Five Live host Adebayo calls for BBC to boycott ‘murder’
rap
BBC radio presenter Dotun Adebayo takes no prisoners. In in his
recent open letter to the press entitled Time for the Corporation
to Take the Rap, he demanded that his employers, the publicly
funded BBC, boycott gangster rap music.
He made the charge that the Beeb has a duty to safeguard its
listeners, the licence payers, from the vitriolic lyrics which
incite murder. The lyrics, he argued, are offensive: “and if
nothing else legitimise the behaviour of the bad bwoys who can
argue: ‘I heard it on the BBC’.”
The host of the two weekly magazine radio programmes –
BBC’s Five Live and The Dotun and Amina Talk Show on BBC Radio
London – Adebayo believes that it is his duty to make a stand on
an issue that continues to stimulate heated debate.
Adebayo called on the corporation to make it socially
unacceptable to broadcast any record that advocates murder and
violence, in the same way that it is no longer socially acceptable
to broadcast racist and homophobic music.
The chain of events leading to this began a few months ago when
the gun victim Douglas Mullings, who was shot in the head
following a dispute over a dent in his car, arrived at the BBC
studios with his wife and daughter.
The 32-year-old’s fight for his life was documented as part
of the recent BBC series Murder Blues, which charted the work of
Operation Trident, the specialist team charged with fighting black
gun crime in Britain. Mullings, according to Adebayo, displayed no
anger and simply pleaded for an end to the violence. However, his
daughter Natalie raised the view that society must look at the
issue of rap lyrics and their influence on vulnerable youths.
A week earlier, during a live broadcast from the London Peace
Week concert in Finsbury Park, Adebayo’s personal integrity had
been called into question by a caller’s question: “How can you
sit up there and say you’re supporting LPW when the BBC
doesn’t do anything about people playing records that are
putting out messages of murder?”
“It’s a hard one to get out of,” he says now. “That
really hurt me. I said to him: ‘Do you really think gangster rap
is responsible for the killings that are going on?’ He said:
‘Gangster rap is killing our children, I’m right and Dotun,
you know I’m right.’”
Adebayo argues a cohesive case for a complete ban on music that
incites violence and murder, similar to the recent edict on
homophobic lyrics.
“I’m saying the BBC should stop playing records that incite
murder.
“It’s not a joke. I think the BBC actually is in a very
powerful position – it can change the course of rap music. I’m
not saying gangster rap will disappear, but I’m saying that a
lot of the artists record what is commercially viable. Once you
realise that you can’t play, for example, Boom Bye Bye on the
radio then there’s no point putting out those records.”
Adebayo’s valiant gesture, however, could be seen as a
contradictory stance since he freely admits to loving gangster rap
and invariably the lifeblood of his publishing enterprise, The
Xpress, has been drawn from novels portraying gangsters, guns,
vice and drugs.
Cop Killer and Yardie were both seminal titles published by The
Xpress when it emerged in the nineties to fill a gap for black
authors unable to secure mainstream book deals.
The novel Cop Killer is a tale of retribution about a man
hunting down the cop who shot his mother in a botched raid. The
dark themes explored in the book caused alarm at the time and even
today could be held to the very same charges he is levelling at
rap music.
But Adebayo denies any similarity – the messages in Cop
Killer, he explains, were a reaction to the increased tensions
between the black community and the Met police at a time when two
women had died and another was shot and seriously wounded at the
hands of enforcement officers.
“I’m the one who put out Cop Killer. I know I‘m gonna
have to stand up to that. I think the difference is there is a
message which is there clearly and the message is, ‘stay away
from guns’. We were getting criticisms, but I’m telling you
that not one of our books goes out to say ‘kill’.
“There was a time when Cherry Groce had been shot and maimed
for life, Cynthia Jarrett died in her house and it was the same
time that Joy Gardner was taped by the immigration people and died
later. They had no chance, those women. That’s what Cop Killer
was about. I’m not saying that is a positive book, I’m just
saying that we had to say something at the time.”
And certainly Adebayo still has a lot to say as his seven
million Five Live listeners will attest to. His twice-weekly news
magazine programme Up all Night and oral obituary show Brief Lives
has afforded him such an increased profile that he has had to take
a step back from The Xpress, which he runs with journalist Steve
Pope.
A former child actor, he played alongside Aswad’s Brinsley
Ford in the Bond film Diamonds are Forever starring Sean Connery
and enjoyed a small role in the horror film The Oblong Box with
Christopher Lee and Vincent Price.
His career as a music journalist spawned poignant friendships
with reggae stalwart Peter Tosh, rap luminary Dr Dre and NWA.
Adebayo’s love for music is a true family affair encapsulated
in his love for “my missus, lovers rock-queen Carroll
Thompson.” Adebayo dotes on the couple’s two daughters:
“I’m trying to bring up my kids right.” He is relishing the
role of playing the babyfather while Ms Thompson resumes her
singing career. There is, however, an internet film in the offing
and a biography mulling around in the deep recesses of his mind.
One thing however will be at the forefront of it – his
meeting with Douglas Mullings. “When that guy came in with half
his head blown up, and I saw his really positive missus there, his
positive daughter there, trying to put across a positive message.
Their lives have been devastated. Nobody’s life needs to be
shattered like that. It’s more poignant because he survived.
Usually we don’t see the victim. Usually the victim is in a
coffin – not here to tell the story, but this time he was and it
was demoralising.”
That fateful meeting has indeed forced a change in priority in
a man who says he is willing to accept the responsibility of
stamping out, to borrow a well used phrase, ‘murder music’.
“The next generation are going to blame us for not saying
things,” he concludes. “I’ve always been a bit of a rebel;
well, that’s what my missus says. If I can do my little piece
then I think that’s a good thing. I’m not paying lip service
to anything – you can hold me to account on that any time. I
consider I’m a journalist who became a publisher and am now a
broadcaster but I’m always, always, black first.”
FACTFILE
1960 Born in Lagos, Nigeria
