2 Live Crew: Pioneers of Miami Bass and Free Speech

Sir Daniel: 00:00:00

who would think that Bruce Springsteen would allow 2 Live Crew

Sir Daniel: 00:00:03

to sample his "Born in the U.S.A."

Sir Daniel: 00:00:06

record to create,

Sir Daniel: 00:00:08

" Jay Ray: Banned in the USA"?

Sir Daniel: 00:00:27

Greetings and welcome to another episode of Queue Points podcast.

Sir Daniel: 00:00:30

I am DJ Sir Daniel

Jay Ray: 00:00:32

And my name is Jay Ray, and Sir Daniel, um, I'm checking out your shirt.

Jay Ray: 00:00:37

We gonna talk about a Luther on this shirt, or this show.

Jay Ray: 00:00:40

Not that Luther, but a really important Luther who was part of a really

Jay Ray: 00:00:46

important crew that we just gotta talk about during our summer of sex

Sir Daniel: 00:00:52

We are discussing the forefathers of, uh, the new, at that time,

Sir Daniel: 00:00:58

a new sexual revolution in hip hop music.

Sir Daniel: 00:01:03

We're talking about July 25th, 1986.

Sir Daniel: 00:01:08

That was 40 years ago that the 2 Live Crew released their s- debut studio

Sir Daniel: 00:01:14

album, The 2 Live Crew Is What We Are.

Sir Daniel: 00:01:18

And Jay Ray, that album is important in the sense that it was like the Florida

Sir Daniel: 00:01:25

cousin to Soul Sonic Force in the sense that it featured, it fused Miami bass,

Sir Daniel: 00:01:32

and we're gonna talk about, um, bass culture and car culture in a little bit.

Sir Daniel: 00:01:39

It fused electro funk and, and of course it infused like

Sir Daniel: 00:01:43

traditional rap and hip hop.

Sir Daniel: 00:01:45

But, um, some standout cuts, Jay Ray, on that album, like there's some

Sir Daniel: 00:01:49

serious classics on there like Get It Girl, Get, Get, Get, Get, Get It Girl.

Sir Daniel: 00:01:53

Like, if you… We, I, I'm excited.

Sir Daniel: 00:01:56

We gonna, and then you'll find out why.

Sir Daniel: 00:01:58

And then I think the, the biggest classic for them was Throw That D

Jay Ray: 00:02:02

Mm-hmm.

Sir Daniel: 00:02:03

Throw That D is, is a…

Sir Daniel: 00:02:06

You know Throw That D because it was sampled by Will.i.am.

Sir Daniel: 00:02:11

Well, not sampled.

Sir Daniel: 00:02:12

He used the lyrics.

Sir Daniel: 00:02:13

It was interpolated on Fergie's Fergalicious album because it

Sir Daniel: 00:02:17

starts off, "Now listen up, y'all, 'cause this is it. Forget that old

Sir Daniel: 00:02:24

dance and throw that mmm." Yes.

Sir Daniel: 00:02:27

So we're gonna be bleeping ourselves a lot on this episode, too, because

Sir Daniel: 00:02:31

it's the summer of sex, Jay Ray, and listen, the, the, the lyrics

Sir Daniel: 00:02:36

got a little bit more explicit.

Sir Daniel: 00:02:38

The beats got a little more heavier.

Sir Daniel: 00:02:41

Um, they became bouncier.

Sir Daniel: 00:02:42

Um,

Sir Daniel: 00:02:44

there was some, of course there was some resistance in New York and to, to

Sir Daniel: 00:02:50

hip hop traditionalists, but this group grew and literally changed the face

Sir Daniel: 00:03:00

of, of rap music and actually exposed the rest of the world to a whole new

Sir Daniel: 00:03:08

culture because Miami is a microcosm of a

Jay Ray: 00:03:12

Mm-hmm.

Sir Daniel: 00:03:13

um, I also wanna shout out DJ Mr. Mixx, and we'll get to the rest

Sir Daniel: 00:03:18

of the crew members because he's one of the… Re- remember, Jay Ray, back in the

Sir Daniel: 00:03:22

day, DJs would get a feature on the album.

Sir Daniel: 00:03:26

Like, they would have an opportunity, a whole track just to do their thing, and

Sir Daniel: 00:03:32

I will say that DJ Mr. Mixx is probably one of the most underrated DJs in hip hop

Sir Daniel: 00:03:39

history when it comes to his turntablism.

Sir Daniel: 00:03:42

That man was sick with it, is sick with it when it comes to the, uh, cutting and

Sir Daniel: 00:03:47

scratching, uh, featured on a rap record.

Sir Daniel: 00:03:51

But, uh, let's get into the who makes up the 2 Live Crew, Jay Ray.

Sir Daniel: 00:03:55

Who is a- who are the actual members of 2 Live Crew?

Jay Ray: 00:03:58

Yeah, so 2 Live Crew, uh, started, uh, with

Jay Ray: 00:04:02

Fresh Kid Ice and Mr. Mixx.

Jay Ray: 00:04:04

Those two guys had been working together, and there's a little bit

Jay Ray: 00:04:06

of history of how that came to be.

Jay Ray: 00:04:09

But, um, later on, uh, Brother Marquis, uh, came into the fold, as well as

Jay Ray: 00:04:16

one Luther Campbell, who we were- we knew as Luke Skyywalker at the time.

Jay Ray: 00:04:22

And, uh, so they became kind of a four-man lineup.

Jay Ray: 00:04:25

So for their first album you'll see all the members,

Jay Ray: 00:04:27

all four members on the cover.

Jay Ray: 00:04:29

And there's a lot of things, um, that are unique about the

Jay Ray: 00:04:36

release of that record too.

Jay Ray: 00:04:37

So one, for me personally, Sir Daniel, um, I was living up here in Chester, PA.

Jay Ray: 00:04:44

There was no 2 Live Crew playing up here at the time.

Jay Ray: 00:04:49

So the… Uh, uh, contextualizing for folks that at that time music

Jay Ray: 00:04:57

was still very regional, right?

Jay Ray: 00:04:59

So we've

Jay Ray: 00:04:59

talked about radio a lot on this show.

Jay Ray: 00:05:01

So radio stations played what people were listening to in that area, right?

Jay Ray: 00:05:08

And that music from Miami hadn't made it up here, right?

Jay Ray: 00:05:11

So if you weren't living down there, you didn't hear it.

Jay Ray: 00:05:14

So I didn't hear the 2 Live Crew until a couple of years later, and we'll

Jay Ray: 00:05:18

talk about kinda why that happened.

Jay Ray: 00:05:21

But What's unique about that record is they could not get signed.

Jay Ray: 00:05:27

So uniquely, the reason why 2 Live Crew is in our Summer of Sex, and Sir

Jay Ray: 00:05:33

Daniel, you set this up, is, you know, they really are purveyors of this kind

Jay Ray: 00:05:37

of new sexual revolution, in particular from a men's perspective, which has

Jay Ray: 00:05:41

a unique sp- u- unique side to that.

Jay Ray: 00:05:45

But because of what they were doing and how they were doing it and

Jay Ray: 00:05:49

what they were saying, it was, they couldn't get signed to, like, a, a, a

Jay Ray: 00:05:54

label.

Jay Ray: 00:05:55

Yeah, they couldn't get signed at all.

Jay Ray: 00:05:57

So what Luke did is he started his own label, right?

Jay Ray: 00:06:01

And, and called it Luke Skyywalker Records, and they began to

Jay Ray: 00:06:05

release under their own imprint.

