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Does Music With "Crude and Sexist" Lyrics Belong in the Dining Room?

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Does "a loud and sexually graphic soundtrack" have any place in restaurants? That's the question posed by Seattle Met critic Kathryn Robinson in a post published this morning on the magazine's Nosh Pit blog.

Robinson was dining with her husband on a recent visit to Eastlake's newish addition Babirusa (an Eater Heatmap member.) She writes:

...before our pork cracklins gave way to our Arctic char hushpuppies, the music grew nastier and the f-bombs began ricocheting off the walls. "Damn it feels good to be a gangsta," came those old Geto Boys lyrics. "Cocksuckin' pussy-eatin' prankstas."

She goes on to ask if music with "lyrics this crude and sexist" would be any more or less appropriate if Babirusa was a bar and not a restaurant, noting that a family came in for dinner after the soundtrack moved on from the Geto Boys.

When restaurants whose "high-end food is aimed squarely at sophisticates" play songs with lyrics that offend some diners, does business inevitably take a beating? She writes, "Is it just me, or is that the biggest duh in the restaurant industry?"

The way I see it, lyrics like that have no business showing up anywhere near the hospitality industry, for the simple reason that they are not hospitable. Nevermind whether they are empirically offensive—that's a question for philosophers, no matter what I might argue.

What's your take?
· The Restaurant Whose Soundtrack Stunned Even Jaded Old Me [Seattle Met]
· All Babirusa Coverage [-ESEA-]

Babirusa

2319 2nd Avenue, , WA 98121 (206) 329-2744 Visit Website