COVER STORY : AT THE CENTER OF THE DOLE FIRESTORM

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) got plenty of attention when he scolded Hollywood about sex and violence in movies, TV and pop music. But, as The Times reports today (see Page A1), Dole’s comments aren’t changing the face of show business. Yet. The creative and business powerbrokers will tell you they’ve always been thoughful about what they produce. Here, then, are some snapshots of life on the front lines:

BRYAN TURNER

President, Priority Records

When Bryan Turner received a letter from an FBI official in 1989 charging him with having encouraged violence against law officers for having released N.W.A.’s controversial song “F--- tha Police,” the young executive made it clear he would not change his way of doing business.

Three years later he made that doubly clear: When Time Warner first parted ways with rapper Ice-T after the “Cop Killer” flap and then with rapper Paris over a song that portrayed an assassination fantasy of President Bush, Turner wasted little time in signing deals with both artists. “It was definitely to send a signal out to the community that Priority, as an independent label, was willing to protect the Constitution and what it stands for,” he says. “And, of course, Ice-T and Paris have fan bases and there’s a benefit there as well.

“It’s not a rap issue, it’s a music issue, and music is what we do,” says Turner, 40, who founded the company 10 years ago by putting out compilation albums. “If I don’t have the trust of the artists, I might as well just put out K-Tel records for the rest of my career. Trust is really the key word, and speaking to artists, I know that Time Warner has done incredible damage to its reputation as a company where you can freely express yourself creatively. As an independent I need to go further than other people in that regard.”

But, he says, there are limits.

“There was a record--I won’t mention the artist--with a track that dealt with the defiling of children, and that crossed my line,” he says. “That’s an advantage of owning your own label. You can decide where it crosses the line for you, as David Geffen did with the Geto Boys [who were dropped from Geffen Records over violent lyrical content]. When I sit down with an Ice-T or Ice Cube or Paris or one of my new kids like Mack 10, we discuss what they’re talking about.

“If they sell me on the validity of where they’re coming from . . . and I buy it, then I feel I don’t have the right to censor that.”