's emotional damage there. There's something copy I did with pelvic inflammatory disease which once a girl starts a little too early with having sex if she can design develop problems that come later. So there's a thing of respect in

the home and all these things are missing. There's nothing both sexes I have I have a real problem with that. And also sex is reduced to an animalistic act in this not it's a beautiful thing. And this is one thing I try to teach my sons this is something that God gave us which is glorious is absolutely glorious. But we have taken it and put it on such a terrible level now and it's like man I pope that woman I'd yammer on anything that hurts. That's not making law. You know a lesson to a cow or something. I mean we're going to talk a lot about the duct official What is your impression Jimi talked about subliminal messages some of the messages I see in Baby Got Back don't need need to be subliminal right I don't doubt it was too much there in the form of subtlety is missed occasion. It's unfortunate that we have gotten to the point in the society where we don't look beyond the more obvious the more overt. What are what are these kinds of videos saying about how people should value themselves how they should identify

themselves how they should see themselves as the Tommies individual. Secondly in respect to or in relationship to the opposite sex. I mean the videos to me are really reducing and reinforcing the notion that women really don't have any value women more so than men and that men can then define for us how we should present ourselves or what we should value as a woman. I mean if we're only going to look at the physical aspects of a woman I have yet to see in the video any emphasis or any mention of intellect. Well I mean this may. Not like them but then I guess I don't know if there's some of these man look like that you read just and that. This girl was on The Blind Side really several of the right wing guy that sends another message but I wanted to bring our video director in here because because what Time Warner and the rest of the music industry will say is we are giving people what

they want to know. So when I am an artist and I come to believe and I say this is what I want I want you to go out and get me five or six extremely voluptuous women persuade them to take virtually all of their clothes off and that's why I'm going to get my message across what do you say. Well when you're doing a music video it is sort of like a fantasy for the artist this is their video this is them getting to do what they've always wanted to do and I think that's where it comes into play when Jamie mentioned you have some money that maybe it looks like they wouldn't have the type of people that are surrounding them of the young ladies or whatever. From my perspective as a director what I try to do is convince an artist I've had instances where people have wanted me to do things like I like to swim with a lot of video and I've been able to convince the artist to go a different route and if I'm not what do you refuse that. Yet I refuse what if Doris was a suitable if the artist refuses then I won't do that video I won't direct a video I'm responsible for those images and I wouldn't do anything that I don't feel comfortable

watching with my mother or my younger brother or you know someone I don't feel good about. I wouldn't do. I also have a problem with them beyond just the sex thing and violence in video especially in black videos with images of young black men running from the police and things like that and killing each other shooting. I would never do a video like that and I've turned on videos like that in the past. Candy robots. Well you ask upfront should we have had this discussion 10 years ago Kojo. And as someone involved in this industry Thank goodness we're talking about it because Pat talked about the value of wimmin J.V. referred to look at these guys where they have these kinds of weapons I mean the video was played to people on all kinds of levels and we are confronting so many images and stereotypes in our community. Now we could we could focus our whole show on sex in videos and then we could focus a whole nother show on violence and we could. It's another whole show on what people wear how people

dance how people wear their hair and all these things are things that we are all sit around and well you know we've heard people complain about only one kind of woman in a video and yet no one. You don't hear so much about only one kind of man. These kinds of discussions need to go on a need to go on with people sitting together watching videos need to go around with you have your child sitting there next to you what do you think of that what does that mean to you. You've mentioned sometimes kids take things at young ages differently than adults do. But that doesn't mean that you don't want to keep talking about it. Finding out what it means to them giving them other choices because there are good videos out here there are videos that are pieces. I think there are a video that comes to mind for me was Janet Jackson's All right video. OK now these people dance she brought in the Nicholas Brothers and sits you release and you know the whole movement everything about it made you feel good in you. You like some things like line and I just answered on the ceiling and recent

