COMPANY TOWN : Takin’ the Rap : As Time Warner Gets a Beating for Backing Music Acts With Explicit Lyrics, Its Rivals Are Cashing In Undisturbed on a $3-Billion Market

When William Bennett demanded last week on national TV that Time Warner stop trafficking in violent, degrading music, the former drug czar rattled off lyrics from a 1989 Geto Boys song called “The Mind of a Lunatic” to drive his point home.

The lyrics begin, “Lookin’ through her window she’s naked . . . so I’m thinking rape,” then describe the woman’s murder.

Following the show, conservatives and liberals lined up to support Bennett’s contention that the lyrics to the Geto Boys’ rap slasher psycho-drama were disgusting and unsuitable for distribution by a major media company of Time Warner’s stature. Senate Majority Leader and presidential candidate Bob Dole jumped into the anti-Time Warner fray last week, echoing Bennett’s criticism.

The only problem with Bennett’s accusation: Time Warner does not put out the record.

The Geto Boys’ music is distributed by British conglomerate Thorn-EMI, which also releases albums by controversial rappers Ice-T, Paris and Da Lench Mob, each of whom were driven from Time Warner following disputes over violent and sexually explicit lyrics.

Ironically, the Geto Boys song that Bennett singled out infuriated Warner executives when it was released six years ago, and at least one label chief refused to put it out. While the album was originally put out on Warner’s Def American label, the Geto Boys have been distributed by firms associated with EMI Music since 1991.

Thorn-EMI, however, isn’t the only Time Warner competitor cashing in on the $3-billion market for outrageous cutting-edge music. All five of Time Warner’s major rivals profit from a variety of rap and rock acts whose music would almost certainly offend church groups, family organizations and politicians.

The difference, insiders say, is that those corporations--unlike Time Warner--are foreign-owned and unaccountable to American stockholders. Time Warner, meanwhile, has been susceptible to political pressure.

“Time Warner is a good target because it has proven in the past to be responsive to this type of criticism,” said Bennett spokesman Christian Pinkston, who attributed his boss’s nationally televised error to misinformation and the fact that Warner once released the album. “But that lyric represented just the tip of the iceberg. Time Warner puts out a mountain of offensive stuff.”

Even if Time Warner dropped every controversial artist on its roster tomorrow morning, however, those acts almost certainly would quickly work their way back onto the pop charts after being snatched up by competing record companies. With the accompanying publicity, those acts might even sell a few more records.

Despite its growth over the past decade, gangsta rap constitutes a minuscule portion of the entire rap market and contributes a tiny amount of profit to the companies that distribute it. But dumping cutting-edge rap or rock artists from a label could result in a mass exodus of other acts and discourage other performers from joining the label because of concerns over artistic freedom.

Indeed, competitors are drooling over the possibility of a showdown between Time Warner and Interscope, home to such maligned acts as Dr. Dre, Snoop Doggy Dogg and Nine Inch Nails. Rivals said it will be easy for Interscope to find a new partner to release its music should Time Warner bow to political pressure.

More than a quarter of the albums in the Top 100 on this week’s national pop chart contain language that could be considered offensive. The controversial rap, heavy metal and alternative rock genres account for about 25% of the 226.6 million albums sold since January in America’s suburbs and inner cities, where surveys suggest that they are purchased by a multiethnic base of fans of both sexes.

Time Warner and Thorn-EMI hardly have a lock on the market.

The West German media conglomerate Bertelsmann releases hard-core rap by Notorious B.I.G., Too Short and Spice 1. PolyGram, which is owned by the Dutch electronics company Philips, distributes provocative recordings by Warren G, Slick Rick and Public Enemy. Even rap crossover act Salt N Pepa’s bawdy lyrics could easily be considered too graphic by political critics.

Japanese electronic giant Sony counts marijuana advocate Cypress Hill and gangsta rappers Illegal among its artist lineup. MCA Music, which was just sold by Tokyo-based Matsushita Electrical Industrial to Canada’s Seagram, has two albums with violent and sexually graphic lyrics near the top of the charts this week. One is by White Zombie and the other is a gangsta rap soundtrack collection.

