Lewd and inappropriate lyrics are creeping into events staged for children and parents and organisers have been told to join forces to stamp them out.
This was the consensus of panellists in a discussion The Influence of Music on the Minds and Behaviour of Today’s Youth at the National Union of Public Workers headquarters Dalkeith Wednesday night.
The event moderated by radio talk show host Corey Lane heard contributions from educator and musician Randy Eastmond, radio personality Anderson ‘DJ Timeless’ Birch and co-creator of non-profit group EKCOnation Arnold ‘Gozzy’ Goslin, whose mission is to counteract the negativity found in arts and entertainment.
The 98.1 The One deejay Timeless said violent and lewd music was not his choice but children needed a solid moral foundation, which would determine whether they mimicked what they heard in popular songs.
An audience member however pointed out that children and young people always found ways to listen to explicit songs which elicit a comment from Goslin that some parents encouraged inappropriate actions from minors.
“Some deejays don’t have a song in their playlist that can be deemed as ‘positive’ so you go to [young children’s] parties today and you’re getting the ‘sit dung pon it’, ‘whine pon this’, ‘skin out’. Then what happens is that the children know the behaviour so you see the children skinning out. But rather than parents say ‘no that is the wrong behaviour, we take out our cellphones [and] we start to laugh. That in the children’s minds equates positive views of negative behaviour,” he said.
Eastmond made the point that music education from young age was important.
“The education of music is something that we need to consider. Education plays a heavy role and at that age, children cannot critically analyse music. So it therefore means when they hear explicit lyrics the societal norms dictate to them this is good,” he added. (TG)
