The Federal Communications Commission censored Sarah Jones’ song ‘Your revolution’ for indecency. Ironically, Jones’s song is in fact feminist critique and a statement against indecency and more particularly the sexual exploitation of women in pop music.
The spoken-word song ‘Your revolution’ was aired on the KBOO-FM radio station in Portland in October 1999. The Federal Communications Commission reported that a listener was offended by the song. This resulted in KBOO-FM being fined 7,000 US dollars and the song being censored for indecency. Now the song cannot be aired in the US between 6 AM and 10 PM when children might be listening.
Inspirational Deena Barnwell, a volunteer DJ at KBOO-FM who played the track, told the American newspaper the Village Voice that she finds the song inspirational: “[The song] says it’s cool, you can be in the hip-hop game, but you don’t need to be no ’ho. There’s nothing else out there besides this song that tells girls that. I feel like it’s a personal responsibility for me as a B-girl to get it out there.”
Critique of macho values According to the Village Voice, KBOO-FM and their lawyer were very surprised by how the FCC interpreted the song. The FCC only takes into consideration the sexual references and totally ignores the political and social context and is therefore missing the feminist critique of the macho values of the typical rap music.
A 'Morality and Knowledge Association' recently established in Herat wants to ban women's voices from the airwaves, reported Jean MacKenzie and Rateb Muzhda from Herat
When the rapper Orelsan was taken off the poster of a major French music festival in the last minute, he became centre of a national debate over censorship
When American pop singer Britney Spears' hit song 'If U Seek Amy' risked censorship on radio stations because of a double entendre in the chorus, she rerecorded the song
Lima Sahar charmed her way into the third spot of the 2008 version of the wildly popular 'Afghan Star' competition. Now in exile, she fears for her life
When a woman tries to break into the growing scene for Islamic hip-hop in United Kingdom she is often intimidated, or even threatened, reported the New Statesman
In a short documentary video about music and 'community censorship' in Afghanistan, the 19-year-old Afghan singer Mariam says she gets verbal abuse all the time
While struggling with censorship in Khartoum, the Sudanese singer-songwriter Abazar Hamid hopes to bring peace to Sudan with his music, reported Stephanie McCrummen
Because she had sung a South Korean folk song and taught it to four others in 1992, North Korean Ji Hae Nam (Hae-Nam Ji) was imprisoned for three years and tortured
Why do we see and hear little of women musicians in Zanzibar? Report from an island where parents and husbands are at the core of strong 'cultural censorship'
18-year-old Lima Sahar has placed herself in the middle of Afghanistan's continous gender and music struggle. She could become the winner of the tv show 'Afghan Star'
A report from a music school in Kabul is a story about the kind of difficulties and dangers female musicians face in present day Afghanistan. They must work in secret
