Pop music: Record industry figures hope to address some of the problems surrounding hip-hop music and gangsta rap.

A year after launching a controversial campaign to combat a “drug epidemic” in the music business, the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences on Monday will call for a summit to address another troubled area in the industry: the violent world of gangsta rap.

Michael Greene, president and CEO of the 13,000-member academy, and Quincy Jones, one of pop music’s most respected and influential figures, will invite artists, executives and others in the hip-hop field to a closed-door session to discuss everything from violence to the content of the music.

The move comes in the wake of the gangland-style, unsolved shooting deaths of popular, prominent rappers Tupac Shakur last fall in Las Vegas and Christopher Wallace (known as the Notorious B.I.G.) last month in Los Angeles.

The summit--which will be held within two months at an as-yet-undetermined location--also follows years in which the rap industry has been under heavy criticism by politicians and cultural observers who say the music is a dangerous glorification of immorality and illegality.

“You can’t hide--though it would be nice if you could--from the issues of violence and drug abuse and of how much power this form of music has, both positive and negative,” said Greene, who runs the association of music professionals best known for giving out the Grammy Awards.

“So as opposed to people shouting at each other in the press or in their own little corners, the opportunity to come together in a neutral setting for the people who are creating this music to simply talk is going to be important.

“As [rapper] Chuck D says, we’ve lost many of the leaders of the last 20 years in [hip-hop] to all sorts of things--violence and drug abuse and other causes. And it’s important to America that this form of music not only survives but prospers. It is our new indigenous music.”

This NARAS effort is separate from a “unity” album and tour that was announced earlier this month following a meeting of several key rap figures--including Snoop Doggy Dogg--at the Chicago home of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

That session, initiated by rap entrepreneur Russell Simmons, CEO of Def Jam Entertainment, was intended to patch up an East Coast vs. West Coast rap factionalism that has been blamed for some of the violence. Plans for an album to be released by Jones’ Qwest Records, and a subsequent concert tour, however, remain sketchy.

But some in both the rap and anti-rap camps question the effectiveness of a summit. The former say that nothing short of wholesale changes in American society can put an end to the violence, while the latter will settle for nothing less than record companies refusing to do business with rappers whose lives and/or lyrics deal in violence.

According to writer, critic and social observer Stanley Crouch: “What’s needed more than anything like censorship is responsible attitudes on the parts of these people who promote this material. If you make a record and you start calling people ‘kikes’ on the record, it would probably be recalled and be a serious controversy. If you made a record advocating the mass murder of white women, that recording would be, deservedly, the center of controversy and protest. But you can say, ‘Shoot that nigger in the head,’ and nobody says anything.”

Record company executives contacted Thursday said that, while they support an open dialogue on the topic, they are reluctant to comment or speculate on what sort of measures might be suggested at the meeting. And while they wouldn’t go on the record, they are concerned about any attempt to develop and implement an industrywide policy.

There was a similar reaction and resistance when Greene initiated a series of meetings in 1995 to deal with drug problems in the music business. That effort brought charges from some record executives that Greene was “grandstanding” and seeking to dictate policy for the entire industry, with that debate at first overshadowing the positive steps that came out of the meetings Greene organized.

Ultimately, however, the major record companies joined Greene by funding a drug education and rehabilitation program through the Recording Industry Assn. of America, which is an organization that represents the nation’s major record manufacturers.

Jones, however, could serve as a bridge between the record labels and the academy, observers said.

“I’m glad to see that Quincy is getting together with NARAS,” said Bill Stephney, CEO of StepSun Entertainment and former producer of the seminal rap group Public Enemy. “All of these things go by, we go to parties and drown our sorrows, but at a certain point we have to become adults and address all this stuff.

“This matter begs executives, writers, video makers--anybody--to start to treat the problems in our community the way the generations before us in the ‘50s and ‘60s decided to attack voting rights, public accommodations, integration--issues that had been on the books for a century.”

There are lots of issues to be raised at a rap summit: Do record companies have a responsibility to monitor the lifestyle of their artists? Should labels suspend artists who fail to meet certain behavioral standards the way athletic teams do? Will record companies do anything at a time when rap music is such a profitable area of the music business?

According to the Recording Industry Assn. of America, rap accounted for 8.9% of record sales during 1996--or $1.1 billion.

The reality of the pop world is that if one label refuses to release an album or threatens to suspend an artist for personal conduct, the artist could take his music--and potential revenue--elsewhere.

And the controversial lifestyle led by some rappers certainly doesn’t hurt sales. Since their deaths, posthumous albums by Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. have sold an estimated $80 million. The B.I.G. album, “Life After Death,” has been No. 1 ever since it was released last month.

The issues intended for the summit were to be discussed recently when U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) invited record executives to participate in a meeting in Washington. The executives canceled when it was learned that C. Dolores Tucker, who along with former drug czar William Bennett has led an anti-rap crusade, was also invited. On Thursday, a spokesman for Lieberman called the NARAS summit “a positive step.”

“Without knowing any of the particulars, the acceptance on the part of some very important people in the industry that there is a connection between the violence promoted in some parts of the music and the deaths of such figures as Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. is a good thing,” said Dan Gerstein.

Greene, meanwhile, says he has no hidden agenda for the summit. He is simply asking for people involved in the field to sit and talk. He says he approached Jones about taking on the issue recently after receiving numerous requests from recording academy members that the organization address the issue.

The academy has already initiated community outreach via its Grammy in the Schools program. Greene cites Jones, Chuck D and LL Cool J as the leaders of the efforts.