American Poet: Luther Campbell

Howdy!

What ever happened to Luther Campbell? I pondered this the other day after one of his songs popped up on my iPod when I had it in shuffle mode, so I had to look into this further.

Do you remember him? You probably know him best as the filthy-mouthed misogynistic leader of the Miami Bass rap group 2 Live Crew. He was a genius that could weave profanity into the most shocking lyrics in the history of mankind.

In the early 1980s, Luther started out as a concert promoter and record label owner of Luke Records (shortened from Luke Skyywalker Records, after he got sued by George Lucas). He brought 2 Live Crew to Miami in 1985 to give them a record deal, and then ended up joining them as their frontman.

He began to put out solo albums of his own, and eventually split from 2 Live Crew in the early 1990s to start The New 2 Live Crew. Clever name, no? Luke records eventually went bankrupt in the mid 1990s. Since then, the original 2 Live Crew has been re-united and has continued to record and perform without Mr. Campbell. He also has periodically put out his own solo albums, the latest being released in 2006.

Luke even had his own reality TV show, Luke’s Parental Advisory that ran for 8 episodes on VH1 back in 2008.

Mr. Campbell is also a patron of the sports, in particular the University of Miami Hurricanes football team. The Miami Herald reported that he offered "bounties" to Miami players for scoring touchdowns, intercepting passes, sacking quarterbacks, and injuring opposing players. To further support of the team, he threatened to go public with various violations by the University of Miami's football program, unless Ryan Collins (an African-American player) became the starting quarterback for the season. What a great guy! He is currently the host of a Saturday sports talk show on Miami's 790 The Ticket.

Most recently Luther Campbell has been involved in the adult film industry. He has championed the cause of trying to clean up the "sometimes amateurish new courtship of Hip-Hop and Adult Entertainment". Thank goodness someone is out there doing good works.

To tie a bow on this blog post, I must say that Mr. Campbell’s life is going on just about as I expected. No surprises here.

Mahalo!