Select Committee on Home Affairs Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 418 - 419)

TUESDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2007

MR ROGER DRAKES AKA DJ DODGE, MR BOB TYLER AND MR ANDY PARFITT

  Q418  Chairman: Good afternoon, and thank you very much for coming to this session which we have as part of our inquiry into young black people and crime to explore any possible relationship between that and rap and hip hop music. Perhaps I could ask each of you to introduce yourselves, for the record, to the Committee and then I will say a few things and then begin the questioning.

  Mr Parfitt: My name is Andy Parfitt. I am the Controller of BBC Radio 1 and its sister station 1Xtra.

  Mr Tyler: I am Bob Tyler. I am Head of Compliance at VITV/Channel U, a station which shows primarily hip hop and British urban videos.

  Mr Drakes: I am Roger Drakes, club DJ and record producer who also speaks at schools and colleges about music and music-related subjects.

  Q419  Chairman: In opening can I say that when we started doing our inquiry, which is looking primarily at possible reasons why there is an overrepresentation of young black people in the criminal justice system, we had not planned to have a discussion on contemporary urban music. But a significant number of the witnesses that we had from within the black community, and those working with young black people, pointed the finger at music as one of the issues we should be concerned about. Very much in the questions that we will be asking as a Committee this afternoon we will be reflecting to you things that have been put to us by other witnesses, particularly witnesses from within the black community and those working with black people in the community, rather than our own views. I wonder if I could start by asking you briefly a bit about the role in which rap, hip hop or contemporary urban, whatever is the right expression, plays in the lives of young black people in this country at the moment and if you think there is anything qualitatively different between this music and the relationship with this audience and all the other forms of contemporary music that young people have been used to over the years.

  Mr Drakes: Basically, as a life-long fan of music and rap music, soul, jazz and all kinds of black music, I have to say yes; music does play a part in young people's lives. Like any teenager, when you are young, music is a big deal to you no matter what the genre, but to say that it makes people go and act out certain things I would say definitely no. Music is so far from the root cause of what the problems are. Negative rap lyrics have been around for 20 years plus. I myself grew up listening to plenty of negative rap music, along with all the other genres of music, and it has not affected me in any way. Music is not the cause of the person I am.


 
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