Charlles Evangelista , a congressman from the PSL party in Minas Gerais, presented a bill in September that aims to criminalize certain musical styles. These styles would be those that traditionally contain "offensive" content, such as profanity and insults.
Bill 5194/2019 could affect various musical styles, such as rock, funk, and rap. In the politician's words, genres that use "pejorative or offensive expressions" when composing.
The expressions deemed inappropriate by the document include lyrics that encourage practices such as drug use, weapons, pornography, or allusions to pedophilia, rape, offenses against the image of women, or hatred towards the police and the State.
"The musical styles that glorify the situations described in this bill do not refer to the expression of the language and customs of a segment of the population that is forced to live the reality portrayed in the songs; on the contrary, this proposal aims to inhibit language that degrades the image of a large part of society," the bill justifies.
The ban would apply to the entire genre, not specific songs. In case of non-compliance, artists would be punished – but the document does not detail what those punishments would be. The bill proposed by Evangelista will still go through committees in the Chamber of Deputies, and is available in its entirety on the Chamber's website.
Jair Bolsonaro still belongs , the bill addresses public morality and the family, as well as the negative influence on children.
See the full text below:
"This Bill is based on the fact that there is a great disrespect for public morals caused by the playing of songs containing derogatory or offensive expressions in public spaces. The discomfort stems from the explicit content of the lyrics, which address sexual themes and sometimes glorify crimes. Therefore, criminalizing musical styles in this sense would be a way to guarantee the mental health of families and especially of children and adolescents who do not yet have the necessary discernment to differentiate between reality and imagination.".
The musical styles that glorify the situations described in this bill do not refer to the expression of the language and customs of a segment of the population forced to live the reality portrayed in the songs; on the contrary, this proposal aims to inhibit language that degrades the image of a large part of society.
Given the growing popularity of music in various genres, we can see that these songs often have outdated lyrics (PL n.5194/2019) and frequently offend the image of women, resort to erotic behavior, and contain numerous swear words.
Our children and teenagers are certainly victims of this mass-culture musical appeal; they are forming in their social posture the conception that doing what the lyrics of trendy songs say is normal and beautiful, because those who don't follow what's popular are labeled as outdated. In this way, the premature transformation of this individual, alienated by the media-driven music of the moment, is noticeable, disrupting the development of human consciousness before the necessary maturation time.
Given the vast variety of music available to everyone, there is a need to carefully analyze the types of music being created and disseminated. Therefore, it is crucial to monitor what children and adolescents listen to, so that it does not negatively impact their learning and social development.
Therefore, it is concluded that authors and singers of any musical style who contain derogatory or offensive content should be held criminally responsible and punished by the Judiciary. This proposal aims to reaffirm the malevolent nature of musical styles that in any way encourage the propagation of crimes or embarrassing situations. To that end, I ask my esteemed parliamentary colleagues for their support in approving this project.”
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