When asked about The D.O.C.'s legacy, André 3000 stated, 'As far as Southern rappers. Tracy Curry of West Dallas, known as The D.O.C., inspired rappers in Texas and across the South to hold their own against MCs from the East and West Coast. On its 'clean' version, the outfit even included a rockabilly parody of Roy Orbison's 'Oh, Pretty Woman' that yielded another victory for free speech in court. Relocating Trinidad-born, Brooklyn-bred Fresh Kid Ice (Christopher Wong Won) and upstate New York native Brother Marquis (Mark Ross) from Southern California, Campbell and Hobbs push the envelope open with the infamous 808-heavy lead single 'Me So Horny.' Then, they seamlessly weave together Afrobeat and Latin soul ('Put Her in the Buck'), dancehall ('Reggae Joint'), go-go ('Bad Ass B****'), blues ('2 Live Blues'), rock ('My Seven Bizzos,' 'Fraternity Record') and straight-ahead, properly scratched rap ('Dick Almighty,' 'C'mon Babe,' 'Dirty Nursery Rhymes'). Mixx (David Hobbs) re-create the cinematic atmosphere for the adult storytelling, hijinks and guffaws to unfold.

Producers Luther Campbell - here as Luke Skyywalker, a stage name he'd lose to a successful suit by George Lucas and 'nem - and Mr. ) As Nasty As They Wanna Be allows us to examine how we got from a moment when hip-hop was niche, making fun of middle-class respectability politics, to its present-day ubiquity, hypersexuality out front and all the way live. (For all those samples, get thee to Wikipedia and, for real heads, to Brian Coleman's Check the Technique. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals had little choice in overturning the Southern District of Florida's ruling that the Crew's third album was too obscene for audiences its numerous references to the preceding decades' most memorable musical and filmic simulations and send-ups of sex had already slipped by censors. Dismiss the locker room talk and sophomoric humor of the 2 Live Crew if you will, but this 18-track, four-movement album is not only the reason your favorite trap rapper can say whatever the blank she wants as long as she slaps on an 'Explicit' label, but it also offers an overdue study in how essential sampling is to hip-hop, a genre that endures because it's an amalgam of every precursor borne of the African diaspora.

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