Ludacris Censorship

Since when is abortion an explicative? Since Ludacris' song "Runaway Love", featuring Mary J. Blige, has been getting airplay.

Anyone who has listened to the radio or watched MTV in the last few years is familiar with explicit lyrics in songs. The way radio deals with this is by playing "clean" versions of the songs. Songs are usually cleansed by simply dropping or replacing of the offending syllable from the track.

Which is why I was surprised when the word "abortion" was dropped from the Ludacris song. Given the nature of the song, the censorship just doesn't make sense. The lyric revolves around the problems of growing up poor, violent stepfathers, drugs, prostitution and premarital sex.

To find myself enjoying such a deep message in such a catchy way from a "dirty south" rapper, is refreshing and unusual. So it makes me wonder about the edit and who they edited for. For most the mention of abortion would not seem offensive. It is an often discussed topic in most all other media. And in the context of the song it is very important.

To me the edit betrays a sensitivity that robs from the art form. Albeit, there are many words and phrases that are a part of that art form that are more or less rightfully cleansed. That can be debated. It can also be debated whether editing essential phrases is helpful to the morals or the art themselves.

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