videos I always send good videos and they're always the videos go what's the message here but it is important to realize these are commercial. As for the artist fantasies for the artist when the record company puts up what kind of money Billy do you think they cause right now. A low budget video is $35000 a low budget film nobody really very much and me and you know Michael Jackson's videos are going to get more than a million. So they're really trying to appeal to people and to the most amount of people they can about I think it's a legitimate question that people start asking what kinds of images do we want repeatedly and we seem to have a limited scope of what we say we want you know. Let me ask you about the great variety of videos or the great variety of aspects of video that a lot of I would call them kind of sources of video see which is what young people tend to be tend to be when they see them. Those of us who only don't see that large variety of what we tend to see is a certain sameness in the videos. We tend to see the sex and

violence over and over again maybe in different forms with the same kind of explicit message and I know Dr. Fisher was just going to say something and Jamie wants to I mean this is so much to say I don't know where to start all Jenny. Yes. I have problems with. An obviously we need to talk about what's going on but I think we need to get to another point. We as I will do are responsible. Hopefully mature adults need to start taking more responsibility and saying enough is enough. Society in general has been co-opted. Young black people's children have been co-opted a hundred times. It's continuing to happen. Unfortunately we know statistics show that blacks tend to watch TV more than whites do. Yes. Our children are not being taught how to critically think and not even have think much less critically. They're not being taught how to analyze. We're not talking with them to the extent that we should help them to help them develop their thought processes. We need to if anything start you know demanding that if we go if they're

going to watch videos then we need to bring another type another quality Another content of videos to the poor. Do you want to do that. I think you know I think the industry. And some of the responsibility. Well see I you know when we get into this and having someone where I get a little nervous when we want them to do it for us. Well let's do it for ourselves OK. That's how I make and I enjoy the industry in terms of we will not tolerate you continuing to brain ration because you know it happens is they'll say OK well we'll do it this way but we let them do it and then it's up to them again right. They can put out a message they think you want OK well suppose we don't have all thin women and we arrange them in colors and hair and will you be happy ok. But there could be all kinds of other things. It isn't It has to start with the people not with the industry. But Helen this is determined by how much money whatever a video or record makes they know whether or not people are happy. With this video or record by the

extent to which people either buy or tune in to watch it or call it on do we not have it as an analogy along a different line. The Bill Cosby Show for example. I don't think anyone expected that show to have achieved the success financial or otherwise that it did. It's a very clean family oriented positive value. He has a psychiatrist Alvin Harris suckers our son who acted as a consultant in terms of. I guess reading the scripts and making sure that certain kinds of attitudes and values were reinforced and projected. Why couldn't we. And certainly the Association of Black Psychologists whom I am a member of should perhaps be playing a role in this run shouldn't and couldn't we be acting as consultants to some of the record companies and the industry in terms of trying to provide some feedback with respect to the messages it makes so much sense but Jamie and candy and I know a lot more about the record business than I do. Tell us what would happen to the Association of Black Psychologists went to Time Warner and said we would like to consult with you on the only way I look the only way they're going to

make a difference is this. If you hit them in the park right now if tomorrow Mary Had A Little Lamb was the thing that everybody wanted to get down with. That's the kind of music they would put out you know to say that I live the more you tell them the more you read it the way I look at dealing with them is not so much through. I'm look at dealing with the mag dowels and people like that if if I were to say well my dollars I just saw Beatty or MTV program a video that had your computer commercial was right behind it and you're supporting that. And I find it very offensive. You will have a lot of response from BT MTV and all the men who have to stake a short break and when we come back more music videos so stay with us. Welcome back to evening exchange in case you've just tuned in this is the second half of a two part series

examining the music video industry. We are joined by whl radio personality candy Shannon who hosts the music video connection. Lydia Cole is director of music programming at BT Billy Woodruff is a video director also of the Jamie Foster Brown is editor of Sister 2 Sister magazine the one that when you see me again I'll be holding up. Psychologist Dr. Pat Fisher that last video we watched was called Baby baby baby and the lyrics said if you want to get me off. You've got to know the deal. This is something that we discussed yesterday and I'd like to hear the grown up comments on it today because the young people yesterday seem to feel that it was perfectly all right that they wanted their nice nice. Then that's where I get used as an example. The subtleties back a little bit with that with baby baby baby in a too proud to beg it was another story. I never saw the interpreter the video one of our young people confuse the two yesterday but getting back to what the music industry in the video industry will accept.

