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Snoop Dogg expected to be on ‘best behaviour’ for Isle of MTV
Controversial rapper Snoop Dogg, who will be headlining this year’s edition of the free, open-air Isle of MTV concert on 30 June is promised to be on his “best behaviour” for the duration of the concert, which will be held at the Granaries in Floriana.
“He owes a lot to MTV,” government sources within the Malta Tourism Authority (MTA) said. “He actually headlined for a previous edition of Isle of MTV – in Trieste – where he was on his best behaviour. He knows on what side his bread is buttered, and will not compromise that.”
However it remains unclear what ‘best behaviour’ would constitute in this case, given that the lyrical content of Snoop Dogg’s discography is practically rife with obscenities – even government sources have acknowledged that one would have to “rifle through the songs for words that aren’t obscene.”
It is also unclear how Snoop Dogg’s performance on 30 June – restrained as it may be – sits with Malta’s censorship and obscenity laws. Last summer’s edition of Isle of MTV festival hosted another hip-hop artist – Kid Rock – whose liberal use of swearwords led many to wonder whether double-standards came into play when it came to lucrative foreign acts, given the highly controversial cases of censorship that have dominated the media, and Maltese cultural life, over the past couple of years.
While stopping short of elaborating on this, the MTA source pointed out how, strictly speaking, concerts do not fall into the remit of the censorship law – unlike theatrical performances – and that it is only the police that could pose a problem to the performance on 30 June.
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Well said Sinan!!
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I am a father of three, two of whom are fans of rappers like Eminem, who is also not particularly refined in his language. I usually do not have a kind predisposition towards people who swear and intercalate with four-letter words, though admittedly such language uttered in Maltese for some strange reason sounds far more vulgar. But I do not make such a great fuss over these songs, particularly if I think of my own times as a youngster when I was a great fan of Lou Reed, the forerunner of punk with the likes of the Stranglers and the Sex Pistols. I had a few things to rebel about in late seventies and early eighties, but I didn't grow into a criminal. I, however, seem to be more sensitive towards the aggressive consumerism of free market politics, on the pretext that the market must regulate itself, advocated by many neo-conservative governments, including GonziPN. I resent in particular the hypocrisy of the sanctimoniousness of GonziPN because of the lack of a proper family policy. If GonziPN took better care of adopting more familly friendly measures such as subsidised child minding centres, more respect for women's jobs at the workplace, more innovative teaching methods, sexual education, better management of cost of living and fuel prices, then maybe we would have parents who are less stressed after a day's work and part-time jobs, more present in their homes, more receptive to dialogue with their children. The outcome of this bad policy-making causes much more harm than the few four-letter words of provocation. Actually sometimes these words uttered in anger should be interpreted for what they really are: a desecration of this claustrophobic aura of fake sanctity and hypocrisy we have in this island.
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I don't give a hoot!
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Snoop don't let us down. Help this country grow up a little and blast the censorship regime back where it belongs: the hell-hole of the Middle Ages! Help us move into the 21st. century and do not compromise your style for a couple of stuffy, archaic, patriarchal arch-conservatives!
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LOL !!!
The obscenities and blasphemy blurted out allover the place in Malta are by far worse than Snoop Dogg's lyrics altogether
