San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright 1998 The San Francisco Chronicle
December 19, 1998
Section: NEWS
BAY AREA MUSIC STORES PULLING COMPACT DISC LYRICS ALLEGEDLY ENTICE VIOLENCE BETWEEN GANGS
Todd Henneman, Chronicle Staff Writer
Bay Area Sam Goody music stores are pulling a compact disc that critics say promotes violence between two gangs prevalent in the region.
The announcement came yesterday after dozens of protesters rallied outside Sam Goody at the Capitola Mall, calling for that Santa Cruz County store to stop selling " G.U.N . Generations of United Nortenos
. . XIV Till Eternity."
Only 20 stores of Sam Goody's 700 stores carried the compact disc. A Sam Goody executive called it a "very localized product," but a list of stores that carried it was not immediately available.
All 20 Sam Goody stores will pull the compact disc from their shelves and the company will review it, said Marcia Appel, senior vice president of advertising and marketing for Musicland Stores Inc., Sam Goody's parent company. "We feel it's our responsibility to review it," Appel said.
Appel said the compact disc has been in stores for months without controversy.
"(But) I doubt that you'll see it back," Appel said.
Broad Based Apprehension Suppression Treatment and Alternatives, an anti-gang coalition based in Watsonville, denounced "Generations of United Nortenos" as advocating violence between two particular gangs, the Nortenos and the Surenos.
"The lyrics were so explicit about gang members from one gang killing gang members of another gang," said Linda Perez, executive director of Pajaro Valley Prevention in Watsonville. "It's very different than your general gangster rap that's on the street."
Lyrics include lines such as "It's up to Nortenos to kill the beast. All Surenos must cease."
A representative of North Star Records, the compact disc's label, could not be reached for comment. A survey of more than a dozen other music stores in the Bay Area could not find one with the compact disc.
The Nortenos is a Northern California gang, and the Surenos is Southern California gang, said Sergeant Carlos Paredes, of the gang investigation unit of the San Jose Police Department. But members of both gangs are found throughout the Bay Area.
"I've never come across (a shooting) when we were investigating that was a result of any type of music so far," Paredes said. "That's not to say it won't happen."
But Watsonville Police Chief Terry Medina, who participated in the protest outside Sam Goody in Capitola, said he hoped to appeal to Sam Goody's sense of community.
"There's a lot of younger brothers and sisters in households of gang members that listen to this all day long," Medina said. "If you're five or six years old and that's what you hear, then you grow up pretty much expecting you're going to have to go do some violence against (some other group) and hate some other group of people. That's not very healthy for any community."
However, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California called it "troubling" that Sam Goody was pressured into pulling the compact disc.
"If music stores can be pressured into not carrying a particular CD or a particular type of CD, then the potential audience is really denied an opportunity to voice its own opinion whether that CD is a good CD or not, whether or not it should be available in the marketplace," ACLU staff attorney Ann Brick said. "And they do that by buying the CD or not buying the CD."
Copyright 1998 The San Francisco Chronicle
December 19, 1998
Section: NEWS
BAY AREA MUSIC STORES PULLING COMPACT DISC LYRICS ALLEGEDLY ENTICE VIOLENCE BETWEEN GANGS
Todd Henneman, Chronicle Staff Writer
Bay Area Sam Goody music stores are pulling a compact disc that critics say promotes violence between two gangs prevalent in the region.
The announcement came yesterday after dozens of protesters rallied outside Sam Goody at the Capitola Mall, calling for that Santa Cruz County store to stop selling " G.U.N . Generations of United Nortenos
. . XIV Till Eternity."
Only 20 stores of Sam Goody's 700 stores carried the compact disc. A Sam Goody executive called it a "very localized product," but a list of stores that carried it was not immediately available.
All 20 Sam Goody stores will pull the compact disc from their shelves and the company will review it, said Marcia Appel, senior vice president of advertising and marketing for Musicland Stores Inc., Sam Goody's parent company. "We feel it's our responsibility to review it," Appel said.
Appel said the compact disc has been in stores for months without controversy.
"(But) I doubt that you'll see it back," Appel said.
Broad Based Apprehension Suppression Treatment and Alternatives, an anti-gang coalition based in Watsonville, denounced "Generations of United Nortenos" as advocating violence between two particular gangs, the Nortenos and the Surenos.
"The lyrics were so explicit about gang members from one gang killing gang members of another gang," said Linda Perez, executive director of Pajaro Valley Prevention in Watsonville. "It's very different than your general gangster rap that's on the street."
Lyrics include lines such as "It's up to Nortenos to kill the beast. All Surenos must cease."
A representative of North Star Records, the compact disc's label, could not be reached for comment. A survey of more than a dozen other music stores in the Bay Area could not find one with the compact disc.
The Nortenos is a Northern California gang, and the Surenos is Southern California gang, said Sergeant Carlos Paredes, of the gang investigation unit of the San Jose Police Department. But members of both gangs are found throughout the Bay Area.
"I've never come across (a shooting) when we were investigating that was a result of any type of music so far," Paredes said. "That's not to say it won't happen."
But Watsonville Police Chief Terry Medina, who participated in the protest outside Sam Goody in Capitola, said he hoped to appeal to Sam Goody's sense of community.
"There's a lot of younger brothers and sisters in households of gang members that listen to this all day long," Medina said. "If you're five or six years old and that's what you hear, then you grow up pretty much expecting you're going to have to go do some violence against (some other group) and hate some other group of people. That's not very healthy for any community."
However, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California called it "troubling" that Sam Goody was pressured into pulling the compact disc.
"If music stores can be pressured into not carrying a particular CD or a particular type of CD, then the potential audience is really denied an opportunity to voice its own opinion whether that CD is a good CD or not, whether or not it should be available in the marketplace," ACLU staff attorney Ann Brick said. "And they do that by buying the CD or not buying the CD."
