In North Korea the word "censorship" is a euphemism. The government simply controls all areas of musical life. Keith Howard's paper examines this very special situation in its historical context.
The paper was originally presented as a speech at the 2nd World Conference of Music and Censorship.

Abstract

All music activities within the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea are subject to ideological censorship. Children with musical talent are trained in “children’s palaces” and, after graduation from the Pyongyang Music and Arts University or one its counterparts, professional musicians are assigned to work in a state-sponsored orchestra, ensemble, military band, opera, theatre, and film company, or in a propaganda squad deployed throughout the countryside or in factories. Music production is totally controlled: subjects are rationed; lyrics must reflect the appropriate ideology; instruments are supplied by state-financed collectives; all recorded music is issued by a single state company; TVs and radios are pre-set in factories to receive only state broadcasts

Ideology ascribed absolute power to Kim Il Sung (1912-1994), in life the ‘Great Wise President-for-life Dearly Beloved and Sagacious Leader’, and in death, and still today, the ‘Eternal President’. His policies are interpreted by his son and heir, the ‘Dear Leader’ Kim Jong Il (b.1942). North Korean ideology, based on Soviet socialist realism, but learning from China, has gradually shifted over time. In the 1940s and 1950s, revolutionary songs and programmatic orchestral poems telling of heroic activities were the norm. Following the Sino-Soviet split after the death of Stalin, folksongs were collected, “revised” by the substitution of appropriate contemporary words and sentiments, and “improved” to utilise Western diatonic scales and vocal styles.

Then, with the maturation of the unitary but autocratic one party system, juche, “self reliance”, assumed the dominant ideological position, subsuming individual creativity beneath collectives of composers and performers, and insisting that party ideology must be reflected in all music. Since the late 1980s, just two pop music bands have been authorised, and reflecting their monopoly, they have between them now recorded at least 160 albums. Musicians within North Korea have no choice but to work within the system, accepting ideological censorship and control, and following the training and career paths dictated for them by the regime.

Keith Howard, January 2003