Kids Perform Rap Songs At School, One Gets Suspended

Union Leader reports, you decide.

MANCHESTER – Two Manchester Central Student Council members, including the president, have been removed from the council and one suspended after a performance of rap and hip-hop songs at a school talent show last week.

Central Student Council President Cory Sinotte and Student Council Sergeant-At-Arms Jeff Slark were dismissed from their duties -- with Sinotte also receiving a one-day suspension -- by Central Principal John Rist, after the duo used a guitar and piano to perform cover versions of a series of rap and hip-hop songs containing the word "skeet," a hip-hop term for coitus interruptus.

Sinotte and Slark contend the medley featured only the "clean" version of the songs, as designated by the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) Parental Advisory Logo (PAL) standard, a voluntary rating system which allows songs to be sold in two versions, "clean" or "explicit."

Slark was dismissed from his council duties on Friday.

Sinotte said he met with Rist Thursday, and was told that the decision to dismiss and suspend him was final.

Sinotte and Slark told the Union Leader that they made sure to use the "clean" version of the song that is played on the radio in their performance so they wouldn't get in trouble.

Here's the thing about the story that makes these administration officials sound either like hypocrites or completely out of touch.

[Sinotte] said the song, "Get Low" by Lil' Jon and the East Side Boyz, has been played at multiple school dances, including the Music Department semiformal, as well as at least two pep rallies and an assembly over the last four years, without any complaints from school officials.

When my parents moved us from Brattleboro, Vermont (now well known for its naked people in the parking lots during the summer) to Manchester, I went to West High School for the last quarter of my freshman year before eventually finishing out high school at Memorial. When I came in during that quarter, I found myself wondering why kids in the school were wearing shirts with a circle and the letter Z in the middle. I found out when I picked up an edition of the school paper it was becasue of something that had just happened at the school before I got there -- the Student Council President, during an assembly, used the term "ballsy." In further protest, someone had put a dummy in one of the trees wearing the same t-shirt while I was in English class.

The backlash is already starting -- one of the student council members resigned in protest, and the entire student council has written and signed a letter to the school board protesting the decision.

Expect dummies in trees wearing "skeet" t-shirts in the future.