2 Live Crew

Origins

2 Live Crew began in Riverside, California, in 1984, formed by DJ Mr. Mixx (David Hobbs) with rappers Fresh Kid Ice (Christopher Wong Won) and Amazing Vee (Yuri Vielot). Their first single, “Revelation,” came out on Fresh Beat Records. When the record found an audience in Florida, Luther Campbell, a Miami DJ and party promoter from Liberty City, invited the group to relocate. Campbell became their manager, label owner and hype man, and Brother Marquis (Mark Ross) joined as a rapper, completing the best-known lineup.

Breakthrough

Campbell released the group’s records through his own company, first called Luke Skyywalker Records. Lucasfilm later sued over the name, and the label became Luke Records. The 1986 single “Throw the D” set a template for Miami bass: Roland TR-808 drums, heavy low end, fast tempos and chanted, explicit party lyrics. The debut album “The 2 Live Crew Is What We Are” (1986) went gold, and “Move Somethin’” (1988) reached number 68 on the Billboard 200 and also went gold.

Key records and court cases

“As Nasty as They Wanna Be” (1989) reached number 29 on the Billboard 200 and number 3 on the R&B albums chart, and its single “Me So Horny” reached number 26 on the Hot 100 and number 1 on the rap chart with little radio support. In June 1990 U.S. District Judge Jose Gonzalez ruled the album legally obscene, the first such ruling against a recording. Days later Campbell and Wong Won were arrested after a show in Hollywood, Florida. A Broward County jury acquitted the members in October 1990, and the Eleventh Circuit reversed the obscenity ruling in 1992. Their parody “Pretty Woman,” from the clean edition “As Clean as They Wanna Be,” led to Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 1994 that commercial parody can qualify as fair use. The group answered the controversy with “Banned in the U.S.A.” (1990), which went gold, followed by “Sports Weekend” (1991), also gold.

Later career and legacy

Lineups changed through the 1990s, with “Back at Your Ass for the Nine-4” (1994) reaching number 52 and “Shake a Lil’ Somethin’” (1996) reaching number 145 on the Billboard 200. The original run ended after “The Real One” (1998), and later reunions began in 2009. Fresh Kid Ice died on July 13, 2017, and Brother Marquis died on June 3, 2024. The group’s cases remain reference points in debates over censorship, free speech and copyright in popular music, and their records helped carry the Miami bass sound across the South.