2 Live Crew

2 Live Crew is an American hip hop group formed in the 1980s, widely remembered as the act that pushed explicit, party-oriented rap into the national spotlight — and into the courts. The lineup that became famous paired rappers Fresh Kid Ice and Brother Marquis with DJ Mr Mixx, later fronted by Luther Campbell (Luke Skyywalker), who ran the group's label and served as hype man and business force behind their releases.

Their sound is rooted in Miami bass: booming 808 drums, uptempo party rhythms and call-and-response chants built for clubs and car stereos, layered with raunchy, comedic lyrics. Albums like 2 Live Is What We Are and Move Somethin' built their underground following, but it was the 1989 album As Nasty As They Wanna Be — featuring songs such as «Me So Horny» — that made them a national phenomenon and a target of obscenity prosecutions, becoming a landmark case in debates over free speech and music censorship in America.

Beyond the controversy, 2 Live Crew is credited with helping popularize Miami bass and explicit party rap as commercially viable genres, influencing later dirty rap and crunk artists. Their fights over indecency laws and sampling rights (including a Supreme Court case over parody use) left a lasting mark on music law as much as on hip hop itself.