KACE-FM Bars Songs It Says Are Violent : Radio: The station decides to drop records that glorify gangs, guns and sexual conquest. The move has been greeted with mixed reviews.

“Compromising time is over,” said a middle-aged, female caller from Carson. “Too many bad things have happened to our boys and our girls, too.”

“I’ve waited for this for a real long time,” said a retired serviceman and teacher.

“We don’t need those crappy songs,” a parent said. “Me and my kids thank you.”

The telephone callers to contemporary R & B radio station KACE-FM (V-103.9) were congratulating the station on its decision two weeks ago to pull the plug on music that glorifies drugs and violence, denigrates women or is sexually explicit.

The ban has been greeted with skepticism from music industry insiders, but it has tapped a wellspring of support within the African-American community, where there is growing resentment against music that many say reinforces violent images and glamorizes self-destructive behavior. Increasingly, prominent African-Americans are speaking out publicly against music with sexually explicit lyrics and “gangsta rap” that celebrates gangs, guns and sexual conquest.

“This being a black owned-and-operated station, we wanted to be responsible,” said KACE music director Mark Gunn. “We’re saying, ‘Look, it doesn’t have to be this way. You’re so inundated with bad news and bad images, why not hear from people who have something positive, something uplifting to say?’ It’s been shown that if you feed somebody enough negativity, that’s what they’re going to buy into.”

Among the records dropped from KACE’s playlist were “Dre Day,” an expletive-laden rap song by Dr. Dre that bombards the listener with references to guns, murder and male genitals, and “Indo Smoke” by Mista Grimm, a reflection on the joys of marijuana use. Nor does it play “Freak Me,” a sexually explicit R & B hit by Silk, which sold more than 1 million copies.

Competing--and higher-rated--stations such as KPWR-FM (105.9) and KKBT-FM (92.3) do play those songs.

“It’s simply a matter of being the right thing to do,” Gunn said. “And we’re in an industry where sometimes right and wrong don’t mean a damn thing. It’s all about making a dollar. . . . (We know this isn’t a) pristine, peachy-keen, Walt Disney world. . . . We know there are problems, but we would be better serving the community if we tried to solve those problems.”

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Critics and competitors, however, question whether KACE’s record ban will have any meaningful impact and suggest it may be a clever marketing strategy for a station that is behind in the ratings (it ranked 37th among 80 Southern California stations in the most recent Arbitron survey) and already is geared to women over 25. Rap music is geared to young people under 25 and is as popular with young white adolescents as it is with blacks and Latinos.

“I just don’t feel the solution is to hide this stuff or decide not to play it on the radio,” said Rick Cummings, program director at KPWR-FM, which plays rap and dance music and ranked second in the latest Arbitron ratings.

“Rap songs don’t cause men to treat women badly or to shoot each other or to smoke dope,” he said. “They’re merely reflections of what is going on out there. The more you try to hide these kinds of records and the more you try to take a positive approach with music, the more attractive the other kinds of records are going to be. Whether you grow up in a white middle-class neighborhood or whether you grow up in Compton, I just think the music that young people listen to is all about rebellion.”

“I believe in giving everybody exposure,” said Paris, a San Francisco-based rap artist whose “Bush Killer,” about presidential assassination, got him dropped from three record companies. “I don’t think there should be any barriers put up to prevent or inhibit any artist from expressing himself. This goes for record companies or radio stations. . . . But I understand what (the radio station) is trying to do and I think the intentions are noble.”

Until last year, KACE billed itself as “the quiet storm,” playing a mellow blend of jazz fusion, instrumental and Latin music. In September, 1992, it switched to a more contemporary urban sound in an attempt to reach the younger end of the 25-54 target audience. Earlier this year, it modified its playlist to appeal to a slightly older and predominantly female audience.

“(KACE) didn’t have many alternatives,” said Craig Wilbraham, general manager of KKBT-FM, which also plays rap and dance music and ranked ninth in the most recent ratings. “They were going nowhere. They needed to do something. I think they saw an opportunity to make a statement and focus on (people age) 35-plus.”

Drugs, violence and the denigration of women are cultural problems, not problems that have been foisted on society by the entertainment industry, Wilbraham said. “I don’t believe that what you’re playing or not playing is going to change the phenomenon.”

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Whether KACE’s decision to ban certain music is a marketing strategy or an ethical decision, the move has struck a nerve with black leaders who struggle on a daily basis to direct America’s attention to the social ills they say are destroying their communities and killing their kids.

“I would applaud those stations that make a moral and ethical decision not to play music that is deliberately destructive of human beings,” said Dr. Reed Tuckson, president of Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles and a public health expert dealing with the inner-city violence that has made homicide the largest cause of death for young black men.

Rap artists are some of the brightest, most creative young people in the community, Tuckson said, but their message, unlike that of earlier generations of black artists that stressed hope, reinforces the anger and despair felt by inner-city youth.

While leaders such as Tuckson are quick to point out that they do not advocate censorship, they say concern about the artists’ ability to have their music heard has taken a back seat to the community’s fear it will lose a generation to what one leader called “a culture of violence.”

The positive community response to KACE’s ban, said Gayle Nathanson, director of the Youth and Family Center in Inglewood, is evidence of a growing feeling in the black and Latino community that “we’re going to use everything at our disposal to protect our children.”

Elaine Parker-Gills, an educator and executive director of Cities in Schools of Inglewood Inc., a nationwide program that works with the private sector to mobilize support for public schools, said, “I’m concerned about the rights of artists. . . . But we just have to take a moral stance once in while.”