Jay Ray: 00:06:07

So they were releasing independently and selling those records locally

Jay Ray: 00:06:11

and regionally on their own.

Jay Ray: 00:06:14

So that made this group really unique.

Jay Ray: 00:06:17

Um, but yeah, I didn't end up hearing them until they went national a couple

Jay Ray: 00:06:21

of years later with Move Somethin'.

Jay Ray: 00:06:24

Um, and that was '88.

Jay Ray: 00:06:25

That was actually my, I've talked about this on the show, my pl- where I fell

Jay Ray: 00:06:29

in love with hip hop was in 1988 and, like, all of the stuff that came out,

Jay Ray: 00:06:33

and 2 Live Crew was one of those groups.

Jay Ray: 00:06:36

And I was listening to them, hearing Soulsonic Force,

Jay Ray: 00:06:41

but also hearing this, this 808 under all of that that sounded, like, different

Jay Ray: 00:06:46

than what was happening in the North.

Jay Ray: 00:06:48

So it was very distinguishable

Sir Daniel: 00:06:51

Absolutely.

Sir Daniel: 00:06:51

Oh man, there's so much to unpack here.

Sir Daniel: 00:06:53

So going back to the original lineup, um, of 2 Live Crew, Christopher Wong Won, AKA

Sir Daniel: 00:07:02

Fresh, Fresh Kid Ice, clearly the only Asian member of the 2 Live Crew, which

Sir Daniel: 00:07:09

of course he stood out like a sore thumb.

Sir Daniel: 00:07:11

But for the record, Jay Ray, I think it's possibly one of the

Sir Daniel: 00:07:16

first and one of the first Asian,

Jay Ray: 00:07:19

Yeah

Sir Daniel: 00:07:19

rappers ever in a major rap group signed to a label, the whole nine.

Sir Daniel: 00:07:24

So I, like you, I had never… So this is '86.

Sir Daniel: 00:07:27

Never heard of 2 Live Crew until, 2 Live Crew until '88, like you, and that

Sir Daniel: 00:07:33

was only because of Ralph McDaniels and Video Music Box is when I also saw

Sir Daniel: 00:07:38

the Move Something, um, video, but that came, that's on their second album.

Sir Daniel: 00:07:43

So on this first album, you have, like I said, we have Throw That D,

Sir Daniel: 00:07:47

which is a, a, an instant classic in Florida and regionally in those places.

Sir Daniel: 00:07:55

And, um, there is so much to be said about the, the beats, the, the BPMs.

Sir Daniel: 00:08:02

That's another thing.

Sir Daniel: 00:08:03

It w- it was a faster BPM, higher.

Sir Daniel: 00:08:06

They're rapping a lot faster.

Sir Daniel: 00:08:08

They are more explicit.

Sir Daniel: 00:08:10

The way I like to explain 2 Live Crew, if I want to explain 2 Live Crew to,

Sir Daniel: 00:08:16

um, to a youngin', to somebody, a baby right now, I would, mm, they probably

Sir Daniel: 00:08:23

wouldn't even get this reference.

Sir Daniel: 00:08:25

But for those of us Gen Xers, 2 Live Crew is the amalgamation of Every single

Sir Daniel: 00:08:33

boy that watched a Porky's movie and g- that watched Porky's movies, Revenge

Sir Daniel: 00:08:41

of the Nerds, Toola Crew, their album was like an amalgamation of that.

Sir Daniel: 00:08:46

It was like if, if you put a, if you mixed all of that together with teen

Sir Daniel: 00:08:51

angst, um, toxic masculinity back in the eight- 'cause this is the '80s, so

Sir Daniel: 00:08:56

we talking about toxic masculinity and a lot of, um, s- uh, sexual repression

Sir Daniel: 00:09:04

that is now being fought because you've got, um, you've got the adult, um, the

Sir Daniel: 00:09:10

adult movies industry on the rise, and you've got the magazines and everything.

Sir Daniel: 00:09:16

So all of these things, Toola Crew is like your teenage, um,

Sir Daniel: 00:09:20

brother's hormones on steroids.

Sir Daniel: 00:09:23

And because even on the record, he's-- they, they execute, they use, um,

Sir Daniel: 00:09:28

samples from Rudy Ray Moore albums, like a lot of Dolemite records

Sir Daniel: 00:09:33

that were very sexually explicit, um, rhymes, 'cause Dolemite was a

Jay Ray: 00:09:38

A

Sir Daniel: 00:09:38

for all intents and pur- purposes.

Sir Daniel: 00:09:41

And they would get on there, they would use those samples to just

Sir Daniel: 00:09:45

heighten the sexuality of it all and to heighten the pimpness of it

Sir Daniel: 00:09:49

all, because that's what they were do- they were young men exercising

Sir Daniel: 00:09:54

their l- horny demons on this record.

Sir Daniel: 00:09:57

And the rest of the worl- the rest of the world would slowly pick up on it, and

Sir Daniel: 00:10:02

that would become how become, Toola Crew becomes an instant classic, specifically

Sir Daniel: 00:10:08

in young, ala- among young men

Jay Ray: 00:10:10

Yeah, I think it's really important.

Jay Ray: 00:10:13

So a couple of things Uh, there is a tendency for folks to act like

Jay Ray: 00:10:21

groups like 2 Live Crew just kind of sprouted out of nowhere, right?

Jay Ray: 00:10:25

And what you just indicated and illustrated, Sir Daniel, is that in the

Jay Ray: 00:10:32

fabulousness of Black culture, there have always been precursors to things, right?

Jay Ray: 00:10:39

Sexually explicit music, comedy, film is nothing new for Black folks.

Jay Ray: 00:10:46

We have always been on the vanguard.

Jay Ray: 00:10:48

Literally, Little Richard wrote the words, "Tutti frutti, good booty," and

Jay Ray: 00:10:53

they told him, "No, you can't say that, sir. You have to change that," right?

Jay Ray: 00:10:56

So that's in the 1950s.

Jay Ray: 00:10:58

There was stuff happening in the, it, before then, right?

Jay Ray: 00:11:00

As, as early as recorded music.

Jay Ray: 00:11:03

2 Live Crew comes from that entire tradition, right?

Jay Ray: 00:11:07

So I wanna acknowledge that.

Jay Ray: 00:11:09

Like, 2 Live Crew was not out of nowhere.

Jay Ray: 00:11:12

This group sat in a tradition.

Jay Ray: 00:11:15

And then, too, and I love that you mention this, Sir Daniel, 2 Live Crew built

Jay Ray: 00:11:20

their following in teen clubs in Miami.

Jay Ray: 00:11:24

And we've talked about on this show, kids, you may not know this today.

Jay Ray: 00:11:29

They might have teen clubs today.

Jay Ray: 00:11:31

I'm not, I haven't been a teenager in a very long time, so I don't know.

Jay Ray: 00:11:34

But, but we as young folks, we had nights where we could go to

Jay Ray: 00:11:40

clubs, and they were teen clubs.

Jay Ray: 00:11:42

And in teen clubs in Miami, they became a formidable presence.

Jay Ray: 00:11:47

Now, but I think it's important that we acknowledge that this

Jay Ray: 00:11:54

group was always in a push-pull with, uh, law enforcement at the

Sir Daniel: 00:12:01

Oh, yes.

Jay Ray: 00:12:02

because because we have a lot of things going on in hip-hop at the time.

Jay Ray: 00:12:06

So what people have to remember is hip-hop wasn't always the culture.

