And I know she wants it because we've been together for 20 years." He said Blurred Lines was being banned by "people who don't understand the song", adding: "I wrote it about my wife. Further student union bans followed, resulting in Thicke defending his lyrics at 1Xtra Live in Liverpool in October. Edinburgh students' union banned the song in September 2013, claiming it "promotes an unhealthy attitude towards sex and consent". Opponents suggested some lyrics, including "I hate these blurred lines, I know you want it" referred to non-consensual sex. But before that it was widely criticised for its video and lyrical content. It found itself at the centre of a copyright infringement case in 2015 brought by Marvin Gaye's estate, who successfully argued that it plagiarised the 1977 Gaye song Got to Give It Up. and Pharrell Williams, became a global smash hit engulfed in controversy. The Home Secretary has the power to exclude an individual if she considers that his or her presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good or if their exclusion is justified on public policy grounds."Ĭanadian-American soul singer and songwriter Robin Thicke had been something of a behind-the-scenes man before his 2013 single Blurred Lines, featuring T.I. Highlights from the letter include that his work 'encourages violence and intolerance of homosexuality' and 'fosters hatred with views that seek to provoke others to terrorist acts'."Īs reported by Newsbeat, a spokesperson for the Home Office said: "Coming to the UK is a privilege, and we expect those who come here to respect our shared values. The letter specifically cites lyrics he wrote 6-7 years ago for his albums B****** and Goblin - the type of lyrics he hasn’t written since. On Tumblr, Tyler's manager Christian Clancy wrote: "Tyler has been banned from entering the UK for somewhere between 3 to 5 years per a letter from the Secretary of State for the Home Department. The story was confusing, to say the least. The wider world of hip hop got an introduction to our current prime minister, then Home Secretary, last year when rapper Tyler, the Creator tweeted that he had been banned from entering the UK "based on lyrics from 2009".
The message I'm sending to myself - I can't change the world until I change myself first."
It's something I still have to think about when I sleep at night. I don't talk about these things if I haven't lived them, and I've hurt people in my life. One lyric in particular, concerning the 17-year-old African-American shot dead by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida in 2012, proved to be even more controversial than the Control verse: "So why did I weep when Trayvon Martin was in the street, when gang-banging make me kill a n**** blacker than me? Hypocrite!"įans suggested he was passing judgement on the black community in the US, forcing Kendrick to explain his line in an NPR interview: "It's not me pointing at my community it's me pointing at myself. All tracks Kendrick subsequently released were examined in forensic detail, especially The Blacker the Berry, the second single from 2015's To Pimp a Butterfly. On that track, he called out and verbally obliterated 12 fellow rappers (including Big Sean and the other feature on the song, Jay Electronica) and in the process ordained himself as the high priest of hip hop. It can be nauseating, but not always, and somewhere within all these lyrics from recent times there's much to learn:įirst up, Kendrick Lamar's verse on the 2013 Big Sean song, Control, worked as more of a coup. The birth of hip hop created a whole new set of rules for offending the censors (and rival rappers), and we're deep into an age now when social media exponentially exacerbates the amount of outrage a line or two in a song can cause. And if, as Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols said, "Actually, we're not into music we're into chaos," why not release a song called God Save the Queen on Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee in 1977, ruffle the establishment's feathers and enjoy a hit at the same time? Frankie Goes to Hollywood must have been delighted when Radio 1 DJ Mike Read took offence to the chorus of their 1983 single Relax, helping it to shoot up the charts to No.1. Sometimes, though, a controversial lyric achieves little more than brisk business for a song. Songs like Billie Holiday's Strange Fruit and Public Enemy's Fight the Power held a mirror up to society and forced important debate. The history of popular music is awash with lyrics that kicked up an almighty stink and often with very good reason. The pen is mightier than the sword, the idiom dictates, and used well words can hurt just as much as sticks and stones.
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