The most diverse part of a song between fans and musicians is the lyrics. Fans love to decode lyrics from artists, what does line x mean? What is line y about? But the songwriter usually puts them in just as a throwaway thing with nothing deeper than it fits in with the melody. Okay, yeah sometimes some artists really take it to heart but a lot of them are just looking for something to rhyme with the previous line.
The fans on the other hand connect to the lyrics first, not the music as the artists would think. They connect whether it’s through love, heartbreak, anger, fun, sadness, etc, specific to their mood. They have the words framed on their wall, and the most dedicated fans get them tattooed.
Lyrics can get acts into trouble too; the subject matter can upset the fans. If they get offended by them then the ramifications could end up that an artist getting banned for their lyrical content. This happened to the rap group 2 Live Crew. This week The Beat Marches On to the 6th June 1990 When 2 Live Crew get arrested for their obscene lyrics.
When rap music started to make its presence on the charts in the 1980s, there were only two cities that produced rap artists, New York and Los Angeles. You had artists like Run DMC, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and The Beastie Boys from the Big Apple and N.W.A, Ice-T, and MC Hammer from the City of Angels (MC Hammer was actually from Oakland)
Towards the end of the decade, there was a new city that wanted to put its name on the rap map, a city that would start to breed a new style of MCing. A city which at the time was drowning in cocaine and white suits with florescent t-shirts underneath. Miami.
The leaders of the Miami rap sound or Miami Bass as it would be called was a group called 2 Live Crew. DJ Mr Mixx, Fresh Kid Ice and Amazing Vee formed the group 1984, actually in California but moved to Florida after forming at the insistence of their promoter and future member Luke Skyywalker (no not that one! And as soon as George Lucas found out about the name he had to change it) Amazing Vee left the year after.
Early in their career, 2 Live Crew started to get a reputation for how offensive their lyrics were. The group didn’t care though, they just carried on performing the songs and were getting quite a following. It was their second album, however, that got them in the deepest trouble of all.
Music in the 1980s had many concerned people in high places, especially with now the video aspect of MTV, which had launched in that decade. In 1985 a ‘filthy 15’ list was compiled by the Parents Music Resource Centre or PMRC, the leader of which was Tipper Gore wife of future vice president and failed presidential candidate, Al Gore. The list included legends such as Prince, Madonna, and Cyndi Lauper as well as some heavy metal acts. The musicians fought back against the list with acts like Frank Zappa and Dee Snider going to Congress to testify. The result was certain albums had the parental warning sticker on the bottom left corner.
Knowing their reputation and trying to test the limits of how concerned parties are, 2 Live Crew released the album ‘As Nasty As They Wanna Be’ in 1989. The lyrics were sexually explicit and blatantly about the subject (as direct as ‘The Fuck Song’) It wasn’t just the sexual content either, a lot of the words were directed to the mistreatment of women.
With the new explicit stickers, they thought it would be okay, but Florida outside of Orlando is very conservative and has a very different view of life. Even to the rest of the United States. The state started to clamp down on the selling of the album to children. One record store clerk was charged with a felony for selling their debut album to a 14-year-old. It got to a point where Florida banned the album from being sold in the state, referring to the obscenity laws.
The group was even arrested for performing songs from the album when in a nightclub in Miami. This now got their attention. They were willing to fight against the banning of their album on the basis of the first amendment of the American Constitution, freedom of speech. They didn’t realise, however, how long the fight would take.
It wouldn’t be until 1992, two years after the initial fight, that the album ban would be lifted. In a battle that almost went all the way up to the supreme court and had the backing of other musicians including Madonna who to the tune of her hit song ‘Vogue’ said ‘Freedom of Speech is as Good as Sex’
The court battle created a new problem for the 2 Live Crew though, they needed an income of some sort. They couldn’t really tour because of the legal fight, and their album wasn’t being sold where they were most popular. So, they decided to record a discreet version of the album called ‘As Clean as They Wanna Be’ this time with a new parody song and that took them back to the courts.
This time the lyrics weren’t the problem for the group, but the sample that was used. The 1964 hit ‘Oh, Pretty Woman’ by Roy Orbison. They didn’t get any permission to use the backing track from the owners of the rights to the song, Acuff-Rose Music. The group did ask for permission but the rightsholders refused. So, they sued when it was released anyway.
The lawyers for the rappers argued that as the song was a parody, it was classed as fair usage. The federal appeals courts disagreed though stating the song was ‘blatantly commercial’. The fight carried on to the supreme court, the highest court in America and they sided with 2 Live Crew Unanimously. With help from satirical magazines ‘Harvard Lampoon’ and ‘Mad’ Magazine.
The setbacks took their toll on the group as they never reached the heights of the previous albums. They stuck around for the rest of the 1990s but most of the original members left. They had a brief reunion in 2010 to collect a VH1 Hip-Hop award and rumours of a recorded album together but was never released.
A rap group getting banned for their obscene lyrics was always going to happen at some point. Since the day NWA released ‘Straight Outta Compton’ in 1988, concerned parents of impressionable children were going to try and stop them from being available so easily. It was just 2 Live Crew were the next band up to release an album, it could have been anyone else, Run DMC, Beastie Boys or even NWA’s follow-up. It’s been the same throughout history for those in power to try and belittle the peasants.
The Beat Marches On is a music blog written by Jimmy Whitehead. Jimmy has been blogging for six years specialising in Sports (especially American Football). If you want to follow Jimmy on Twitter: @Jimmy_W1987
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The websites used for research were:
2 Live Crew | The First Amendment Encyclopedia (mtsu.edu)
The Time the Supreme Court Ruled in Favor of 2 Live Crew | Mental Floss
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