Jay Ray: 00:12:11

Hip-hop was heavily policed f- in those early years.

Jay Ray: 00:12:17

We talked about in our very first episode how literally venues banned hip-hop.

Jay Ray: 00:12:22

Like, you couldn't rap in venues at the time, uh, because of fears of

Jay Ray: 00:12:28

violence and all of these other things.

Jay Ray: 00:12:30

Some of them founded, uh, rooted in reality, but some of them

Jay Ray: 00:12:34

rooted in just fear of Black, uh, teens and Black young people.

Jay Ray: 00:12:39

But because of that, 2 Live Crew were always in kind of this

Jay Ray: 00:12:45

push-pull relationship because of the lyrics, because of how hype.

Jay Ray: 00:12:51

I- listen, I only know this because of research.

Jay Ray: 00:12:55

I wasn't there.

Jay Ray: 00:12:56

But apparently, they was driving these kids completely

Jay Ray: 00:13:02

crazy with their performances.

Jay Ray: 00:13:04

And yeah.

Jay Ray: 00:13:06

And you know, the, the authorities were, were alerted to what they were

Jay Ray: 00:13:11

creating amongst their audiences

Sir Daniel: 00:13:14

I think it has to be

Sir Daniel: 00:13:18

So I wanna set the stage because at, at a very important age, I left New York City

Sir Daniel: 00:13:27

to relocate to St. Petersburg, Florida.

Sir Daniel: 00:13:31

And I've mentioned that before on this show how much of a culture shock it

Sir Daniel: 00:13:38

was to me because it felt, and this is no shade to Florida, but it felt like

Sir Daniel: 00:13:45

I had gone back a couple years in time when we got down there because you

Sir Daniel: 00:13:51

know, brothers and sisters were still…

Sir Daniel: 00:13:54

The, the Jheri curl was still some- a thing.

Sir Daniel: 00:13:57

You know, um, the gold, gold teeth, go- everything that we know about

Sir Daniel: 00:14:05

Miami now, about Florida, they… It's still true to this day.

Sir Daniel: 00:14:09

They, they don't mind a gold grill.

Sir Daniel: 00:14:12

Um, now it's wigs, but back then it was Jheri curls.

Sir Daniel: 00:14:16

The hair has completely changed.

Sir Daniel: 00:14:18

That's changed a bit.

Sir Daniel: 00:14:19

But you know, you got… This is a coastal city, so you've got all the influences of

Sir Daniel: 00:14:24

the Caribbean, of, um, of, uh, uh, you've got Spanish culture, Hispanic culture.

Sir Daniel: 00:14:32

Um, then you've also got, it's the '80s, so baby, you on the coast

Sir Daniel: 00:14:37

so you know the drugs are rolling

Jay Ray: 00:14:39

are rolling in.

Jay Ray: 00:14:39

Mm-hmm

Sir Daniel: 00:14:40

So that, so you got a, a huge drug dealer/um,

Sir Daniel: 00:14:47

drug user pop- co- population that has grown.

Sir Daniel: 00:14:50

And so these… So what do you have when you get young people that are,

Sir Daniel: 00:14:54

that have money and like to have a good time and that are flashy?

Sir Daniel: 00:14:59

They start, they start spending money on things that are, that are affordable, but

Sir Daniel: 00:15:06

they take them and they zhuzh them up.

Sir Daniel: 00:15:08

They, they crank it up another level and make it theirs by

Sir Daniel: 00:15:11

slapping rims on the cars.

Sir Daniel: 00:15:14

I'm talking about you could take a, uh, I, I would see… You could take up a beat up

Sir Daniel: 00:15:17

old Chevy, a Chevy Impala, any- a Buick, any kind of box car back then 'cause

Sir Daniel: 00:15:24

this is the '80s, and they would gut out the back, put these huge 808 speakers

Sir Daniel: 00:15:31

in the back, put some rims on the car.

Sir Daniel: 00:15:34

Sometimes they would put bigger car, put bigger wheels on the

Sir Daniel: 00:15:37

cars, and what you have now is a rolling earache because we…

Jay Ray: 00:15:46

A rolling earache.

Jay Ray: 00:15:47

I

Jay Ray: 00:15:47

love that

Sir Daniel: 00:15:47

me tell you something.

Sir Daniel: 00:15:48

You could… It would be nothing for us to be

Jay Ray: 00:15:51

Just be

Sir Daniel: 00:15:51

in our classes and some of the, and one of the boys, somebody

Sir Daniel: 00:15:56

would be driving by and you would hear that boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,

Sir Daniel: 00:16:00

boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Sir Daniel: 00:16:03

Just rattling.

Sir Daniel: 00:16:04

And it, that was part of the culture.

Sir Daniel: 00:16:06

The kids loved it.

Sir Daniel: 00:16:07

The teachers would just roll their eyes and be like, "Oh, that's just some

Sir Daniel: 00:16:10

so-and-so pulling up in the parking lot." Jay Ray, I rode in a car like that I,

Sir Daniel: 00:16:17

and it was with a… And here's the funny thing, it was with a bunch of white kids.

Sir Daniel: 00:16:21

I will never, ever forget that.

Sir Daniel: 00:16:22

And, and you know, kids, teenagers, so you, you humping down the street with all

Sir Daniel: 00:16:28

of this noise in the back, playing, um, playing a, a, a 2 Live Crew or a L'Trimm,

Sir Daniel: 00:16:33

any of these huge records from back in the '80s that had a significant 808 bass kick.

Sir Daniel: 00:16:40

Just to bring attention to yourself, just to show that you're

Sir Daniel: 00:16:43

cool, and to have a good time.

Sir Daniel: 00:16:46

I, I'm not gonna lie, I laughed the whole way

Jay Ray: 00:16:48

Yeah.

Sir Daniel: 00:16:49

home because it was just that invigorating and the ch- literally

Sir Daniel: 00:16:54

the beat is bumping through your chest.

Sir Daniel: 00:16:56

And I have to give a shout-out to the Jam Pony Express movement of Florida

Sir Daniel: 00:17:03

because I, when I moved there, I became aware of this mixtape collective.

Sir Daniel: 00:17:09

And baby, you talking about a chokehold.

Sir Daniel: 00:17:12

Those tapes were circulating.

Sir Daniel: 00:17:14

Like how we talk about, um, the mixtape culture in New York, they

Sir Daniel: 00:17:18

had the mixtape culture on lock Those ch- those tapes were circulating.

Sir Daniel: 00:17:23

They were so popular.

Sir Daniel: 00:17:25

The Jam Pony Express DJs, if they were at a party, the parties would be packed out.

Sir Daniel: 00:17:30

I mean, all of that added to this culture that was bubbling in Florida that carved

Sir Daniel: 00:17:36

out their own niche of hip hop music.

Sir Daniel: 00:17:41

And little did they know the rest of the world was still kind of like,

Sir Daniel: 00:17:44

"Eh, that we don't like that. We don't care about that." But little

Sir Daniel: 00:17:48

did they know a few years later

Jay Ray: 00:17:50

It's

Jay Ray: 00:17:50

gonna take over

Sir Daniel: 00:17:51

actually be take over and be leading the country in

Sir Daniel: 00:17:54

what hip hop would sound like and what it means to party, Jay Ray.

Sir Daniel: 00:18:00

What it means to party and have a good time.

Sir Daniel: 00:18:08

To Luther Campbell's credit, Luther changed all of that.

Sir Daniel: 00:18:12

Luther brought a strip club culture.

