TALAHASSEE, Fla. — Miami’s 2 Live Crew helped reshape the legal landscape around what hip-hop could be, pushing the boundaries of freedom of speech and taste with their provocative and sexually explicit recordings that led to landmark court decisions protecting artists’ rights .
But for decades, hip-hop legends have had no legal control over their music iconic discographyafter giving up their rights to the documents in bankruptcy proceedings that followed their legal battles in the 1990s.
Now a jury verdict clears the way for the group’s surviving members, and heirs of the two who have since died, to re-record five of their early albums after a years-long copyright dispute with a record company. The company is in the process of appealing.
“We won,” 2 Live Crew member Luther Campbell, also known as Uncle Luke, said in a video posted to social media after Wednesday’s decision. “All albums! We have them all back!”
The copyright lawsuit was brought by Lil’ Joe Records, which bought the rights to two Live Crew albums after the group’s record company filed for bankruptcy in 1995.
In 2020, the members of 2 Live Crew and heirs Lil’ Joe announced that they were terminating the copyrights and that ownership of the albums would revert to the artists. In response, Lil’ Joe filed a lawsuit, arguing that she retained the copyright under the bankruptcy agreement.
The federal jury in Florida ruled in favor of 2 Live Crew and its heirs.
“Our team is proud to have been part of this historic trial,” attorney Scott Burroughs said in a statement to The Associated Press. “Our overwhelming and total victory in the lawsuit will hopefully serve as a beacon to encourage other artists to brave the legal process to regain their copyrights.”
Richard Wolfe, an attorney representing Lil’ Joe, disputed the group’s claims and said the terms of the bankruptcy mean his client retains all rights. He said the fight is not over yet.
“It’s the second round of a 10-round fight,” Wolfe said. “We have always said that this matter will not be decided at the court level. It will be decided at the appellate level or possibly at the Supreme Court level.”
One of the records in question is the 1989 release ‘As Nasty As They Wanna Be’, which contains the songs ‘Me So Horny’ and ‘The F-Shop’. Law enforcement officials in South Florida found it so outrageous that they arrested owns a record store for selling it.
Campbell and fellow 2 Live Crew member Christopher Wong Won, or Fresh Kid Ice, were also arrested on obscenity charges after performing songs from the album. In 1992 A federal appeals court overturned a court ruling that found the album to be obscene.
Also at stake is the song ‘Pretty Woman’, which samples Roy Orbison’s 1964 classic. A dispute over 2 Live Crew’s remix of the song went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which unanimously ruled in 1994 that the group’s parody of the original constituted fair use.
The first of those rulings was a resounding victory for free speech that transcends rap, according to University of Richmond professor Erik Nielson, an expert on hip-hop and the law who grew up listening to 2 Live Crew as a child. And the second helped solidify a fundamental element of the genre’s sound: remixing older music to create something new.
“It is difficult to overstate the significance of these statements and the role of 2 Live Crew in creating certain spaces for artistic expression,” Nielson said.
___
Kate Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.