Elena Kagan's Biggest Supporter: 2 Live Crew

While conservatives and Tea Partiers continue to lobby against Elena Kagan's confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Obama-nominated Solicitor General has received a ringing endorsement from 2 Live Crew's Luther Campbell, who wrote a column for the Miami New Times about why Kagan, who has defended the group's controversial music in the past, is the perfect person for the job. Back in 1990, Crew tracks like "Me So Horny" and "The Fuck Shop" drew fire for obscene lyrics, resulting in a ban in Florida that made it a punishable crime for record stores to sell the LP. In the First Amendment legal battle that followed, Kagan sided with 2 Live Crew in their fight over obscenity charges, writing in a brief that the album didn't physically excite anyone who hears it or arouse shameful or morbid sexual responses.

"My homegirl Kagan was saying people could not be aroused by the lyrics 'cause my dick's on bone' or 'me so horny, me fuck you long time,'" Campbell writes. "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. She is not going to let any person or group tell her what is right or wrong." Campbell also cited Kagan's time as a law clerk under Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court judge, and her support of the black community as two more reasons why Kagan should be appointed to the nation's highest court.

Luke has offered other political opinions in his regular "Luke's Gospel" column for the Miami New Times. In an item titled "Al Gore Can Get Freaky Now That Tipper's Gone," Campbell attacks Gore's estranged wife Tipper for co-founding the Parents Music Resource Center, which lobbied Congress in the '90s to have albums like 2 Live Crew’s As Nasty As They Wanna Be banned. Campbell says the legal battles that ensued cost him millions of dollars. "I can just picture the Gore household when she was practicing her speeches criticizing 2 Live Crew's lyrics: There she is in the living room listening to 'Hey, We Want Some Pussy,' 'Throw the Dick" and 'Face Down, Ass Up,' formulating her words while Al is sitting in a chair, shaking his head in disbelief," he writes.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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