Sir Daniel: 00:18:14

The dancers that you mentioned, they started doing… The reason why the shows

Sir Daniel: 00:18:19

be- became under so much surveillance is because of the dancers would get a

Sir Daniel: 00:18:23

little explicit on stage, which would make the kids want to come out and see

Sir Daniel: 00:18:28

the shows even more, which draw the at- drew the attention of the local

Sir Daniel: 00:18:33

police, the Broward County Police.

Sir Daniel: 00:18:36

And they were like, they were the first, I guess, Southern hip hop police faction

Sir Daniel: 00:18:42

because they would surveil 2 Live Crew for years after that until they started,

Sir Daniel: 00:18:49

um, creating record store stings, and we'll talk about that some more.

Jay Ray: 00:18:54

Absolutely, and I feel like this is a good place to kind of

Jay Ray: 00:18:59

transition into this interesting era.

Jay Ray: 00:19:03

I, I often, um, as, as I was getting ready for this show, uh, Biggie

Jay Ray: 00:19:08

was ringing through my head when he rapped Mo Money Mo Problems.

Jay Ray: 00:19:12

And I think this is really important culturally, um,

Jay Ray: 00:19:15

for, for folks to remember.

Jay Ray: 00:19:18

There are often times when we are clamoring for kind of more, more

Jay Ray: 00:19:23

attention, more money, more eyes on the thing that we're doing, right?

Jay Ray: 00:19:27

And that, and that's great, but here's what happens, right?

Jay Ray: 00:19:30

It also makes you an easier target,

Jay Ray: 00:19:33

and I absolutely see 2 Live Crew as being like poster children for that

Jay Ray: 00:19:39

taken to, like, the hundredth power.

Jay Ray: 00:19:42

So as we've talked about, Sir Daniel, both you and I, uh, uh, came to know 2 Live

Jay Ray: 00:19:51

Crew, uh, through Move Somethin', right?

Jay Ray: 00:19:54

Um, so

Jay Ray: 00:19:55

this

Sir Daniel: 00:19:56

a re- I love that record, by

Jay Ray: 00:19:57

it's a great record.

Jay Ray: 00:19:58

So

Jay Ray: 00:19:58

if y'all don't know that record, it's a great record.

Jay Ray: 00:20:01

If y'all don't know it, definitely go check it out.

Jay Ray: 00:20:03

Um, but I was super-duper, duper, duper young, so I didn't know about

Jay Ray: 00:20:10

the explicit stuff until, like, later.

Jay Ray: 00:20:13

You know what I'm saying?

Jay Ray: 00:20:14

Until, like, you know, the team, the, you know, some other boy in the neighborhood

Jay Ray: 00:20:18

would, like, play the record because they had it because I couldn't get it, right?

Jay Ray: 00:20:22

But anyway, 2 Live Crew got huge.

Jay Ray: 00:20:28

So they get ready for their third album.

Jay Ray: 00:20:31

Um, Move Somethin' had become a hit, so they have some momentum now.

Jay Ray: 00:20:35

So what rap groups do when you have momentum is you gotta do a thing.

Jay Ray: 00:20:40

They release, and this is crazy that this played on the radio, 'cause

Jay Ray: 00:20:46

they would not do it today, but they release Me So Horny as a single.

Jay Ray: 00:20:51

It's the first single from their third album, As Nasty As They Wanna Be.

Jay Ray: 00:20:57

Nationally, this record goes gangbusters

Sir Daniel: 00:21:05

Huge

Jay Ray: 00:21:07

Huge record.

Jay Ray: 00:21:08

We are being now introduced to a new sound, or what's new for a lot

Jay Ray: 00:21:14

of people outside of Miami, right?

Jay Ray: 00:21:17

Because now this is not just a regional record, this is now a national hit

Jay Ray: 00:21:22

record that is going international.

Jay Ray: 00:21:25

And because of that, the album gets released, and those same police, right?

Jay Ray: 00:21:33

So, you know, there's already eyes on them locally.

Jay Ray: 00:21:38

Now this becomes a statewide problem where

Jay Ray: 00:21:45

the authorities decide in Florida that we are going to deem this record obscene

Sir Daniel: 00:21:54

Hmm

Jay Ray: 00:21:54

and we want it pulled off the shelves.

Jay Ray: 00:21:57

And this begins to set off a firestorm of conversations about the First Amendment

Jay Ray: 00:22:07

and what it means.

Jay Ray: 00:22:09

And so at the, the, the foundation of how hip-hop was able to move forward

Jay Ray: 00:22:16

as hip-hop moved forward is 2 Live Crew, and largely Luke, who becomes

Jay Ray: 00:22:23

'Cause he was the business of the g- he was not only the business of the

Jay Ray: 00:22:25

group, he becomes the face of the

Jay Ray: 00:22:27

group.

Sir Daniel: 00:22:28

of it.

Sir Daniel: 00:22:28

Yep

Jay Ray: 00:22:29

And he was really champion- championing them as,

Jay Ray: 00:22:35

"No, this is art. This is First Amendment. You can't do this."

Jay Ray: 00:22:40

Right?

Jay Ray: 00:22:42

And they even had, um, I forgot about this.

Jay Ray: 00:22:45

They even had, uh, Dr. Henry Louis Gates testify on their behalf, uh, for this

Jay Ray: 00:22:54

federal trial that the, the, um, lyrics that they were using were in fact, uh,

Jay Ray: 00:23:04

part of Black cultural tradition, right?

Jay Ray: 00:23:06

So Skip Gates, uh, was part of this whole conversation, right?

Jay Ray: 00:23:12

But they truly did become the poster childs for, uh, free speech

Jay Ray: 00:23:18

in the United States and what that would look like going forward

Sir Daniel: 00:23:27

And you just said something.

Sir Daniel: 00:23:28

I wanna stay here really quick for just a quick second.

Sir Daniel: 00:23:32

So Luther Campbell, Luke Skyywalker, Uncle Luke, whatever you wanna

Sir Daniel: 00:23:36

call him, not an MC, and not an MC's MC by any means whatsoever.

Sir Daniel: 00:23:46

But when I tell you Luther Campbell is, uh, the p- is a purveyor and a

Sir Daniel: 00:23:57

A keeper of the lost art of call and response.

Jay Ray: 00:24:02

Yes

Sir Daniel: 00:24:03

His superpower is the call and response record.

Sir Daniel: 00:24:07

If we go back to the, to their debut, um, Tula Crew Is What We Are.

Sir Daniel: 00:24:13

One of the s- one of the records on that album is just the, the poetic and

Sir Daniel: 00:24:19

oh-so-aptly named We Want Some Pussy.

Jay Ray: 00:24:23

Poetic

Sir Daniel: 00:24:24

it's so poetic and just so, you know, you know, you

Sir Daniel: 00:24:27

think, uh, uh, plainly stated.

Sir Daniel: 00:24:30

And when you listen to the record, it is just a call and response record

Sir Daniel: 00:24:34

where Luther just adeptly has this way of doing call and response records.

Sir Daniel: 00:24:40

Like every… And if you think about it, in the trajectory, even after the Tula

Sir Daniel: 00:24:45

Crew dissolved and he became his own brand and was putting out records, if

Sir Daniel: 00:24:50

you think about Luke's biggest records, it's all a bunch of call and response.

Sir Daniel: 00:24:56

And to Henry Louis Gates' point, call and response is a full Black

Sir Daniel: 00:25:02

African diasporadic tradition.

Sir Daniel: 00:25:05

Call and response, uh, is just a part of our culture.

Sir Daniel: 00:25:09

It happens at rap shows.

