For example, Vibe magazine celebrated the female rapper in Terror Squad: "Remy's skillful flow and thug manner has put her name out there. From radio, to magazines, to TV, her raw lyrics are what everyone's buzzing about." Artists are rewarded for their "thug manner" and being "raw" with language. "Buzz" is the only goal. Shock is their only value.
Station managers haven't seen parents assembling in the streets, or sending letters to their legislators. The Federal Communications Commission struggles hard and long enough to fine obnoxious shock jocks, so any hope of expecting Washington to look at dirty song lyrics is misplaced.
But if a campaign were to begin, its theme song might just be the worst of this summer's hits, from a rapper appropriately named Juvenile, and his pal Soulja Slim. Their song "Slow Motion" carries an inaccurate title. By song's end, they're pleading to hurry up to the sex and drug use: "Less money we spend on bull----, the more for the weed."
Soulja Slim begins the boasting: "I'm a d--k thrower, her neck and her back hurting, cutthroat will have her like a brand-new virgin ... Hop on top and start jiggy-jiggy jerking." Juvenile then gets sleazier than that, bringing up menstruation and domestic violence: "If you going through your cycle, I ain't with it, I'm gone, you must've heard about them hoes that I beat up in my home, they wasn't telling the truth, baby, you know they was wrong."
The titans of commercial radio and the music industry hope youngsters like primordial sludge like this. And in this case, they were spot-on right. Billboard lists "Slow Motion" as the No. 1 song right now in the United States of America.