Sure, 2 Live Crew doesn’t actually have a vote in the Senate. But they do in the hearts of every nerdy pre-adolescent who bought “As Nasty As They Wanna Be” on cassette and hid it inside a stack of comic books, the shiny “Parental Advisory” notification gleaming with the promise of profanity. So, you know, basically the whole staff of the American Prospect.
Writing in the Miami New Times, 2 Live Crew frontman Luther Campbell calls Kagan his “homegirl,” and thanks her for her work on behalf of the “Me So Horny” artists:
In 1989, Broward County Sheriff Nick Navarro banned the sale of our album, As Nasty as They Wanna Be, and a federal judge backed him. We appealed. The next year, Kagan, who was working at a Washington, D.C. law firm, wrote a brief that argued the album “does not physically excite anyone who hears it, much less arouse a shameful and morbid sexual response.”…
She did a great job fighting on 2 Live Crew’s behalf, which lets you know that Kagan is not easily swayed by public opinion or by politicians with their own hidden agendas.
In what is either a small-world coincidence or solid proof that Barack Obama is running his presidency at the behest of a small group of influential late-80s rappers*, Harvard’s Skip Gates defended 2 Live Crew at the time of its lawsuit travails:
He wrote in The New York Times that 2 Live Crew’s “exuberant use of hyperbole (phantasmagoric sexual organs, for example) undermines — for anyone fluent in black cultural codes — a too literal-minded hearing of the lyrics. This is the street tradition called ‘signifying’ or ‘playing the dozens,’ which has generally been risque.” Gates further tied the group’s approach to the black mythic tradition, explaining to a reporter from Jet that in 2 Live Crew’s music “what you hear is great humor, great joy, and great boisterousness. It’s a joke. It’s a parody and parody is one of the most venerated forms of art.”
While I’m not sure I agree with Gates’ assessment of the Crew’s literary significance, I do agree they should have been defended, and think authorities “acted stupidly” in overreaching by attempting to ban the record.
Skip Gates is, of course, the black literary critic and Harvard professor who was arrested by Cambridge police in 2009 for disorderly conduct after he had trouble unlocking his door, and a neighbor called to report the seemingly suspicious activity. President Obama turned the arrest into a national media firestorm when he declared at a press conference in July of last year that Cambridge Police had “acted stupidly” before an investigation had been conducted. Accusations of racism ensued and a Beer Summit left the conflict hoppy and overhyped, but unresolved.
Incidentally, a Cambridge Review Committee study released this week on disorderly conduct arrests, including the Gates incident, deemed that race was a “minor factor” in the arrest, devoting only eight words to it in its final verdict. Said committee member Aaron D. Miller:
“Some people would argue it’s all race, very simple. Others would argue that it was driven by an absence of respect, that color was not the determinative aspect that drove everyone’s behavior,” Miller said. “A lot of times in life, there are simple explanations. This was a lot more complex than just race, and race will be the way I think people will look at this report—and I think that’s limited.”
Miller said that after interviewing Crowley, he thought it was unlikely that he was influenced by race, finding him “incredibly straightforward” and “influenced by family values.”
* For overly sensitive liberals reading Hot Air, this is a parody of a paranoid conspiracy theory. I do not actually think that Barack Obama is running the country at the behest of a cabal of 90s one-hit-wonders. I am unaware that he even has any particular affinity for them. And, if I were to pick a Democrat who might actually run the country based on the whims of people who performed at the Peach Pit (After Dark) it’d be John Edwards, who now spends his nights in Durham, dancing to “Rumpshaker.”
And, to the Google gods, I say: Hey, you know where 2 Live Crew is from? Miami. Lots of Heat down there. I’ve even heard something about LeBron James maybe taking a trip down there?
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