“The music industry is pimping pornography to our children and destroying our society,” said C. Delores Tucker, chief of the National Political Congress of Black Women who launched the anti-Time Warner campaign with Bennett, a former U.S. education secretary, last month. “The white executives who run the music business make these artists get down in the gutter and use pornography and profanity or they won’t give them a contract.”

Bennett and Tucker were introduced earlier this year by the head of the Parents Music Resource Center, a media watchdog group formed in the mid-’80s by Tipper Gore, the wife of Vice President Al Gore. That Virginia-based group was accused of censorship when it orchestrated hearings on explicit lyrics on Capitol Hill 10 years ago and pressured the music industry to introduce a voluntary labeling system in 1990.

Representatives from the six major music companies met Thursday to discuss how to respond to recent challenges.

The fear is that if Time Warner caves in, the lyrics controversy will mushroom into a major campaign issue in the upcoming presidential election. How long will it be, they ask, before curse words on albums by best-selling acts such as Greenday, Madonna and Pearl Jam come under fire?

“It’s time for the industry to stand up for the First Amendment and defend the art we make money from,” said Art Jaeger, executive director of EMI-affiliated Priority Records, which distributes music by such gangsta rappers as Ice Cube and N.W.A. “It’s ridiculous that at the exact moment in time when these conservatives are presiding over spending cuts to the inner cities that they’ve decided the root of American evil is rap music.”

Black leaders are scheduled to meet with the Rev. Jesse Jackson this weekend and are expected to raise questions about whether there are racist undertones to the attack on rap lyrics. Industry sources expect Jackson to make a public statement about the matter sometime next week.

Geto Boys co-founder Bushwick Bill said Dole and Bennett are using rap and rock music as a scapegoat.

“My music is being condemned strictly for publicity and votes,” he said. “I guess it’s easier to bash rap artists than to talk about the country’s real problems, such as the AIDS crisis, poverty, the cost of education, crime or the gun-toting white supremacist militias.”

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Rap Under Fire

Time Warner is under attack for profiting from rap and rock music that features violent and sexually explicit lyrics. But all major record companies have rap acts--and BMG has a bigger share of the rap market (which makes up 6.4% of the album market) than Time Warner. The labels and some of their controversial bands: * Warner Music Group: The company, owned by Time Warner, releases explicit music by Dr. Dre, Snoop Doggy Dogg and Nine Inch Nails. * Thorn-EMI: The British conglomerate, which owns Capitol and Virgin, releases albums by controversial rappers Geto Boys, Ice-T, Paris and Da Lench Mob. * BMG: Controlled by the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann, BMG releases hard-core rap by Too Short, Spice 1 and Notorious B.I.G. through its affiliation with Jive and Bad Boy Records. * PolyGram: Owned by Dutch electronics company Philips, PolyGram distributes controversial music by rappers such as Warren G., Slick Rick and Public Enemy through its recently acquired Def Jam label. * Sony Music: Marijuana advocates Cypress Hill and gansta rappers Illegal are on its artist roster. * MCA Music: Recently sold by Matsushita Electrical Industrial to Canada’s Seagram, MCA has Top 20 albums by White Zombie and a rap soundtrack collection containing violent and sexually graphic lyrics.

THE MARKET

Year-to-date rap album sales, by market share: BMG: 18.2% WEA (Warner): 16.2% Polygram: 10.7% EMI (SEMA): 8.3% Sony: 5.1% UNI: 1.8% Others: 39.7%

HOW BIG IS RAP?

Year-to-date album sales, by music category market share: Rap: 6.4% Alternative: 14.3% Metal: 6.1% Country: 12.4% Classical: 4.1% R&B;, Jazz: 15.1% Other: 41.6%

Source: Music industry representatives. Researched by DAVID NEIMAN and JENNIFER OLDHAM / Los Angeles Times