VENTURA : Police Give Parents Tips on Rap Music

Drug and gang experts with the Ventura Police Department will present a two-part lecture to educate parents about the messages relayed in rap music and about the extent of gang activity in Ventura.

Part 1 is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Buena High School cafeteria, and Part 2 will be in the same place and time on Jan. 23. The program will be repeated Feb. 6 and 20 at Ventura High School and March 13 and 27 at DeAnza Middle School.

A similar lecture was held in Ventura recently and the response was so good that the department decided to extend the program, said Officer Ross Nideffer, who will speak on rap music.

“Our main message is that parents need to listen to this music so they can best advise their children,” Nideffer said. “We’re not promoting censorship. We just want to educate people.”

Nideffer said parents need the talks because the slang in some rap tunes is especially hard to understand and masks some groups’ glorification of drive-by shootings and gang activities.

For instance, in “Ice Ice Baby,” Vanilla Ice’s No. 1 single, “part of the lyrics blatantly talk about doing a drive-by shooting” Nideffer said.

“But Vanilla Ice has a reputation among parents as being a rapper without any negative images in his songs,” Nideffer said of the clean-cut singer who looks more like a blond model than a rap star. “But then I started listening to the words in his songs and, it seems to me that they have some pretty negative images.”