Did you get the impression if you saw the show yesterday that our young people feel that this is such a big and powerful industry that we're going to do just fine thank you for your family. They did feel that way. But I you know it's like searching what to do I mean I I am pulling a lot of women very important women together especially mothers and there are a lot of female artists who are like sick of it. You know they're just saying we are so tired of this. So there are movements and rumblings about this is enough you know we're going to take back our children. I particularly feel that black women are the only answer to how to get our families and our husbands and our children's children back and also the young man that we are raising today that turn out to be beast from our bellies our children don't come out of us like that but we lose control of them and I think that it's very important that we stand up for us and I'll give you an example. We talked about this in some couple years ago my sister who writes in the magazine stylised bestseller that we sell a Foster we attack Don Cornelius with the Soul Train

and we call that whole train. Because she they actually tell the cameraman to train the cameras on the young girls in between their dresses and stuff. They tell young girls that the more lewd you act the skimpy or you dress the more the camera will be on you so this is a pressure for them because they want to be seen they want to be actresses models or whatever for them to take off their clothes to be as little as they can while we've got that coming into our homes for an afternoon or a new nowhere whatever time it is and Don Cornelius was very upset with me and said that we were trying to actually get fame off of him. My point is if you go on the show it show at midnight or 1am or something like that so that the Japanese businessman and all those who we're be seeing the fam with food there we're program below the navel and we really program to men when we get our the problem also is the Don Cornelius got upset with you. He did right. He was doing anything that he did and accepted.

And so it comes back again to the point that those people who really are concerned who recognize why perhaps a teenage pregnancy rate is out of control there are many factors but perhaps this is part of it is the attitude that young people have about sex and then if we were talking more about the violence that might also enter may have something to do with this but to expect it to come. From this that source I think is naive but it has to come from the people who buy the records who raise the children. And what if you have people who don't have sense enough. There are so many people out there who don't have the tools with which to deal with this. I mean we are. My family as I have two male teenagers and my sister my husband and I are together. We're both educated we're both middle class and we're smart because we're always Braben trying to figure out how to get around this the better the other. And also I'm involved in the music industry I know before my children know

what the next record is going to be or the next trend will be. We can't tell. Even though it's a five star family let's say we can't tell what about that family out there that has one parent or no parents or anything. They have no one talking to them like that they don't have and might not. I mean. My children want to see one of the board see Cyprus here a couple of weeks ago they want to go out to the capital center. Parents are afraid also they're not they're not being parents they are being friends but that's not the fault of the music industry i'm not want to defend it because I find a lot personally horribly offensive and the images that women. Are subjected to. I sit with my niece who is 15 years old and go come on Christina know. What do you think about that. Now I can only affect her really. I'm not in a big room and but maybe when she goes back to High Point High School she'll talk to somebody. It still has to come from us if we were given the responsibility let me just say this. Surely there is a responsibility here because this is mass media. There's no way I'm going to now

have the stuff that gets into my children's here. No way then I know when you have the time listener Stephan you say wow don't let my kid listen to that I don't let them see that you cannot say that when those kids are going to everybody where are you going. And so what do you want do you want the big censor. Because that's what we're really talking about I want a big responsibility. I think. The more that I'm going to say I'm not I'm saying what you're saying but the more. I noticed this with my magazine though the more people come to me and respond to things that are in my magazine and I see the the lauter is getting the more influence it has. That tells me the more responsible I have to be with the problem of what I say in it and that I have to research the facts and and I can't be responsible just throw anything out there and hurt someone you know. Coming back to this the suggestion of the American Psychological Association I want because of that to get into the heads for a minute of the people who create these records and videos and the people who come to you and say I want to do this.