Sir Daniel: 00:25:12

It happens in church.

Sir Daniel: 00:25:14

You know, God is good.

Jay Ray: 00:25:15

All the time?

Sir Daniel: 00:25:16

And all the time.

Jay Ray: 00:25:17

God is good

Sir Daniel: 00:25:18

That's call and response, y'all, right there.

Sir Daniel: 00:25:21

We have been doing it for centuries.

Sir Daniel: 00:25:24

So I said all that to say that regardless of what we think of, I know we don't think

Sir Daniel: 00:25:29

of, uh, Uncle Luke as a rappity rapper.

Sir Daniel: 00:25:32

He's d- he's not, he's not, not on anybody's top lyricist

Sir Daniel: 00:25:35

list or anything like that.

Sir Daniel: 00:25:37

But his claim to fame, aside from the business acumen and, um, and

Sir Daniel: 00:25:43

just being able to ride out this part of history and becoming the face

Sir Daniel: 00:25:47

of freedom of speech for musicians, he's a master of call and response.

Sir Daniel: 00:25:53

Argue with your mammy.

Sir Daniel: 00:25:54

I, you know, he- that's what Uncle Luke, to me, um, is best known for

Sir Daniel: 00:25:59

when it comes to the music side.

Sir Daniel: 00:26:01

And, you know, it's so funny, you were talk- they, back to the hip-hop police,

Sir Daniel: 00:26:06

they would surveil these record stores.

Jay Ray: 00:26:09

Oh yeah, they literally arrested record store owners.

Sir Daniel: 00:26:13

And Jay Ray, white supremacy is, is all over this because, again,

Sir Daniel: 00:26:18

they are policing Black bodies.

Sir Daniel: 00:26:21

Because if you think about it, Jay Ray, one of the first things that

Sir Daniel: 00:26:24

they did when they got ahold of the, uh, um, "As Nasty As They Wanna Be"

Sir Daniel: 00:26:28

record album is that they covered up the bodies of those Black women that

Sir Daniel: 00:26:34

are on the f- the front of that album.

Sir Daniel: 00:26:37

I mean, the album is cheeks.

Jay Ray: 00:26:39

Mm-hmm,

Sir Daniel: 00:26:40

The, you'll be real, it's Black women with very

Sir Daniel: 00:26:43

voluptuous bodies and, and cheeks.

Sir Daniel: 00:26:46

Almost said the A word.

Jay Ray: 00:26:47

With the guys, with the

Jay Ray: 00:26:48

guys just… kind of down in between their legs.

Jay Ray: 00:26:50

Yes.

Sir Daniel: 00:26:51

And so they covered that up.

Sir Daniel: 00:26:53

Again, controlling Black bodies and then slapping a black bar across their, um,

Sir Daniel: 00:26:58

their, um, posteriors, and then slapping the, uh, warning label on the album.

Sir Daniel: 00:27:04

And now you're controlling our bodies from us going into a record

Sir Daniel: 00:27:08

store and purchasing something that we want with our own money.

Sir Daniel: 00:27:13

So now you're controlling our bodies, and you're controlling them by

Sir Daniel: 00:27:17

arresting them at these shows, and these brothers are getting arrested

Jay Ray: 00:27:21

at

Sir Daniel: 00:27:22

for performing at shows.

Sir Daniel: 00:27:23

So you have NWA on the West Coast getting arrested for performing "F the

Sir Daniel: 00:27:27

Police," and now you have in Florida and other parts of the country 2 Live Crew

Sir Daniel: 00:27:33

doing the same, putting their bodies on the line for s- free, for free speech

Jay Ray: 00:27:37

You know, okay, so this is bringing up a question.

Jay Ray: 00:27:42

Um, I'm curious where you are with this.

Jay Ray: 00:27:46

Um, I wanna give a couple of quotes, uh, from, from things that came up.

Jay Ray: 00:27:52

Uh, one, one to the arrest.

Jay Ray: 00:27:54

Uh, Luke, um, is quoted, um, as saying, "Oh, we knew we were going

Jay Ray: 00:28:01

to get arrested. We were under attack because it, it was hip-hop."

Jay Ray: 00:28:06

And y'all, at the time, this was very real.

Jay Ray: 00:28:09

And their defense attorney, when they… So basically what happened,

Jay Ray: 00:28:13

by the way, 'cause I don't know that, uh, the, everybody will know this.

Jay Ray: 00:28:17

So that federal judge in Florida decided to deem, uh, As Nasty As I Wanna Be

Jay Ray: 00:28:24

obscene, which meant that people couldn't s- that people couldn't sell it, right?

Jay Ray: 00:28:28

Instead of 2 Live Crew folding, they decided to fight it,

Jay Ray: 00:28:34

and that's where they decided to, to mount a defense and, and decided

Jay Ray: 00:28:38

to, to fight this charge that this is not obscene, this is art.

Jay Ray: 00:28:42

This is First Amendment, right?

Jay Ray: 00:28:44

They ended up winning that, and they ended up being acquitted of those

Jay Ray: 00:28:49

charges because this group had, this, this album had been deemed obscene.

Jay Ray: 00:28:53

This group was under attack, and they ended up getting acquitted,

Jay Ray: 00:28:57

um, after they decided to mount this defense after this federal

Jay Ray: 00:29:00

judge had deemed this album obscene.

Jay Ray: 00:29:03

But their defense attorney at the time is quoted as saying, "It's not

Jay Ray: 00:29:08

just language, it's music. This is a form of art, and so it's protected."

Jay Ray: 00:29:14

Uh, their defense attorney's name was Bruce, uh, Rogow.

Jay Ray: 00:29:18

Um, I, I have a question, Sir Daniel.

Jay Ray: 00:29:23

When you think about where we are in this moment, and how-

Jay Ray: 00:29:36

Where are we from your perspective in terms of, uh, this topic?

Jay Ray: 00:29:43

Do you feel like, uh, uh, we are in a better place today, um, or do- are

Jay Ray: 00:29:54

there things that are happening in the music that need more regulation?

Jay Ray: 00:29:58

I'm curious to know

Sir Daniel: 00:30:01

Hmm.

Sir Daniel: 00:30:02

So I think yes to all of it.

Sir Daniel: 00:30:07

Yes and… See, when it comes to making progress, sometimes people are always

Sir Daniel: 00:30:14

gonna take things to the extreme.

Jay Ray: 00:30:16

Yeah

Sir Daniel: 00:30:17

And so you have the, you have them, the 2 Live Crew,

Sir Daniel: 00:30:25

who starts getting, who starts rallying support from un- unlikely

Jay Ray: 00:30:29

Unlikely people.

Jay Ray: 00:30:31

writing

Sir Daniel: 00:30:32

who would, who would think that Bruce Springsteen would allow 2 Live

Sir Daniel: 00:30:35

Crew to sample his "Born in the U.S.A."

Sir Daniel: 00:30:38

record to create,

Jay Ray: 00:30:40

Banned in the USA"?

Sir Daniel: 00:30:43

You know, and other musicians started, like rock musicians started

Sir Daniel: 00:30:46

rallying behind them like, "No, this could affect us in the long run as

Sir Daniel: 00:30:51

well," because Tipper Gore was on one.

Sir Daniel: 00:30:54

Tipper Gore was, was, um, and all the people

Jay Ray: 00:30:58

Was it C. Delores Tucker and all

Jay Ray: 00:31:00

them girls?

Sir Daniel: 00:31:01

of America because we don't want this filth in- um, influencing our

Sir Daniel: 00:31:05

children, and they were kinda right.

