BEFORE LOOKING to blame radio stations and disc jockeys (DJs), first look to what music is being brought into the country as well as what your children are listening to.

Starcom Network News' programme manager for Voice Of Barbados and Love FM, Dennis Johnson, in responding to comments made by Magistrate Ian Weekes published in the SATURDAY SUN, said it was time for Barbados to stop the "nit-picking".

"The problem we face is: how do we stop cultural penetration?People do not listen solely to radio; we [Barbados] import CDs with 'obscene content' warning labels and put them in the record shops; people download obscene lyrics from the Internet and put them into their iPods and cellphones. We are nitpicking!" Johnson said in a telephone interview on Sunday.

The radio station, he said, spent a lot of time editing songs for anything offensive, sometimes removing entire lines. His method was to abandon a song entirely if it had to be edited in more than three places.

"Personally, I don't listen to or even understand Jamaican dancehall, but my views don't run the radio station.

"What happens is, people hear the songs elsewhere and call in and request them, so what we do is sit and edit the songs but we still get criticised, even when the unedited versions are heard somewhere else," he said.

As for the issue of schoolchildren, Johnson had some questions for parents.

"How many parents know what are on their children's iPods or cellphones? Then they talk about DJs! Nonsense! How many people leave ZRs when they hear offensive songs? None!" he said.

In addition to radio stations, Public Service Vehicles (PSV) came under fire as well; this time from Chief Education Officer Wendy Griffith-Watson, published in
the SUNDAY SUN.

In response, vice-president of the Barbados Minibus Association, Morris Lee, said his association did not condone any lewd or offensive music of any kind.

"We do not support the playing of any form of defamatory, violent or discriminatory music. We also appeal to all PSV drivers to keep music levels within the legal limits," he said.

Lee also said the radios currently in the vehicles were there to broadcast informative material and to play radio stations, as the association subscribed to the standards of the stations (instead of CDs).

Minister of Education Ronald Jones also voiced his thoughts via telephone interview.

He said he would be meeting with principals soon to discuss everything impacting education, but said there was a positive side to the dancehall culture.

"There are things within the culture which can be learnt from; the issue is not always the music, but the negative influences around the culture," he said. (CA)