You've got a lot of it seems mostly guys out here although Jamie Foster Brown will soon read a lyric that apparently was not written by guys that we're going to hear about what these guys are as he would come to you and say this is what I'm writing about and this is what's in my head. I'd like those of you who interact with them socially to tell me a little bit tell our viewing audience a little bit about what are these guys thinking. Well right now in the well in black music everyone's very concerned image wise concerned with coming across as being very hard if you will that means a lot of adults don't know what hard me with a ph street like gangster you know tough fighting about a crisscross doll smile they raise the little boy cry all smiling. They get to be you had the group Kris Kross is very successful now the young kids on the record time he doesn't want them to be seen in any way that makes them seem like they're nice even though they are nice. So I mean but there's a lot of that's marketing and the marketing now is to be hired I mean to

interrupt them bring on psychology what you have is a record industry right that says we can help you to make a great deal of money but you gotta act like against. Right but that's not new. They've tried to do that and have done it for centuries now. PARADA we those of us who think we have some level of of consciousness know our history know how the game is played. Why are we so quiet about this. I agree with you Candy that it's going to take a concerted effort and I don't think it's one dimensional. I think it needs to be people within the industry needs to be churches it needs to be families that need to have professional groups. It needs to be all of us and we need a plan. We need a strategy because we are being co-opted again in a more much more sophisticated level. What do black men think they don't think their consumers but the fear they act react to women accordingly and because women are so rare women they're not are so passive and are so brainwashed they go along with the problem way somehow. That is lacking.

Well I was going to say the people that are really controlling these images the people that are in control of the budgets that the record companies then that black men there are mostly white men and then once in control of the money and you have a crisscross that want to be successful and wants to make money in the images thats going to make it for them then they're going to go with that and it's very hard to battle money and I think that unless we have African-Americans in control of the money or means of distribution for records and albums and music videos that you're not really going to be able to effect a total change you know without you know totally redirecting the way that it's done there are groups like Arrested Development that's a rap group. There's very positive very much into earth and the environment and into spirituality that's doing very well and they're crossing over there is they last you know after being asked. Yes I do that make up the draft people like fresh prince who's virtually lost a career as a rapper while he's gained one as a television with. Because it's supposed to be too soft. Yeah. Oh most good because you know they were seen as being friends change their image as well when you did a new

album. He got hotter he talks deeper now. He has songs that are different from what he did before. They deal with a lot of the explicit Libya was the determines that that's what's got to sell because global artists in Washington D.C. who are very popular around who just cannot break out nationally are constantly told by record companies you look all right but your lyrics are hard enough to go on if they have the great beat but their lyrics just aren't hard I think you know it's those decisions that a bigger problem the Melpomene it's not it's a regional kind of thing. OK it's more than just their IQs but the people just like Billy so that make that decision. Are our white men and white men and they decide what how to market our black artists and you know artists want to make the big bucks they want to get in the door. The Arrested Development are few and far between the name of Arrested Development album says everything about what it took for them to get in into the business designing

years is a name the dimensions on I find fabulous one month and 10 days or something like that and that's the length of time that they've been together trying to get a record deal. They're different. They got lucky. I would honestly feel they got lucky and they obviously were talented and there are a lot of other people out there that are talented that aren't getting those kind of deals because they don't want to give up their principles and be marketed in a way that's not them. They don't want to be sold down the river for all intent and purposes. But I agree with Candy I think that it has to be that we as as consumers and parents and viewers have to do our part but also the record industry has a responsibility it's a business it is a business that is taking large amounts of money out of our communities. And as a business they have a responsibility to the people who keep them going. The environment the same thing with Exxon and Exxon messes up the environment we go after Exxon

you messed up our water our founding and the same thing is lyrical all spare us into our community. That really affects these children not only children grownups also really give Jamie the opportunity in a second to talk about the women's contribution to music video but first let's take a look at another music video and then discuss the role of women. This video is giving him something he can feel by in full we recorded this one from video. Jim. Douglas.