Sir Daniel: 00:31:07

But, but, um, yeah, so I think when you get progress, sometimes things are

Sir Daniel: 00:31:15

gonna be taken to extreme, and I think in life what happens is that we are

Sir Daniel: 00:31:22

always striving for some type of balance.

Sir Daniel: 00:31:26

And what we've noticed in this world that we always, we always

Sir Daniel: 00:31:30

tend to get out of balance.

Sir Daniel: 00:31:32

We always tend to tip once, t- one way or another, and something has to

Sir Daniel: 00:31:37

happen in order to kind of force the ball back in the middle so that we

Sir Daniel: 00:31:42

get some type of equilibrium, we get some type of balance within the world.

Sir Daniel: 00:31:47

And right now we are definitely leaning towards things that are totally extreme.

Sir Daniel: 00:31:54

I don't think I don't know that because we are the new parents, the new lawmakers,

Sir Daniel: 00:32:03

we're the new grandparents, we are the, we are the, the, the adults of society.

Sir Daniel: 00:32:09

I don't think you don't hear as much noise about it because we are the

Sir Daniel: 00:32:13

hip-hop generation, and now we are the adults, as the kids like to say.

Sir Daniel: 00:32:17

We are, we are the adults running things.

Sir Daniel: 00:32:19

So things don't typically rattle us like they, it rattled our baby boomer parents.

Sir Daniel: 00:32:26

However, we are still aware that some, some of that stuff

Sir Daniel: 00:32:30

y'all, y'all doing too much.

Jay Ray: 00:32:32

Y'all, yeah

Sir Daniel: 00:32:34

and so I think we're in a point now where we're trying to, to

Sir Daniel: 00:32:38

reel it back like, "Oh, oh, oh, okay.

Sir Daniel: 00:32:40

A- a- all right, you know, I, I'm, I'm with y'all shaking ass and throwing

Sir Daniel: 00:32:44

ass and having fun, but all that other stuff, eh, let's pull it back.

Sir Daniel: 00:32:49

You know, all that sex trafficking and the, the, the, the, uh, drugging of

Sir Daniel: 00:32:55

unwilling participants, all of that stuff,

Jay Ray: 00:32:57

too far

Sir Daniel: 00:32:58

bring it back.

Sir Daniel: 00:32:59

It's, yeah, it's w- gone way too far

Jay Ray: 00:33:02

Yeah, um, I am

Jay Ray: 00:33:10

Really happy that 2 Live Crew fought for what they fought for, because I really

Jay Ray: 00:33:19

do think that, um, hip-hop benefited from, uh, uh, them having this fight.

Jay Ray: 00:33:27

And overall, the music industry, like the music industry really does owe 2 Live Crew

Jay Ray: 00:33:32

a debt of gratitude for deciding to fight this, because it did make room for, um,

Jay Ray: 00:33:39

expression to happen without all of that, without, uh, uh, law enforcement scrutiny

Jay Ray: 00:33:47

in a, in a, in a lot of ways, right?

Jay Ray: 00:33:49

So I think that's a plus.

Jay Ray: 00:33:51

To that point, though, I do wonder… I think it's the

Jay Ray: 00:33:58

balance thing that you mentioned.

Jay Ray: 00:34:00

Honestly, I think you nailed it with

Jay Ray: 00:34:04

I feel things do feel a lot out of balance now, and it's like… And not

Jay Ray: 00:34:10

only out of balance, I feel like there are lessons we grew up with that we were

Jay Ray: 00:34:15

listening to in 2 Live Crew stuff, but we knew that you couldn't just, like,

Jay Ray: 00:34:20

go into the world and do that because that's not the way you behaved in the

Jay Ray: 00:34:25

world.

Jay Ray: 00:34:26

That's not how this works.

Jay Ray: 00:34:27

You know what I'm saying?

Jay Ray: 00:34:29

And I do think, like, th- that lesson is the thing that is most…

Jay Ray: 00:34:34

Those lessons are the things that is most mens- men- missing.

Jay Ray: 00:34:38

We talk a lot on this show, or have talked a lot about how we learned about consent

Jay Ray: 00:34:43

by being in, like, teen club environments.

Jay Ray: 00:34:46

You know what I'm saying?

Jay Ray: 00:34:47

Like, there were lessons in learning how to behave, uh, within society that you

Jay Ray: 00:34:53

learn by being amongst your peers, and also, but also people telling you stuff.

Jay Ray: 00:34:59

So I agree.

Jay Ray: 00:35:02

I feel like it is a both/and.

Jay Ray: 00:35:05

I'm, I'm, I'm happy that this thing happened, but I also think

Jay Ray: 00:35:10

that things are out of whack.

Jay Ray: 00:35:11

So perfect example.

Jay Ray: 00:35:15

Right now we are in this amazing moment in time where anyone can pretty much go

Jay Ray: 00:35:22

on the internet and listen to anything,

Sir Daniel: 00:35:25

Right

Jay Ray: 00:35:26

mostly without guardrails, right?

Jay Ray: 00:35:28

Unless you have on your phone that you are a underage, right?

Jay Ray: 00:35:35

And, and you have to do, and child, these kids are smart enough to know how

Jay Ray: 00:35:38

to override all of that stuff, right?

Jay Ray: 00:35:40

They know how to do VPNs and all of that.

Jay Ray: 00:35:41

You know what I mean?

Sir Daniel: 00:35:43

Like two-phase authentica- authentification?

Sir Daniel: 00:35:45

What is that?

Jay Ray: 00:35:46

Got

Jay Ray: 00:35:47

you.

Jay Ray: 00:35:48

So, right.

Jay Ray: 00:35:49

So we're in this phase where you could just kinda go and listen to anything,

Jay Ray: 00:35:54

and, and I will tell you when hip-hop got more explicit, I had a very

Jay Ray: 00:36:01

specific example of when I got reeled back in by the record store owner.

Jay Ray: 00:36:09

There was a record store, um, here in Chester, and I wish I remembered its

Jay Ray: 00:36:13

name, but, um, this is when N.W.A.'s second album came out, Efil4zaggin,

Jay Ray: 00:36:20

which was the, the apex of this.

Jay Ray: 00:36:24

This was like this on steroids, but more from the violence side of things.

Jay Ray: 00:36:28

So you had a sex and a violence.

Jay Ray: 00:36:31

I wanted a copy because everybody wanted a copy.

Jay Ray: 00:36:33

It was the hottest thing going at the time in 1991, right?

Jay Ray: 00:36:37

And, uh, my dad was going to buy me a record.

Jay Ray: 00:36:43

Now, he don't know this record.

Jay Ray: 00:36:45

This is the record I wanted though, right?

Jay Ray: 00:36:48

And it's not obvious what the songs are because even the title

Jay Ray: 00:36:52

is spelled backwards on the record.

Jay Ray: 00:36:54

So you're like, "I don't know what this is."

Sir Daniel: 00:36:56

Zagnewa?

Jay Ray: 00:36:58

ra-ra-right.

Jay Ray: 00:36:59

So we go to buy it, and the record store owner was like, "This is for him?"

Sir Daniel: 00:37:08

Oh, boy

Jay Ray: 00:37:08

and I knew what was about to happen.

Jay Ray: 00:37:11

So this is

Jay Ray: 00:37:12

after the point where these record store owners had gotten arrested

Jay Ray: 00:37:15

for, like, selling 2 Live Crew

Jay Ray: 00:37:17

albums.

