BENNETT TO RAP BRONFMAN'S BROKEN PROMISE

by Christopher Stern for Reuters

WASHINGTON (Variety) - Washington D.C. 'culture warriors' on Tuesday plan to accuse Seagram CEO Edgar Bronfman of failing to honor a promise not to distribute music with violent and profane lyrics through his MCA Music Group.

Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn) will join Empower America's William Bennett and C. DeLores Tucker of the National Political Congress of Black Women at a press conference to condemn Bronfman and MCA for distributing works by Marilyn Manson, Snoop Doggy Dogg and Tupac Shakur.

In an op-ed piece Monday in the New York Times, Bennett and Tucker touched on some of the issues they expected to raise at the press conference.

Bennett also claims that Bronfman personally promised him that his company would not distribute violent and sexually explicit lyrics when MCA bought 50% of Interscope Records from Time-Warner earlier this year. MCA is also close to acquiring Interscope's music publishing stake currently held by Warner Chappell Music, a Time-Warner company.

Bennett and his fellow 'culture warriors' have been highly critical of the rap music genre for more than two years, and he is widely credited with forcing Time-Warner to divest itself of Interscope.

Bennett will also point to a clause in the MCA/Interscope deal that allows MCA Records to decline to distribute any record which it finds unacceptable. Interscope would then be forced to seek alternate distribution for such albums, as it did in 1995 with releases from Shakur and Snoop, which Polygram and Priority Records distributed, respectively.

The 'culture warriors' plan to praise Wal-Mart for its decision not to sell music with lyrics and cover art the store finds objectionable.

However, many labels are aware of Wal-Mart's sensibilities and frequently create two versions of an album's cover: one for Wal-Mart's 900-plus stores that carry music, and another version for the majority of retailers.