Obviously we've already been talking about this and what I've been generally saying is that the this is classic coming. Some of the just the guys here right now let me see your general comments on this. There is one thing I like about this video it is it is not as vulgar. Those women are dressed in their evening gowns as very beautiful they are beautiful presentation to their eye candy. I comment I can see they they're rubbing the beehive. I have seen that kind of slinky sultriness from years ago when the going 35 sings and there's the element that's very tastefully right there on stage and the men can watch and there's there is a little subtle difference where I'm performing for you and you can enjoy it but don't

touch. I think that message kind of comes across what happens in many videos though is the artist jumps into his fantasy and he touches. But then he had a letter for good Michael's bad video in which he grabbed a squatch 14 and of course now there is an example of response changing a video. Remember and that neither the violent part of the eye yet is to our studio where it was dangerous. I can't remember what I was about. But I believe I remember this more than a year I can write at any rate. It premiered on broadcast television much to the dismay apparently of too many parents who saw the you didn't know what happened to our nice clean Michael Jackson and they changed and edited the video. Then out of this but my car is going on here. Michael has it is not your normal artistes. He he has a lot more social responsibility to my family and most of us most of them and I think you know his Naomi sounds pretty and I was more Pol with that we're going to nuke him. There Naomi Campbell video was

news to me. I was more than I was reacting to to the industry and to what everyone else was doing and I think that one of the things that can be said earlier that I don't agree with I think it's there are more videos that are going in that direction and not fewer. They're they're few and far between which you will find that don't have sex and violence and lyrics that have some kind of problems. Whereas as recent as probably three years ago you would you would you would have to look and you would almost find them totally in the rap genre. You would not find strictly R&B video would have the degree of sex and violence that you that almost comes and everything you get now. What amazes me though is how with the we have some really diseases are here. I just really I still can't get over this how are you. Tongue kissing every and anything but I mean it's like they don't believe anything can you not.

They don't even know what that is. As a matter of fact I would like you to without mentioning the name of the group. Read some of the really want me to rethink Yes I really want you to read here is the P C are good to you. No haste to waste made it back to the apartment and being the instigator. I started drop two straws and then start kissin F Ab to be asked no time for reminiscence Lupin inthe second knob and slobbering stiff like him half built like a rocket. He steady effen down in my throat but I'm loving every bit and refused to Chuck. He's all excited but I stay calm to laugh in my mouth like a cherry bomb. I swallow every ounce of that sticky cum. That's how our D start should be done. Nothing means more than pleasing you is the piece still good to hear. Now tell our viewers the name of that group. It just would probably there's another book called holes with that ad was done to show what our women understanding from all of this is a question that you have to answer when we come back because we have to take a short break so you stay right where you are we'll be right back. I. Think that you know. Oh. You.

Want me to. Think. Iraq. Welcome back we're discussing music videos and the effect they have on the young people who watch them and I frankly

didn't understand why the video was running but Jamie Foster brought What does the video you're talking about of the impact they have on young people the effect it has about what. This is you know but you know these are laypersons children a psychologist. Yeah this is really sad. And it's depressing beyond depressing. I think that people who are what you say I think that adults will be spent respond more if they knew what the words were saying. We tend to cut after because they turn that down don't tell the child with her and there's a. Right to say what they're saying. Liz like when I when I mentioned earlier during the break I wrote the lyrics Mike does not put the bleeps and everything in there from two years ago and people were very upset with me that I would even put something like that in my book but I did it so that they would understand this is what your children are listening to over and over and over again. At least read it so you are aware that a parent's are not spending the kind of time monitoring their children talking with their children finding out and trying to determine what's

going on in their heads. They have as I said I do have that right if someone comes to us that we're thinking of forming a group with the name holes with attitude. I'm with you. The mental that you started in your professional capacity counseling them and then they came back to you two years later and said guess what. We made a million dollars. We're famous people now look up to us and want to be like us. And I would say I'm not surprised you made a million dollars. I'm not surprised that you got got the kind of response you did because that's where society as a whole is. But let's get beyond that. What does calling yourself a bitch say about the way you think and feel about yourself as a human being. You know we've talked so many years about civil rights. Maybe we need to shift the focus and start talking about human rights OK because as human beings we need to understand and we don't need to make any bones about it. We have got to start loving miking and respecting ourselves more. And when we start doing that we will stop doing to ourselves