Jay Ray: 00:37:19

And but he was also looking at me as, like, what?

Jay Ray: 00:37:23

A 12-year-old.

Jay Ray: 00:37:25

And it's like, "This is for him?" And he's like, "This record is

Jay Ray: 00:37:28

really explicit," and said that.

Jay Ray: 00:37:31

And my dad looked at me, and he was like, "What the hell

Jay Ray: 00:37:34

you got me buying?" And we m-

Sir Daniel: 00:37:37

I

Jay Ray: 00:37:38

out of the store.

Jay Ray: 00:37:40

He was so angry because I was trying to play him.

Jay Ray: 00:37:45

In all fairness to him, I was trying to

Jay Ray: 00:37:47

play him

Sir Daniel: 00:37:48

and, you know, and so we, this, this is the part of our memories

Sir Daniel: 00:37:54

that are fun, and you know, the s- the whole thing about 2 Live Crew.

Sir Daniel: 00:37:57

2 Live Crew represented fun and good times for the most part.

Sir Daniel: 00:38:02

But you know, of course, with anything the f- with anything else, there's a time and

Sir Daniel: 00:38:05

place for everything, and the fun ends.

Sir Daniel: 00:38:07

The fun comes to a end.

Sir Daniel: 00:38:09

And a lot of times like we see with countless, not just hip hop acts, but

Sir Daniel: 00:38:14

music- musicians, um, across the board that are groups, there's always, if not,

Sir Daniel: 00:38:22

I don't think there's any time where disputes do not come up within groups

Sir Daniel: 00:38:28

that ultimate lead, ultimately lead to the demise and the end of the group.

Sir Daniel: 00:38:34

You know, 2 Live Crew, of course, came to an end in the, um, in the mid-'90s

Jay Ray: 00:38:40

yep

Sir Daniel: 00:38:41

m- mostly because of business.

Jay Ray: 00:38:44

Absolutely.

Jay Ray: 00:38:45

Always

Sir Daniel: 00:38:46

Luke being a, a shrewd businessman that he is,

Sir Daniel: 00:38:51

was handling all the business,

Jay Ray: 00:38:52

Yep

Sir Daniel: 00:38:53

owned the name,

Jay Ray: 00:38:55

Mm-hmm

Sir Daniel: 00:38:55

of course, I'm sure when it came to paying out roy- royalties and

Sir Daniel: 00:38:59

whatnot, you know, I, I, I didn't see the split sheets, I can't say, but I'm

Sir Daniel: 00:39:04

certain that the disputes were, "Hey, we're not getting our fair share."

Sir Daniel: 00:39:09

Especially someone like, um, Brother Marquis who wrote the, the "Me So

Sir Daniel: 00:39:15

Horny" al- record which wa- was a multi-platinum single and a multi-platinum

Sir Daniel: 00:39:21

album, I'm sure was like, "Hey, this can't be what I'm supposed to

Sir Daniel: 00:39:27

be receiving." And so here we go.

Sir Daniel: 00:39:31

This begins the dissolve of 2 Live Crew as we know it.

Sir Daniel: 00:39:35

And what we've seen over the years is we will see, it's like climax.

Sir Daniel: 00:39:40

We will see different versions of 2 Live Crew.

Sir Daniel: 00:39:42

We'll see Uncle Luke presents 2 Live Crew, and it'll be him and two new rappers.

Sir Daniel: 00:39:48

And then we'll see the original 2 Live Crew with Fresh Kid Ice

Sir Daniel: 00:39:52

and Brother Marquis and, um, DJ Mr. Mixx doing their thing.

Sir Daniel: 00:39:57

And sadly, you know, those are the things that happen and, you know,

Sir Daniel: 00:40:03

Luke, like you said, beco- goes on to become the face of this movement,

Sir Daniel: 00:40:08

and not for nothing literally becomes the star out of this whole situation

Sir Daniel: 00:40:21

Unfortunately, back in 2017, we lost, um

Jay Ray: 00:40:26

Fresh

Sir Daniel: 00:40:26

Christopher Wong, Fresh Kid Ice, we lost him.

Sir Daniel: 00:40:29

He passed away.

Sir Daniel: 00:40:30

And only two years ago, as a matter of fact, um, the anniversary just

Sir Daniel: 00:40:34

passed of the death of Brother Marquis on June 5th, 2024.

Sir Daniel: 00:40:40

So those brothers are no longer here.

Sir Daniel: 00:40:42

Um, but the legacy still lives on, Jay Ray.

Sir Daniel: 00:40:46

The legacy of 2 Live Crew is still a thing.

Sir Daniel: 00:40:50

And, um, you know, we still get… Listen, I'm- one of my favorite things

Sir Daniel: 00:40:56

is to drop "Hoochie Mama" in a set because when that guitar comes in, that

Sir Daniel: 00:41:02

dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, you should see like the frenzy on

Sir Daniel: 00:41:05

people's faces when that song comes on.

Sir Daniel: 00:41:08

And, and women especially just lose it.

Sir Daniel: 00:41:11

Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.

Sir Daniel: 00:41:13

Big booty hoes, hump with it.

Sir Daniel: 00:41:14

And then everybody just goes into a tirade and just has a good time.

Sir Daniel: 00:41:20

Just, I mean, I have nothing but fond memories of 2 Live Crew music

Sir Daniel: 00:41:26

and, and the other artists that they spawned, because they literally

Sir Daniel: 00:41:30

spawned a whole genre of hip-hop, a wh- a whole new branch of hip-hop

Sir Daniel: 00:41:37

that literally took over the world.

Sir Daniel: 00:41:39

We would not have Trick Daddy or Tr- or the Baddest Bitch.

Sir Daniel: 00:41:45

We would not have Trina if it weren't for a 2 Live Crew

Jay Ray: 00:41:50

Yeah, it is important.

Jay Ray: 00:41:51

Like, they spawned all of those groups that came, uh, uh, all

Jay Ray: 00:41:54

of those labels and groups.

Jay Ray: 00:41:55

And the way- And I mean, I don't think we said this in, um, the intro,

Jay Ray: 00:42:01

but I think it's really important.

Jay Ray: 00:42:02

Luke Skyywalker Records

Jay Ray: 00:42:04

they're basically like the Southern version of Def Jam at that time.

Jay Ray: 00:42:09

So that's how important this record, that this, this group is and what they created.

Jay Ray: 00:42:17

Um, Sir Daniel, I don't know if you've heard about this, but they are, um,

Jay Ray: 00:42:21

currently, 2 Live Crew is back in the news, um, because one of the things that

Jay Ray: 00:42:27

they're trying to, to, um, reclaim… So when, uh, Luke Records in 1995,

Jay Ray: 00:42:36

when they filed for bankruptcy, after all of this stuff, so they, of course

Jay Ray: 00:42:39

they have all of these lawsuits,

Jay Ray: 00:42:41

and this really helps dissolve the group in a lot of ways, too.

Jay Ray: 00:42:45

So there's these financial disputes.

Jay Ray: 00:42:46

There's this huge First Amendment fight that they have.

Jay Ray: 00:42:51

The re- record label loses all of this money, and so at that time they lose

Jay Ray: 00:42:57

control of those master recordings.

Jay Ray: 00:43:00

So from all of those early records, they lose that control of all of

Jay Ray: 00:43:03

those rec- all of those masters, uh, in the bankruptcy fight.

Jay Ray: 00:43:07

And so now they are back in that fight.

