Orange County Focus is dedicated on Monday to analysis of community news, a look atwhat’s ahead and the voices of local people. : IN PERSON : A Rap Artist Who Weighs His Words Carefully : Travis Lane Wants to Offer a Cleaner Take on Reality

Rapper Travis Lane has little in common with conservative Republicans.

But Lane, one of only a handful black rappers in Orange County, agrees with some of their criticisms of rap music.

Some rap songs are full of profanity, focus on obtaining material possessions such as drugs and cars, and do not offer solutions for fixing society’s ills, Lane says. With his music, he wants to promote such values as self-esteem and respect for others, and hopes to donate profits from his record sales to local churches.

“Now that everyone wants to hear it, let’s clean it up,” Lane says of the music that has ballooned in popularity over the past few years. “If if wasn’t for rap, black people wouldn’t be heard.”

But Lane, 24, who goes by the stage name Incidents, is nonetheless a staunch supporter of the art form. He opposes taking rap music off the market. He argues that rap is an accurate reflection of the lives led by poor, desperate and violent members of society. And rappers, in turn, have a right to reflect that reality and say what’s on their mind.

During the past several months, rap’s crude and violent lyrics have been blamed for society’s ills by Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole, former Education Secretary William J. Bennett and others. The critics have not specifically advocated censoring rap, but have tried to “shame” the music industry into policing itself.

Criticism has focused on gangsta rap--the small but high-profile segment of rap known for lyrics that sometimes talk of shooting police and raping women. The artists include Ice-T and Tupac Shakur.

While he does not produce gangsta rap, Lane uses deep and bubbly bass beats and sings about everything from greed in the music industry to getting his customized car stolen. His first solo album, to be released Tuesday, is liberally sprinkled with profanity and graphic verses.

“Your momma’s in the next room,” he sings in one sexually explicit song, “so don’t make a sound, because if I get caught, I might get shot, or thrown in the dog pound.”

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Lane says that although rap song lyrics often are in the first person, rappers are not always talking about themselves.

“What is on the tape, and what I am, is different,” Lane says. “I’m representing the image.”

Lane argues that his music aims to teach people values such as respect. In songs where women are called names a family newspaper cannot print, Lane says he is criticizing promiscuous women who have no respect for themselves or others.

He adds, “I use that language because that is what a real person would say.”

A graduate of Santa Ana High School, Lane was a member of the rap group KMC, which was signed on Priority Records. Their record, “Three Men with the Power of Ten,” was distributed nationwide, sold more than 100,000 copies, Lane said, and a single from the record, Murder, was featured in the movie, “Reality Bites.”

In 1990, Lane said, he appeared on MTV to defend the explicit lyrics of some rap music. Last month’s issue of Right On, a New York-based magazine that covers black music, mentions Lane as someone who has a “bright future.”

Lane comes from a middle-class family and still lives with his parents. His mother is a supervisor for a telephone company and his father, retired from the military, works as a package messenger.

Lane is the father of a 3-year-old daughter, born out of wedlock. Lane said he and the girl’s mother did not marry because he was busy pursuing his music career. He said he is active in raising the child.

Hunkered down in his office, located in a small Santa Ana business complex, Lane declines to criticize other rap artists by name because, he says, they may thwart his music career or physically attack him. But when talking about rap music in general and its critics, Lane is animated to the point of shouting.

“Watch the news,” he says, “and you’ll see a lot of things the rappers are saying is true.”

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Critics argue that gangsta rap lyrics exert a strong and malicious influence on listeners, especially teens and younger children. In Texas recently, a suit was filed against rapper Shakur for allegedly inciting a teen-age gang member to gun down a state trooper after being pulled over. The teen reportedly was listening to a tape of Shakur’s “2PACALYPSE NOW.”

“Comin’ quickly up the streets is the punk ass police,” goes the song. “The first one jumped out and said, ‘Freeze.’

“I popped him in his knees, and I shouted, ‘Punk, please!’ ”

In the early days, Lane says, rap was mostly circulated among small groups of people who closely identified with the music. Once rap went out to wider audiences, people thought it glorified a particular way of life.

Not true, Lane says. Rap clothing, for example, was not a fashion statement but a statement of poverty. “Your hair was in braids because your mother worked, and she couldn’t wash and comb your hair until the weekend,” he says. “You were wearing baggy clothes because you were wearing your brother’s clothes.”

But with the music’s newfound popularity, rappers can strive to better represent and guide the black community, Lane says.

Working with production and distribution companies, Lane started Incident Records last year. The company name, and his stage name, come from a phrase he enjoys repeating: “If you don’t learn from your incidents, you’ll become one.”

On a sweltering summer day--both inside and outside the office--Lane is dressed in black jeans and a white Incidents T-shirt. Behind him is a synthesizer and other recording equipment. The smell of stale smoke lingers in the air.

Lane is president of Incident Records, and is its first and only artist. But eventually, he hopes to sign a wide range of other artists, including rappers.

“You can’t tell these people they can do this and they can’t do that,” Lane said of his fellow rap artists, despite his criticism of some of their songs. “That’s how they see their world.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Profile: Travis Lane

Occupation: Rap artist

Stage name: Incidents

Age: 24

Hometown: Santa Ana

Personal: Never married; has 3-year-old daughter

Other gig: President, Santa Ana-based Incident Records

On rap’s rough lyrics: “If you’re from the ghetto, you understand what these [rap] artists are talking about.”

Source: Travis Lane