Here is the transcript as rendered:
BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the Impact Segment tonight, last week, the principal of John Reynolds Elementary School in Philadelphia, Salome Thomas-El, told us he believes gangsta rap music is extremely harmful to his inner-city students. So we decided to get Grammy-nominee Cam'ron, who raps about pimping and bitches -- among other things -- and rap producer Damon Dash, co-founder of Rockefeller Records, together with Mr. Thomas-El, who joins us now from Philly. And here they all are. Now we're going to have a nice, intelligent discussion here, gentlemen, and I'm going to moderate this discussion.
CAM'RON, RAPPER: Pimping and bitches.
O'REILLY: Yes. You know.
CAM'RON: Pimping and bitches.
O'REILLY: You've got it in your record "Purple Haze" right here. But, anyway, let Mr. Thomas-El direct his questions, and then you guys can answer, and you can ask him questions or whatever you want. Go ahead, sir.
SALOME THOMAS-EL, ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPAL: Yes. Good evening, gentlemen.
CAM'RON: Hey, how are you?
DAMON DASH, RAP PRODUCER: How are you doing?
THOMAS-EL: Good, good, good. I'm a big fan of yours. I grew up on hip-hop.
CAM'RON: Thank you, sir.
THOMAS-EL: I'm a little older, so, you know, I was a Run DMC fan, KRS1.
CAM'RON: Yes, sir.
THOMAS-EL: But I'm always promoting the positive of rap. I mean Jay-Z's an excellent example of someone who's started his own label. He's an entrepreneur. So always promoting that with my young people. But I spoke to some students today in preparation for our conversation tonight, and they were just so excited about the fact that I would be conversating with you guys, but also began to talk about the impact of the rap business on our young people, and many of them talked about how they understand that it's to sell records and it's, you know, for promotion. But there are many young people who are affected by the lyrics, by the example of the videos. They talked about how Ludacris -- many of them knew about a video that Ludacris has where there's strippers and lap dances and those kinds of things, and these are 11-, 12-, and 13-year-old students who are very aware of what goes on. And I was just wondering what your thoughts were on whether you thought you really had an impact on the lives of young people and whether you thought it was negative or positive.
O'REILLY: Cam'ron, why don't you go ahead?
CAM'RON: At the end of the day, yes, you've got an influence on it, but so do movies. Like with me, I'm just an author. So what I do is I write what goes on in the ghetto. I'm not a liar. So what I tell you goes on in my album, that's what goes on on the streets of Harlem. Now I'm like a reporter. When you look at the news, you don't get mad at the person reporting the news. A lot of influence, I think, go to movies. A lot of people look at the movies, and then they react. The kids that killed them kids in -- where was that, Damon? Colorado?
DASH: Columbine.
CAM'RON: Columbine. Yes. You feel what I'm saying? I don't think they were listening to rap at all. I think that was more like a Marilyn Manson jump-off, you know, like...
O'REILLY: What if an 11-year-old kid imitates you, Cam'ron? What if he uses four-letter words and he develops a lifestyle based upon the street, he gets tattooed, he gets all of this, do you feel badly about that?
CAM'RON: No, I don't.
DASH: Can I interject?
O'REILLY: Go ahead.
DASH: If an 11-year-old were to imitate Cam'ron, what they would be doing is becoming a CEO Of their own company, controlling their own destiny, taking a bad situation and making it good. He has a record company. He's sold a lot of records. He's acted in movies. I feel like he's a positive...
CAM'RON: I have a cologne also.
DASH: He has a cologne.
CAM'RON: I have a clothing line.
O'REILLY: Well, you know what I'm talking about, Damon.
DASH: Well, no, he's an entrepreneur by his own right.
O'REILLY: If you have a child who is unsupervised and then Mr. Thomas-El has to try to teach and he's using four-letter words inappropriately, he's dressing inappropriately, he doesn't have value of education then that kid's in trouble.
DASH: Who's to say what's inappropriate as far as dressing goes? But, on another level, when Arnold Schwarzenegger was the Terminator, he was shooting up everyone in sight.
O'REILLY: It's a cartoon, though. This is real, though, isn't it?
CAM'RON: Everybody's rap isn't real.
O'REILLY: This is real. It's not a Terminator cartoon. All right. Mr. Thomas-El, what else do you want to ask these guys?
