Chicago Radio Stations 107.5 and 92.3 Have Failed Our City–We Want Them Off Our Airwaves
Chicago—As our city grapples with the horrors of children being murdered and ceaseless bloodshed, Power 92.3 FM and iHeart’s WGCI 107.5 FM continue to pump violence, drugs, and verbal porn into the minds of black youth. The music played on our airwaves, yes, OUR airwaves, is being programmed into the subconscious minds of black children and is spilling onto our city streets.
Corporations everywhere are being called to task on racist promotions, images, and practices. Statues are being torn down, protests are everywhere decrying anti-black racism, but iHeart and Crawford seem to be oblivious to the violent, drug-induced minstrel show they are running 24 hours a day.
Crawford’s 92.3 and iHeart’s 107.5 have proven that they are not interested in being responsible city stakeholders nor invested in our “urban” youth, the audience share they own. The reckless disregard for the content they distribute is directly negating the efforts of many who are trying to make a difference in our communities.
While most of us stopped listening to WGCI and Power 92 a long time ago, I need you to turn your ears back to the soundtrack of the streets so we can get a better understanding of their influence and the need to get them off the airwaves.
If you do not think this music makes a difference to impressionable, not fully developed minds, then I don’t know what to say. Perhaps that’s why the FCC has decency standards and you don’t.
If you can see how this music is aiding and abetting shootings, gang retaliation, pedophilia, misogyny, drug use, and the prison pipeline, then we’re on the same page. Keep reading.
Let us take a lyrical journey to the land of Chicago “Urban” Radio. The beats are banging and the music is pumping 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Get your ‘script, lean, and Glock ready, my n***a, and let’s get to bustin’.
Shootings:
This Draco (gun) undefeated, hit your block and then I bleed it, go long, these bullets, he receive it (instruction or description of a drive-by shooting)
My Glock told me to promise you gon squeeze me…soon as you up on that n***a, get to bustin’ (walk up to a rival, then shoot)
She [his mama] know what I do, she know before I run from a n***a, I’ma pull it out and shoot
My daughter a G, she saw me kill a n***a in front of her before the age of two and I’ll kill another n***a too
I put your face on the news, I put the p***y on the shirt after I murk, then make ’em go shoot up the hearse (murder victim covered in news stories, their grieving family and friends make t-shirts with their picture)
What’s your issue, if you got a trigger, squeeze it, A whole block outside, its a street fest (directions on how and why to shoot into a crowd)
How many times you got shot? A lot. How many n****s you shot? A lot. How many times did you ride? A lot. How many n****s done died? A lot.
We have an ever-evolving music culture. Not a devolving death culture. This music is not our culture. —Leila Wills, Metropolis
Gang beef:
Couple blue (Gangster Disciples) hunnids (AK47s) with the stones (Blackstones), it’s bleedin…(a shoot-out is in progress), ain’t no peace treaty, these stones around my Jesus, they ain’t treated, they got me heated, don’t play with the gang, they know that we undefeated
Drug use:
If I got a pint of lean, Ima sip, sip. (lean is a drink made with cough syrup for the codeine and/or promethazine)
I’m booted up off that molly, I cover my gun (molly is MDMA or ecstasy)
Got Promethazine (sedative) in my blood and Percocet (highly addictive, prescription pain killer)
Verbal Porn:
Shawty made that ass clap, she don’t need no applause (a stripper dance usually done naked)
She a bad b****, eat the p***y like a spinach, she’ll suck d*** on the way to the dentist
Sucking on d**k no hands with it
Put my c*m in her p***y, now it’s wet
Taxpayers own the airwaves, the government grants the license. We dictate our city’s radio culture. Let’s end the disrespect. —Leila Wills, Metropolis
Had enough? Because I can go on.
Let’s take a look at the FCC Decency Standards for radio:
Obscene content does not have protection by the First Amendment. For content to be ruled obscene, it must meet a three-pronged test established by the Supreme Court: It must appeal to an average person’s prurient interest; depict or describe sexual conduct in a “patently offensive” way; and, taken as a whole, lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
Indecent content portrays sexual or excretory organs or activities in a way that is patently offensive but does not meet the three-prong test for obscenity.
Profane content includes “grossly offensive” language that is considered a public nuisance.
FCC: Broadcasting obscene content is prohibited by law at all times of the day. Indecent and profane content are prohibited on broadcast TV and radio between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience.
Not only is Chicago radio grooming children for sexual exploitation (just like any pedophile), they are promoting murder, gang war, shootings, and drug use 24 hours a day.
While the artists are disposable to these radio stations and record labels, our communities and children suffer the long term effects of PTSD. They have seen their friends and family members being shot or killed and also from the deaths of these rappers glorified on 107.5 and 92.3 FM. Get yourself some street knowledge and Google “how many Chicago rappers have been killed.”
Chicago’s music scene has always been groundbreaking, soulful, and proud. These stations are killing our children and are disrespectful to our history. —Leila Wills, Metropolis
Maybe we have turned into our parents?
Uh, no. I remember having to sneak to listen to Rick James sing about someone named Mary Jane and Prince telling me his plane was parked right outside. Me singing along had no idea what these songs meant.
This daily degradation of black people on 107.5 and 92.3 is so far beyond the pale that they blatantly play instructional songs on how to do molly, how to shoot up a block, and how to treat a girl like a b**** or a h*e.
“You never know how dirty a song’s lyrics are until you hear a child sing them” —unknown
We are demanding:
An immediate end to the broadcasting of music with obscene, vulgar, and violent lyrics on radio stations 92.3 and 107.5 in Chicago.
All advertisers end their financial support of these stations
The FCC revokes the licenses of these stations
Please sign your name and help us Clear the Airwaves of Violence and Obscenities. We are not asking for donations, just your signature. We will alert you on the steps we are taking.
Chicago has had enough. Metropolis