Jay Ray: 00:43:12

So they just a couple of weeks ago, um, they had, uh, well, in 2024 they had won

Jay Ray: 00:43:22

a jury verdict in 2020, uh, 4 that would give them the masters back The owner of

Jay Ray: 00:43:30

those masters decided like, "No, no, no.

Jay Ray: 00:43:33

We are gonna appeal this decision." And just a couple of weeks ago,

Jay Ray: 00:43:38

or, uh, recently, the appeals court overturned the 2024 decision.

Jay Ray: 00:43:44

So there's an ongoing legal battle right now for 2 Live Crew, uh, so that's Luke

Jay Ray: 00:43:50

and Mr. Mixx, and of course the, the heirs of, uh, uh, the other members who are, are

Jay Ray: 00:43:55

passed on, Fresh Kid Ice and, and brother Marquis,

Sir Daniel: 00:43:58

Markees

Jay Ray: 00:43:59

to get, um, control

Jay Ray: 00:44:02

of that music back.

Jay Ray: 00:44:04

Um, so it's an unfortunate situation where even now this group that

Jay Ray: 00:44:11

was so foundational caught up in the mix of the music business, and

Jay Ray: 00:44:17

what happens when you get caught up in the mix of the music business.

Jay Ray: 00:44:21

And, uh, and, uh, hopefully they are able to secure the rights to their

Jay Ray: 00:44:29

masters again that unfortunately got lost in kind of these, uh,

Jay Ray: 00:44:35

these pieces of, of bankruptcies and, and doing all of this stuff.

Jay Ray: 00:44:39

But I belie- I just, uh, these, these men deserve it.

Jay Ray: 00:44:42

There's too much hip hop history

Sir Daniel: 00:44:45

So I'm, I'm glad you said that.

Sir Daniel: 00:44:46

Do you think that 2 Live Crew deserves to be inducted into

Sir Daniel: 00:44:50

the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?

Jay Ray: 00:44:51

Oh, hell yeah.

Jay Ray: 00:44:53

Um, I don't know that there is a, uh …In the groups in the South, there are

Jay Ray: 00:45:01

plenty of landmark groups in the South.

Jay Ray: 00:45:03

But I think that 2 Live Crew changed too much about the way hip-hop behaved overall

Jay Ray: 00:45:16

to not be considered, uh, for induction and inducted into

Jay Ray: 00:45:22

the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Jay Ray: 00:45:24

I feel like there are things that are happening right now, you know,

Jay Ray: 00:45:27

in terms of, you know, you talk about Uncle Luke and his call and

Jay Ray: 00:45:30

response and the, uh, the stuff that happens, uh, in New Orleans now, and

Jay Ray: 00:45:36

all of this stuff, I really do feel like 2 Live Crew was, you know, really on the

Jay Ray: 00:45:42

vanguard of, of moving that in hip-hop.

Sir Daniel: 00:45:45

Abso- listen, you get no disputes from me here.

Sir Daniel: 00:45:48

As a matter of fact, one of the, um , and I know a lot of people

Sir Daniel: 00:45:52

like to dispute who did what first.

Sir Daniel: 00:45:57

I think there, my, my belief is I think that there was a simultaneous spark

Jay Ray: 00:46:03

Yeah.

Jay Ray: 00:46:04

Absolutely.

Sir Daniel: 00:46:05

in Florida, in Alabama, in Louisiana, in Texas.

Sir Daniel: 00:46:10

Hip-hop, there was a simultaneous spark of hip-hop in all of these different re-

Sir Daniel: 00:46:14

regions and states of hip-hop, right?

Sir Daniel: 00:46:18

Now, who came to the forefront and who got more national

Sir Daniel: 00:46:22

popularity is up for discussion.

Sir Daniel: 00:46:25

Who signed this deal, who did all of that, all of that is up for discussion.

Sir Daniel: 00:46:29

I do think things happened simultaneously, and because Black people being, um,

Sir Daniel: 00:46:36

how inventive we are in whatever region we're in, we're gonna have

Sir Daniel: 00:46:41

a regional twist on everything.

Sir Daniel: 00:46:44

And so I, like you said, I believe that 2 Live Crew, Uncle Lu, all of

Sir Daniel: 00:46:51

them, to your point, s- did that for Miami, did that for Florida.

Sir Daniel: 00:46:56

They were the ones that signed MC Shy D to his record deal, who is, for all intents

Sir Daniel: 00:47:03

and purposes, probably one of the, one of the most first nationally recognized

Sir Daniel: 00:47:08

rappers to come out of, uh, Atlanta, who, by the way, is from the Bronx.

Sir Daniel: 00:47:15

Is from the Bronx originally.

Sir Daniel: 00:47:16

So, eh, that, so that just says that we're all interconnected.

Sir Daniel: 00:47:21

Yes, we're divided by state lines, but hip-hop is all interconnected.

Sir Daniel: 00:47:25

It doesn't matter where in this country or in the world we are, hip-hop has

Sir Daniel: 00:47:30

connected us in some form or fashion

Jay Ray: 00:47:32

Mm.

Jay Ray: 00:47:33

My goodness.

Jay Ray: 00:47:34

Y'all, thank you so much for hanging out with us as we discuss the, uh,

Jay Ray: 00:47:40

brilliant and interesting legacy of 2 Live Crew and how it has impacted us.

Jay Ray: 00:47:45

Let us know in the comments, um, how 2 Live Crew, how did

Jay Ray: 00:47:49

you come to hear 2 Live Crew?

Jay Ray: 00:47:51

How did the music of 2 Live Crew impact you, and where are you from?

Jay Ray: 00:47:54

Let us know.

Jay Ray: 00:47:55

If you can see our faces and hear our voices, go ahead and subscribe.

Jay Ray: 00:47:59

Uh, tell your friends, family, and colleagues about Queue Points, because

Jay Ray: 00:48:02

if you love Queue Points, chances are they will love Queue Points as well.

Jay Ray: 00:48:05

Uh, visit our website at queuepoints.com, where you can watch

Jay Ray: 00:48:08

our entire archive of episodes.

Jay Ray: 00:48:10

Visit us on Substack, where we have a bunch of dope stuff over there, and

Jay Ray: 00:48:14

shop our store at store.queuepoints.com.

Jay Ray: 00:48:17

Oh, and do not forget, become a member on our website, too.

Jay Ray: 00:48:20

It helps to keep

Jay Ray: 00:48:21

the lights on in Queue Points land.

Jay Ray: 00:48:23

We appreciate y'all.

Jay Ray: 00:48:24

We love y'all

Sir Daniel: 00:48:26

We absolutely do.

Sir Daniel: 00:48:27

And like I say, in this life, you have a choice.

Sir Daniel: 00:48:29

You can always either pick up the needle or you can let the record play.

Sir Daniel: 00:48:32

I am DJ Sir Daniel

Jay Ray: 00:48:34

And my name is Jay Ray, y'all

Sir Daniel: 00:48:36

And this is Queue Points podcast dropping the

Sir Daniel: 00:48:39

needle on Black music history.

Sir Daniel: 00:48:42

We will see you on the next go round.

Sir Daniel: 00:48:44

Now put your hands up on your waist and do the hydraulic to the ground.

Sir Daniel: 00:48:48

Boom.

Jay Ray: 00:48:49

A-a-a.

Sir Daniel: 00:48:51

Hydraulic.

Sir Daniel: 00:48:52

Ah, ah, ah.

Sir Daniel: 00:48:54

Hydraulics.

Jay Ray: 00:48:55

Y'all can't see us dancing over here if you audio.

Jay Ray: 00:48:58

Peace, y'all.