what we're doing to ourselves and letting other people do it to us in terms of defining us. But how do we go about doing this. I mean I think we all all of us here sitting here know that and for our children will provide that. But there are thousands of that I don't like out there particular who don't have that who don't come from households where where their parents even have time to care. As you know many who live in a society where money is everything I know that they knew they have it because it's a very difficult question is it not to try to say to people who think that OK I'm not going to ever play basketball. But I can make up a lyric that's going to shock folks and they're going to scream and yell cause I see it happening on television and I can make my money this way and get myself out of this finance you know what I mean the thing is that I confront a lot of the groups about it because once they come they only like to come into my circle sometimes anonymously because I do I do you have to be Jeff I don't ever want to alienate a group and even Luke Skywalker this is

really interesting. I slam move left and right all the time in the magazine when he doesn't look to the same person move the camera. OK amble. Well you know to my beliefs I was hoping I you have to bend I mean little Skywalker because he had they abandoned that right and but I have been after him for a long time because I said I just tell him I stick it to him whenever I can it makes a difference to him. On one level because when he does something good he grabs our right that he did something good and he grabs the magazine the holes and runs away with it. Now his office calls me up and says Jamie Luke said call you we want to do an ad we got this song about Professor Griff crosses to SR and is so positive about women and he knows you're going to be excited. That's the con. That's how I want children calmness and that's how our children who become artists in my opinion columns they will put in every album one or two positive exactly something agree.

It is really good seeing you with this one. Not one professor feels he is more political he would I want to know of a great writer he was rather. But what you are talking my NWA and bitches were problems they had that was the con they were. Now there are some radio stations that refuse to play that one nice record because they said they're like Pied Piper's to children around to buy the album you know here and all the rest of them later. My thing is to most I find that most of the artists in the industry are truly not aware of a lot of things no one has ever told us you know not no one is going to happen to them there are children. You have to look at them like children. Why do you have to be active on the record label Why does principals have to look mean all the time I say I was really pissed off excuse me with you off for doing that are really sticking it to him. Now I am at a risk because who supports me. The reckon that's where we are really what we're saying is that if people do care and are concerned then those who have any kind of power at all they have to. Have to go ahead and do with the way you think. For instance in one little small thing you know I once made the mistake of wearing something I thought was too short. I couldn't believe it no one said

anything to me about it when I thought I'd tell my son and I when you were done were Vera's to her and I knew I wouldn't want my child to find that tape and ever see it some days so I from then on new it doesn't matter. Oh you look good honey I don't care. That is now who can dish it and it's going to be on the you're lucky somebody is a song to me every day about what I want. Interesting to hear you barely say that they're children because all of us the rest of us have children so it's easy for us to say people are acting like children. You say a lot of the artists that you deal with a basically children whom nobody it appears has ever really tried to correct them. You know you deal with a lot of people dead. They get money and fame really fast. It's new to them and they haven't worked out you know how they want to live their lives with the the right way to live and they don't have a lot of people or anyone a lot of them you know guiding them in the right direction they don't have guidance their managers are just trying to make money off of them when they get as a lot of flattery. Yeah I mean they get the fans they get the adulation they get the record sales you know I don't want to name any artist but the people that I see in the videos that you're

playing now that I'm I've known since they started out and I know how they conduct themselves and their private lives and it's just reflected you know in in the in the music videos they don't have a responsibility for with this thing and they don't have a lot of Jimi's who are running around trying to trump them every time she sees them. So. Because I'm better so we get back to the people power what many of them many of them think that come from low income areas and not have a perception that's their. That's their perception of reality and they think that that's how it is for everybody I think that is that you know women are general and that that's their perception of women in general and it always has been it doesn't change. And they feel that they are giving the real message they think they're telling the real story. So they don't even understand why you would be upset and those people that are in the music industry that are making decisions there from their viewpoint vantage point and it is only a story of black people very well off.

