Artists speaking out about their political views is becoming more and more common, as is obscenity in popular music. Cuss words in songs are ‘bleeped out’ on radio, however artists, particularly rappers in the 21st century, are choosing to create two versions of their songs; a ‘dirty’ one and a ‘clean’ one (Benesch 1994). This is known as self-censorship and is not as controversial as other types of censorship in relation to freedom of expression. In fact, Neil Strauss (2000) believes that, ‘the editing… actually improve[s] the song… bringing a touch of subtlety back to urban music’. ___________ Furthermore, by recording two versions of a song, an artist has a chance to earn more profit as the ‘cleaner’ version could be played anywhere while some people prefer to listen to the original explicit version. Ultimately, censorship of music is a violation of an artist’s freedom of expression, but on the other hand, an artist has the freedom to choose to censor their own music if they so
Artists speaking out about their political views is becoming more and more common, as is obscenity in popular music. Cuss words in songs are ‘bleeped out’ on radio, however artists, particularly rappers in the 21st century, are choosing to create two versions of their songs; a ‘dirty’ one and a ‘clean’ one (Benesch 1994). This is known as self-censorship and is not as controversial as other types of censorship in relation to freedom of expression. In fact, Neil Strauss (2000) believes that, ‘the editing… actually improve[s] the song… bringing a touch of subtlety back to urban music’. ___________ Furthermore, by recording two versions of a song, an artist has a chance to earn more profit as the ‘cleaner’ version could be played anywhere while some people prefer to listen to the original explicit version. Ultimately, censorship of music is a violation of an artist’s freedom of expression, but on the other hand, an artist has the freedom to choose to censor their own music if they so