DASH: You didn't let me finish, Bill. That wasn't very fair.
O'REILLY: All right. Go ahead. Go ahead. I'll let Mr. Dash finish.
DASH: Now we're talking about the good governor of California right now.
O'REILLY: That's right. And I'm telling you his movie's a cartoon, whereas this rap stuff is real life.
DASH: Now -- whoa, whoa, whoa. If there's an unsupervised child, how is he going to know whether it's real or not? How is he to determine what's real and what's not real? Who's the supervisor?
O'REILLY: All right. And you think that the "Terminator" movies are just as damaging or more so than gangsta rap.
DASH: I would have to say being that there's a visual and being there's no explanation to them and being that it's...
O'REILLY: There's visuals on these rap videos, too, though.
DASH: But what I'm saying is it's glorified. There's no justification for all the shooting that goes on.
O'REILLY: All right.
DASH: So if he's reporting on what goes on around the street, he's a product of his environment, he's reporting what is a product of his environment. How is that wrong for him to report that?
THOMAS-EL: Gentlemen, let's be honest.
(CROSSTALK)
O'REILLY: Let Mr. Thomas-El get in here. Go ahead.
THOMAS-EL: Gentlemen, let's be honest. Who do these kids relate to someone from the inner city or someone from another country or someone from the suburbs? Let's be quite honest.
DASH: Well, what I was trying to...
THOMAS-EL: You came up the same way I did, the same way millions of these kids do every day.
DASH: Right, right.
THOMAS-EL: We're growing up in a fatherless society. A lot of our friends -- your friends, my friends -- didn't have a lot of supervision at home. Most of time, they were at our homes. We had good parents. We had parents who didn't allow us to do, or watch these kinds of things. I'm a critic of the movie industry also. I think that the kids are watching too much TV period. But my issue is that when you rap, you rap about what these children relate to because it's in their environment. You've already stated that they don't know your story because you're a CEO, and I agree. But, see, you don't promote this and your company doesn't promote that. They promote the four-letter words.
DASH: We don't promote entrepreneurship? We don't promote positive and ownership of your company? I'm making it cool to be smart. I'm making it cool to be a businessman.
O'REILLY: All right. Look, but it's not about business.
DASH: It's not about business for you because you feel like it might give you better ratings to portray something negative with the image of hip-hop.
O'REILLY: It is negative. It is negative.
DASH: It's not negative to be a businessman.
O'REILLY: Sure it is. It's negative to make money, Mr. Dash, if you hurt children.
DASH: How do you hurt children by promoting to be an entrepreneur and a CEO and to do right...
(CROSSTALK)
O'REILLY: Hold it! Hold it! You're looking at a principal...
CAM'RON: Why don't you want to let him talk? You mad. You mad.
O'REILLY: You won't let me finish.
CAM'RON: Where did you start covering up the fear, right?
O'REILLY: No, wrong.
CAM'RON: I'm going to get at you in a minute.
O'REILLY: You go ahead. You get at me.
CAM'RON: I'm going to get at you in a minute.
O'REILLY: Listen, you guys, you're looking at a guy who teaches inner-city kids and who is telling you face to face that he has problems with kids based upon the rap music, and you're rationalizing it all up and down.
DASH: I thought you were going to mediate
O'REILLY: I am.
DASH: No, what you're doing is you're giving opinions. That's not being an objective mediator now, Bill.
O'REILLY: No, I can give my opinion. It's my program.
DASH: Well, now it's your program.
O'REILLY: Yes, it's my program.
DASH: Bill. Come on, Bill.
O'REILLY: We’ll have The Dash Factor some other time.
DASH: Let's stand back. I have The Dash Factor.
O'REILLY: No, I've got a question for Cam'ron based on what you just said.
DASH: Don't yell. Come on. Let's keep this civil.
O'REILLY: This is civil. Come on.
THOMAS-EL: I've got -- I've got...
O'REILLY: Wait a minute. Wait a minute, Mr. Thomas-El. Now, look, if the principal tells you that there are children in his school, Cam'ron, who are being adversely affected by your music, do you care?
CAM'RON: I care, but you've got to talk to their parents.
O'REILLY: What if they don't have good parents?
CAM'RON: Why are they in school? They have to have parents to be in school. Somebody sent them to school.
O'REILLY: No, they don't.
DASH: No, you don't. No, you don't.