Ugly Ideas Rapped in Music

I like rap, have since the first time I heard it, which was way back when, pre-CD. I’ve still got my old 33-rpms.

Some people--namely my editor with the Neil Young complex--think that this is rather amusing.

Sometimes this man mentions that I should write a column about a white suburban mom-type who drives a station wagon with a baby car seat in the back who bops with the rap thumping from her radio. I have resisted the idea.

Also, for the record, my editor drives a minivan .

But rap is back to making news, ugly news, and all of a sudden people who would be hard pressed to distinguish between an Ice-T and a Diet Coke are spouting lyrics and talking boycott. This time it’s the cops who are angry, and they have cause.

They say that Ice-T’s “Cop Killer” is sending the wrong message, that cops are out there risking their lives every day and that the very last thing this country needs is some “rap artist” going on about dusting some cops off.

Even President Bush (“sick”), VP Quayle (“obscene”), Oliver North (“seditious”) and 60 mostly Republican members of Congress (“despicable”) have opined on Ice-T’s lack of respect for the forces of the law.

(Never mind that in the same “Body Count” album, our man Ice-T bravely combats the forces of racism by raping his “KKK Bitch” in front of her father.

(Then he blows away his mother in “Momma’s Gotta Die Tonight,” a prelude to cutting her into “little bitty pieces” because she didn’t like the white girl he brought home. The best I can make out, Momma is set on fire before she’s killed.)

But, anyway, dissing cops is entirely something else.

Law enforcement groups say that unless the album’s producer, Time Warner, withdraws it from the market and apologizes to the police for doing wrong, they will boycott the conglomerate’s products.

In other words, that will mean no “Batman Returns,” or Sports Illustrated, or even “Murphy Brown” for those upholding the code.

Funny how Time Warner does not seem alarmed.

Ice-T’s “Body Count” album has been selling about 20,000 copies a week nationwide since the cops made their objections known. And, by the way, “Batman Returns” is still very big.

A while back, it was 2 Live Crew and its album “Nasty as They Wanna Be” that was causing a stink. Sort of, I mean. Mostly 2 Live Crew was just mopping up the rewards.

The guys were rapping about, oh, you know, the usual degradation and extreme sexual violence toward women. They were for it.

This is nothing new in popular music--heavy metal and rock are pretty good at it too--but the particular vileness of 2 Live Crew’s lyrics caught the attention of The Public At Large.

This public is the one that thinks in terms of boycotts and letters to the editor and pleas to legislators and district attorneys that something should be done! And something was done, of course.

2 Live Crew got really big.

So let me just spell it out. Controversy equals hip, and hip sells, very well. Boycotts may have the opposite effect. When it comes to rap music, The Public At Large is off the beat. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. But don’t call a press conference to announce the news.

Cynicism rules.

Which brings me to my plan; I think this could be pretty big. Maybe FemiNazi, the rap group could be called. This is what one of my correspondents calls me and others of my “ilk.”

(Then, again, the Bob Dornan-inspired L.S.C. (Lesbian Spear Chuckers) has a certain ring . . . )

Regardless, there is a need for such a group. At the very least, FemiNazi’s “artistic anger” would attempt to even things out. This is what the group can announce at its press conferences. Poetic sneers might be better conveyed during the private interviews that will surely follow in their wake.

And, besides, how hard can it be to be vulgar, sexist, violent and extremely discordant to the Public At Large, especially men? I say let’s spread the greenbacks around!

You be dissin’ me ...

You be warned ...

Gonna take that teeny (expletive)

a’yours and make you feel ...

Uh. Uh. Uh, uh, uh ...

How that feel (expletive)? How

that feel?

So, let me dedicate this to my editor. See how much fun rap can be! Beats that Neil Young geek hands down.