GOOD COP, BAD COP: Just as the...

GOOD COP, BAD COP: Just as the Ice-T furor heats up again, another rap-vs-police controversy is looming. The Geto Boys, who were dropped from Geffen Records in 1990 over the issue of violent lyrics, have a new song with lyrics even more graphic about revenge against police than Ice-T’s “Cop Killer.”

Sample lines from “Crooked Officer”:

Try and pull me over on a dark road

But I’ll be damned if I don’t grab my 9 and unload

Until every blue shirt turns red

You heard what I said.

But James Smith, president of the group’s Houston-based Rap-a-Lot Records and a co-writer of the song, warns against a superficial reading of the lyrics.

“This is a song police ought to get behind instead of protesting against,” he says. “We’re targeting crooked officers. Nothing against straight officers that do their job. This is direct--you can’t argue with this too strongly.”

Smith doesn’t have to worry. Ron DeLord, president of the Combined Law Enforcement Assns. of Texas and the person who instigated the protests against Time Warner over “Cop Killer,” says that he’ll probably let this one be, since Rap-a-Lot and its distributor, L.A.-based Priority, are not “mainstream” corporate entities.

“I’m not going to get upset about every song,” DeLord says. “The ‘Cop Killer’ matter was a consumer message to Time Warner. While I think this song is wrong, it won’t get much airplay and there’s nothing much I can do about (Rap-a-Lot) and Priority. This is their niche. . . . I would be upset if a major company sold this.” Note: This version will only be on the group’s next album, “Till Death Do Us Part,” due in March. The single, being released this week, has different lyrics that don’t involve revenge against the “crooked” cops.