There was a time when many New York hip-hoppers refused to believe that rappers from Miami could record a gold or platinum album or give them any real competition. That was before 1986, when
the 2 Live Crew's debut album,
2 Live Is What We Are, came out on
Luther Campbell's Miami-based
Luke Skyywalker Records (later renamed
Luke Records). This LP did a lot to popularize
Florida-style bass music, and like the
gangsta rap that was coming from California, it demonstrated that rappers didn't have to be from New York to sell a lot of records. Musically,
2 Live Is What We Are was a definite departure from
New York rap -- the grooves are much faster -- and lyrically, the album put
booty rhymes on the map.
The 2 Live Crew wasn't the first
rap group to talk about sex, but this album did take sexually explicit
rap lyrics to a new level of nastiness. With X-rated offerings like
"Throw the D" and
"We Want Some Pussy," Campbell and his colleagues popularized a style of
rap that thrives on decadence for the sake of decadence. These tunes are as humorous as they are raunchy;
Campbell has often compared
the 2 Live Crew's
booty rhymes to the off-color humor of
Richard Pryor,
Andrew Dice Clay, and
Rudy Ray Moore -- and, to be sure, there are some parallels. Like those comedians,
the 2 Live Crew is genuinely funny -- but only if you have a taste for X-rated humor. Anyone who finds
Moore,
Pryor, and
Clay offensive should avoid
the 2 Live Crew as well. But for those who do appreciate that type of humor,
2 Live Is What We Are is a classic of its kind. ~ Alex Henderson
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![Old School Rap, Vol. 1 [Thump]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0039405451025_p0_v1_s90x140.jpg "Old School Rap, Vol. 1 [Thump]")
