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What Do You Get For $18?: Everything you want, including Brother Marquis and Fresh Kid Ice. Dirty South 2 Live Crew's influence on hip-hop goes beyond what can be said on record By Todd Inoue ON A RECENT episode of Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Simpsons creator Matt Groening explained his befuddlement with the Christian community, in particular, over his goody-goody, born-again character Ned Flanders. The Simpsons, Groening explains, is the only show on TV that regularly features a family that prays, believes in God and goes to church, and yet Groening still fields complaints from Christian organizations. If any group can relate to Groening's dilemma of taking pre-emptive strikes to no avail in a pitch to appease potential critics, it's 2 Live Crew. The Miami rap group made clean and extremely salty versions of their breakthrough album, As Nasty as They Wanna Be. They slapped a "Parental Advisory, Explicit Lyrics" sticker on the dirty album and put huge black bars over the bikini-clad butts on the cover--and it still wasn't enough to stop Broward County from declaring As Nasty as They Wanna Be obscene and making it a crime to sell the record. 2 Live beat the rap in a landmark case, but the hoopla ensured that every non-rap listening, non-Blowfly knowing Ned Flanders type knew the lyrics to "C'Mon Babe" ("Lick my ass up and down /Lick it 'til your tongue turns doo-doo brown"). Protests from women's groups and censorship allies made 2 Live Crew as targeted as the Girls Gone Wild of today. But in the mid-'80s, 2 Live Crew was just another rap group from California that quickly relocated to Miami when one of its singles ("Revelation") hit big in Florida. They struck upon their modus operandi: an epic, Bambaataa-sized, 808 synth-bass drum pattern coupled with ribald rhymes and Mr. Mixx's superfast laceration scratch. The group scored an unlikely hit in the underground with "Throw the 'D,'" "We Want Some Pussy'" and "Move Something" before striking with a tear-da-club-up anthem called "Me So Horny." The chorus resonated from coast to coast, signaling a shift away from hip-hop's Bronx toward the South. "Me So Horny," which notoriously sampled a prostitute from Full Metal Jacket, cemented 2 Live's reputation as the kings of kink, with manager Luther Campbell in the Larry Flynt role. Today, 2 Live Crew is whittled down to just two: Mark "Brother Marquis" Ross and Chris "Fresh Kid Ice" Wong Won. Campbell banked his 2 Live Crew proceeds and releases party records and naughty DVDs under the Luke Records/Films banner. DJ David "Mr. Mixx" Hobbs, a criminally overlooked turntablist, spins the occasional show. The new-school duo continues to record, raising blood pressures with tracks like "Shake a Little Something" and their ode to the neighborhood hussy, "Hoochie Mama." So with all the controversy, it's easy to forget that 2 Live Crew has influenced the hip-hop world (for better or worse) far beyond what could and couldn't be said on a record. The current kings of crunk, Lil' Jon and the Eastside Boyz, wouldn't exist without 2 Live Crew's wall-to-wall bass-wave anthems and locker-room chant lyrics. DJ Shadow regularly lists "Throw the 'D'" as one of his first and favorite hip-hop records he ever bought. In perhaps the wickedest turn of events, 2 Live Crew's music can be heard blasting in hypermixed and tweaked form at cheerleading competitions. Chances are that cheerleading coaches and choreographers won't be at the Zoë Nightclub to watch Fresh Kid Ice and Brother Marquis put on their legendary nasty show that has, in the past, included nearly nekkid dancers, lap dances and oral sex onstage. Alternately loved and hated, 2 Live Crew has exerted an influence on pop culture at large that goes deeper than many in hip-hop's increasingly conservative guard would care to admit. Maybe in an upcoming episode of The Simpsons, Rod and Todd Flanders can join the cheerleading crew at the local Christian school, where they'll perform routines to "Me So Horny (to Count God's Blessings)." 2 Live Crew performs Wednesday (Jan. 14) at Zoë Nightclub, 417 S. First St., San Jose. Tickets are $18 and available through Ticketweb. (408.971.6646.) Send a letter to the editor about this story to letters@metronews.com. [ Silicon Valley | Metroactive Home | Archives ]