Hilburn’s Defense of Rap--Fans and Foes React : What Role Models?

If “rap’s most important message may not be in the music or words at all, but in the establishment of rappers as role models,” and even if “what’s often overlooked in the criticism of the song is that the narrator doesn’t follow through on the impulse,” any group that even has the impulse to “kick the woman in the stomach and kill the baby” is sick, deviant and totally pathetic!

Role models? To whom? And to what mentality? To what kind of society are we speaking?

The fact of the matter is quite simple, really. This is not music in any definition of the word. This is garbage, it’s boring and insulting to anyone of any intelligence at all! Freedom of speech? Artistic freedom? Don’t make us laugh! There’s no “art” in all this, and as for vindication, we think not. Not even time will vindicate such an assault on the senses.

The saddest part of all this is that the rappers are doing to their community exactly what the more outrageous members of the gay liberation movement are doing to theirs: setting back the “cause” about 20 years. Truly a shame and a disservice to all the people in each group who have worked tirelessly to promote a positive image and make our world a better place.

KEITH EVANS

Studio City