Live Crew

The judge hearing the obscenity trial of three members of 2 Live Crew withstood an attempt today by prosecutors to remove her because she is a former student of the rap group's lead attorney. Broward County Circuit Court Judge George Brescher denied the request to disqualify fellow Judge June Johnson, saying her relationship with defense attorney Bruce Rogow was not close enough to warrant her dismissal.

  Former 2 Live Crew frontman Luther Campbell is now a high school football coach in Miami. HBO's "Real Sports" catches up with him in an interview to be aired during their show on Tuesday night at 10 p.m. PT. The players on Campbell's team weren't born when his album, "As Nasty As They Wanna Be" was declared obscene and banned. Now Campbell is a strict disciplinarian who does not allow any curse words.

Three members of the 2 Live Crew rap group and a store owner who sold their album were formally charged today with obscenity. Band members Luther Campbell, Mark Ross and Chris Wongwon were charged with participating in an obscene performance, a first-degree misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a $1,000 fine, according to the Broward state attorney's office. They were arrested after an adults-only concert in Hollywood on June 10. E-C Records owner Charles Freeman of Ft.

Which version of "change" this year's election results will actually provide remains to be seen, but the 2008 presidential campaign has certainly shaken up television.

A Wednesday concert at the Country Club in Reseda and another Friday at the Celebrity Theatre in Anaheim are among 11 dates canceled by 2 Live Crew due to the "complete exhaustion" of leader Luther Campbell. The controversial act's Los Angeles publicist said that Campbell's Miami physician has "ordered complete rest" for the performer. The local dates are are expected to be rescheduled for November.

The raunchy rap group 2 Live Crew says $13,867.56 is all it owes for an unauthorized parody of Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman." But attorneys for Acuff-Rose, the music company that holds the rights to the 1964 hit, told a federal court that they were not satisfied with the offer. The Nashville publishing house, an arm of Opryland USA, sued 2 Live Crew on June 18, claiming that the rap song "Pretty Woman" on the group's "As Clean As They Wanna Be" album amounted to copyright infringement. U.S.

More Legal Troubles for Campbell: Attorneys for film director George Lucas asked a federal judge in Los Angeles on Thursday to cite Luther Campbell, leader of the controversial rap group 2 Live Crew, for contempt of court. The application filed by Lucasfilm Ltd., alleges that Campbell violated U.S. District Court Judge James Ideman's May 9 preliminary injunction barring Campbell from using a form of the name Luke Skywalker, a licensed trademark owned by Lucas.

Rap group 2 Live Crew, which canceled appearances at the Celebrity Theater in Anaheim and the Country Club in Reseda last month in the midst of national controversy over the group's allegedly obscene recordings, will play the Celebrity on Nov. 9, according to theater officials. More new Southern California shows are expected to be announced next week, a spokeswoman for the Crew's booking agency in New York said.

Police warned record stores Tuesday to stop selling the controversial album "As Nasty As They Wanna Be" by rap group 2 Live Crew or face possible obscenity charges. "There's no prior restraint. We're just asking for voluntary compliance," said Lt. Jerry Pittman, commander of the vice squad. In about five days, police will begin conducting undercover investigations and arresting anyone still selling the album, Pittman said.

The Hamilton County Sheriff's Department in Cincinnati has initiated an investigation to determine whether "As Nasty as They Want to Be," a sexually explicit album by the Miami-based rap group 2 Live Crew, violates obscenity codes in Ohio. The investigation was prompted by a complaint from Florida anti-obscenity crusader Jack Thompson, who faxed a transcription of six 2 Live Crew songs to Hamilton County Sheriff Simon Leis and to city police stations in Cincinnati and Dayton on Thursday.

Six years ago today, three members of the Cleveland Indians went for a boat ride on a little lake near Clermont, Fla. Just the memory of what happened that evening still chills all who knew Tim Crews and Steve Olin, and the only one who survived, Bob Ojeda. Crews was driving his 18-foot, open-air bass boat toward a dock to pick up some friends who also wanted to ride in the warm night air. But the boat rammed into the dock, which stretched 220 feet onto the lake.

Rap star Luther Campbell of 2 Live Crew is trying to pressure the University of Miami into installing black quarterback Ryan Collins as the starter next season, according to the Miami Herald. "If they don't start Ryan Collins, Miami will get the death penalty," said Campbell, who allegedly has paid performance bonuses to Hurricane players in recent years. "I will tell all. I will tell everything I know to the NCAA. If he doesn't go out there for the first play vs. UCLA (on Sept.

After your cover stories on rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg (Nov. 7) and Interscope Records executives Ted Field and Jimmy Iovine (Oct. 24), I feel compelled to write. To put people like them on your cover in this town is to glorify and condone their actions. As the old show-business saying goes, "No publicity is bad publicity." That is why I am so outraged at having covers two times in three weeks dedicated to sleazy muckrakers. Of further worry is the Oct. 24 sidebar profile of Doug Morris.

In 1989, Luther Campbell, leader of the rap group "2 Live Crew," wrote his own version of the late Roy Orbison's 1964 classic, "Oh, Pretty Woman." Initially, the two songs sound the same. A pretty woman is spotted walking down the street. But where Orbison's lyrics conjure up a fantasy of longing and fulfillment, the rapper tells a more brutal tale. On second glance, the pretty woman turns out to be "a big hairy woman."

The hottest talk in the rap world continues to be the violence at this month's "Jack the Rapper" convention in Atlanta--and whether the hip-hop world's annual industry gathering is in jeopardy. In view of the numerous fights and gunplay at and around the convention site Aug. 12-15, record executives are wondering whether they want to still attend the meetings.

"It's not only about sex," says H-Town's laughing Dino Conner, defending the R&B vocal trio's steamy single "Knockin' Da Boots," which has been in the national Top 5 for more than a month. "We're not selling sex, we're selling romance." Not a very convincing argument. The single--from the group's album "Fever for Da Flavor"--combines a smoldering, slow-to-medium tempo groove and lyrics consisting of one sexy suggestion after another.

The judge in the obscenity trial of three members of the rap group 2 Live Crew ruled today that a transcript of the disputed June 10 concert would not be used in the trial. Broward County Judge June Johnson heard arguments from the state and the defense over admission of the transcripts. A tape of the concert, which was of poor quality, was played for the judge, but out of the six-member jury's earshot.

Mix a little raunch with a bit of wit, as everybody from Cole Porter to Prince has done at some point, and you've got a formula for pop that's lively, and maybe even healthily, artfully shocking. Take away the wit, and turn the raunch into drooling pornography, and you've got the formula for the banal, embarrassing exercise that the 2 Live Crew perpetrated Saturday at the Celebrity Theatre in Anaheim.

Thank you, thank you for Column Right by Buchanan. Every white heterosexual Anglo-Saxon Christian raised in dignity and with pride will weep in being reminded of what we are near to losing. Those of us who are proud of our generations of cathedrals built, of storied regiments, of honorable and responsible conduct will never understand those entertainment-world defenders of Ice-T, 2 Live Crew or the mainstream church defenders of the Queer Nation or the rioters who burn down their own (and others')

Omaha officials have dropped obscenity charges against two record retail chains after they agreed to stop selling sexually explicit albums by Miami rap group 2 Live Crew to minors. The controversial case was dismissed late Tuesday after representatives for Trans World Music Corp.