The management of Filipino rapper Shanti Dope has responded to the move of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) to ban the song “Amatz” for allegedly promoting the use of marijuana.
In a statement posted on Shanti Dope’s Facebook page, the management urged PDEA Director General Aaron Aquino to listen to the song all the way through and do not just take “a few lines out of context.”
“While anyone is welcome to interpret a song or any cultural text, it is also clear that for an interpretation to be valid, it needs to have basis, and must be within the context of the cultural text as a whole,” it said.
“To take apart a song and judge it based on certain lyrics that offend us is unfair to the songwriter; to presume that our reading of a song is the only valid one is offensive to an audience that might be more mature than we think,” it added.
In a letter dated May 20, Aquino asked the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB), the Organisasyon ng Pilipinong Mang-aawit (OPM), as well as the ABS-CBN Corporation to prevent the airing and promotion of “Amatz,” which supposedly runs “contrary” to the current administration’s fight against illegal drugs.
[READ: PDEA wants Shanti Dope’s ‘Amatz’ song to be banned]
Citing the song’s chorus where it goes, “Lakas ng amats ko, sobrang natural, walang halong kemikal.” The lyrics also mentions, “Ito hinangad ko; lipadin ay mataas pa sa kayang ipadama sayo ng gramo, di bale ng musika ikamatay,” the PDEA chief argued that Shanti Dope appeared to be referring to the “high effect of marijuana, being in its natural/organic state and not altered by any chemical compound” in his song.
The management, however, explained that “By the time we reach the song’s chorus, “Amatz” already refers to precisely the music through which the persona found his identity — not any form of drugs, but the natural high of creativity and knowing he is the only one who knows to do what he does.”
Shanti Dope’s camp also said that PDEA’s call to ban the song sets “a dangerous precedent for creative and artistic freedom in the country, when a drug enforcement agency can unilaterally decide on what a song is about, and call for its complete ban because it is presumed to go against government’s war on illegal drugs.”
“This is a brazen use of power, and an affront to our right to think, write, create, and talk freely about the state of the nation,” it added.
“Amatz” was released last March 2019, under Universal Records Philippines.