Well many of them act as if. They don't want hair. They are here they know the right the money they don't care and the black people they work with want to make the money too so they work for them. They're not going to say anything. They feel that it's up to the parents what it is to to teach the child and teach them properly and even some of them say well that's what goes on in their household so what's the problem then I have the right of that is that what you're saying is absolutely correct. But the thing is that this complacency impassivity is what drives me up the wall. I can I handle that and I keep telling them your CEO is not the man to CBS RCA or Motown or here and how university is the man upstairs if you are doing wrong eventually in this you you have to know will right from wrong. These children a lot of them have not even been taught right from wrong. And my thing is that when you get a child do you get a Luke Skywalker in their pie Piper's they have the minds of our children. So what do you do you can't change them you can't tell the kids don't listen to them that makes the children listen to it more. You have to talk to them you have to talk to them in the past.

You have to make them more aware but you don't talk to your children to as they listen to it now and you can say go back right what's what is he talking about your kid says if you say do you really think that don't be afraid right Gauger children or children on the street corner I was walking. Well that's another long story. But my feeling is that I think another message we need to make clear. Lydia was saying what they think this is a reality. But those people that Billy can testify you make a music video in my take you two or three days to do five minutes what we see is not reality people. Television is not for real except good shows like this and I'm no more aware than I was that we had that were around people not aware that I'm saying that the artist that's making it thinks it's reality not what not that but OK. Well and what's their perception then they don't see anything wrong. But what I want I don't mean it I'm just trying to explain it when I'm in the 60s we romanticize the brothers on the block. Yeah because that was the only reality that had any cultural integrity and the thing to

remember is that when you actually see on screen two steps back there's a lighting director and there's the slate. I mean it really they don't see that either. But we need to understand that and help people realize then you can appreciate it for what it is or isn't. And you still have your real life but you can make the trial in the ghetto right who's living that life. I mean I think. Have a look at it. We can sit here and look at it if we want in our middle class way and only see our viewpoint. But that's not going to change anything you have to look at the whole picture and you have to look at everybody every variable as a part of that which are like the one that the fantasy that says I've got a zillion women. No no I don't know that says that that women are objects of us are sexual objects and that's OK by me and at last that. I mean you have to look at the message Jamie said that they're presenting it's not they don't necessarily break it down to every little thing in terms that we see in the video. They see there's where the that is how a mom a mother we're going to talk the talk we talk about sex

and violence in the videos. Do the videos of anybody's opinion encourage a combination of the two. Violence against women. Yeah oh yeah you know the whole society much more or just not deal with them. I mean one minute bothers me is that it also encourages. Blackmail is violence against one another like a black nigger. I will shoot this nigger you know I was just telling my towel last night I don't want to listen to this particular cause I listen to what they're listening to and he said Mom I just happen to like to be because the beat is infectious. OK don't ever in them an ate the beat the beat is what gets you in the first place and then eventually you get drawn into it. He wants that beat now he's going to he's going to say those words. I said what you doing this desensitized you in terms of the life of another black person I'll shoot a nigger. This is very scary to me. And I but I was there to tell him that but the most parents I say put your walkman on don't have a time put the Walkman on because they're listening to the

exclusion of all else at that time. It's brainwashing really. We only have a very little time left and I'd like to know what advice any of you would give to the parents of young people to whom these videos are being addressed literally and watch with them and execute your authority as a parent to turn it off. Don't be their friend you're not their friend they have not paid our bill and have given. Just tell them that you the lines of communication open and set limits with them. And I guess to those of you who are too outraged by these videos some of them to tolerate them at all then you will have to do with Jamie Foster Brown and others are suggesting you have to organize and fight to deal with the commercial sponsors and to deal with the record companies and lobby but we do have to take another short break and we'll be right back. When you go away to what you want to be would you like

Iraq. That's our show for tonight. Our thanks to our panel of guests for joining us and our thanks to you our

viewers for your support of the evening exchange. And all of us to all of you. Good night. Thank. You. Evening exchange depends on your contributions. Please send your donation to MTV 20 to 22 4th Street Northwest Washington DC 2 0 0 5 9.