So a petition actually can manage to cancel a show? I have always wondered whether these Change.org petitions were worth to be signed or not! Action Bronson set at Yonge-Dundas Square, presented by North by Northeast, was canceled after a petition was started by Erica Shiner and received more than 38,000 signatures. It is not an overwhelming number and I still don’t know how these petitions work, what is the limit to be considered successful? In any case the petition says that ‘Action Bronson glorifies gang-raping and murdering women’ and that it is ‘an insult to the people of Toronto for NXNE, Now Magazine, Vans Footwear, and the City of Toronto to be featuring an artist on public property whose lyrics are as follows: ‘Then dig your shorty out cuz I geeked her up on molly/Have her eating dick, no need for seasoning/If seven dudes are in the room then she’s pleasing them/Like a trooper. Hit her in the pooper. Throw her in the shower/Then I take her out to Lupa I’m kinky, I’ll hit it even if it’s stinky/Put em in the shower, make the pussy brand new Ran through/Give ’em money what I can’t do Stuff her lunchbox & burn her with the candle.’
These lyrics come from the song ‘Consensual Rape’, and they are pretty graphic and shocking no doubt about it, but it’s a song right? Again is it possible to separate the artist from his…errr art? Apparently the author of the petition doesn’t think so as she continues: ‘Although many in the Hip Hop community and music industry may be aware of Action Bronson’s violent misogyny, many others remain unaware of his history of recording music that brags about gang-raping and murdering women. We are petitioning to have this artist removed from the line-up of this show, on the grounds that he produces hate speech. A musician who glorifies rape and violence against women should not be invited to perform at a public space in our city.’
She also mentions a video ‘in which the artist cooks a meal over a woman’s dead body, rolls her up in a carpet, throws her in his trunk, and proceeds to violently stab her when he discovers she’s still alive’… This is so American psycho! Would I sign such a petition? Sure not! Would I go see Action Bronson? May be but probably not, I am not a fan. But I have never been for censorship and I think it is such a dangerous slope, where do you cross the line? Art, songs, music are fantasy just like film and literature, would this woman write a petition against a violent film? Because there is not a lack of violence against women in films! And literature is full of rape scenes and murders.
It’s not that I don’t find these lyrics disturbing, especially if they are heard by young people, but censoring isn’t the solution, and I wonder if they consider censoring all rappers in this case? Because there are a lot of them talking about rape and violence! Does the names Rick Ross, Eminem and Odd Future ring a bell?
Meanwhile, Bronson tweeted ‘WHO GIVES A FUCK!! UR GONNA BE SEEING SO MUCH OF ME FOR SO MANY YEARS TO COME ULL HAVE PLENTY MORE TO HATE ON. STAY TUNED’… ‘5 years ago a lost track. That’s what u base UR argument on? HOW ABOUT THE 9 PROJECTS THAT HAVE COME OUT SINCE? Don’t single me out.’ And he has a point, censoring a rapper has become so pointless!
However, Toronto’s NXNE has decided to pull the plug on Bronson’s free show, but they have decided to feature him later on at a ticketed event, declaring in a statement that they ‘ must accede to the strong wishes of the community and honour their input’ and that they ‘will not be presenting Action Bronson at Yonge-Dundas Square’ but ‘will still be presenting Action Bronson as part of Northby’. ‘Hopefully, Action Bronson will accept our invitation to play at another, ticketed venue in the city so the public can decide for themselves if his work has merit,’ they added.
So they are kind of going around the problem, it’s cancelled but there’s gonna be another one, letting people judge if they want to spend some money to hear offensive lyrics… And remember about this other Change.org petition, asking to remove another rapper (Kanye West) from the headline slot of Glastonbury festival? It has now more than 134,000 signature but the organizers haven’t given up, despise receiving death threats!! Yes death threats! Just tell me who are the most dangerous and immoral individuals in the story?