2 Live Crew News, 2 Live Crew Videos, 2 Live Crew Photos

January 23rd, 2012 | 3:15 pm by Mark Graham (@unclegrambo)

Miami Booty Music Pioneers 2 Live Crew Planning A Reunion Tour

The 2 Live Crew‘s As Nasty As They Wanna Be was a cassette tape that everyone who grew up in the Eighties owned but kept carefully hidden from their parents’ prying eyes (and ears). While certainly not the first rap crew to brag about their sexual conquests, Luther Campbell and his posse of perpetually horny MCs made waves by pushing their sex rhymes deep into XXX rated territory. Their lewd and lascivious “pornocore” material ultimately caught the eye of Florida legislators and got them, as Luke would famously put it, “Banned In The U.S.A.”

Well, nearly 20 years after disbanding, Luther Campbell announced over the weekend —at the Sundance Film Festival, no less!!!— that 2 Live Crew would be getting back together for a reunion tour this fall. You may recall that the group got together for a one-off performance at VH1′s 2010 Hip Hop Honors show, but this time around, the group will be taking their show on the road. No details about the tour have been announced, but Uncle Luke promises that “We’re going to perform the songs and everybody’s going to be excited.” Um, hopefully not TOO excited, if you catch our drift…

Uncle Luke Ready To Get Nasty Again, Reveals 2 Live Crew Reunion Plans [SOHH]

[Photo: Getty Images]

September 29th, 2011 | 4:00 pm by Lacey Seidman (@Lacezilla)

VH1 ALBUM-VERSARIES: A Tribe Called Quest Unites To Celebrate The 20th Anniversary Of The Low End Theory (PART I of II)

A Tribe Called Quest dropped their second full-length album, The Low End Theory, in late September of 1991. Widely recognized as a ground-breaking work today because of the manner in which it experimentally weaved layers of sampled jazz elements into its sound-bed, the album earned a spot in Time?s All-Time 100 Albums List, was named the #154 album of all-time by Rolling Stone and was celebrated at 2007′s VH1 Hip Hop Honors. The group recalls that early chapter of their career vividly, and last week, for A Tribe Called Quest’s first joint-interview since 1998, all four members of the group spoke exclusively to VH1 to mark the 20th anniversary of The Low End Theory?s release.

Aside from our celebration of this Album-Versary, ATCQ has been in the news quite a bit recently. Michael Rapaport?s award-winning documentary film, Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest, played the festival circuit earlier this year, is due on DVD next month, and managed to kick up quite a media dirt-cloud in the process. In addition to providing an inner glimpse of the film?s starring group-members’ intertwined history, Beats, Rhymes & Life used issues surrounding a 2008 miscommunication-turned-scuffle between MCs Phife and Q-Tip as its second focus. Tribe’s fractured support of the film triggered cascading rumors of residual intra-group turmoil, but once content and contract disagreements and an intercepted-email incident were sorted out, the doc was finally released with ATCQ’s blessing.

For Questers, music fans and students of hip hop culture, Beats, Rhymes and Life is a must-see, but the effect it had on the lives of everyone involved in the project and the press frenzy that lingers might still be a bit misleading to the outside world. In order to help contextualize this landmark album’s impact, we spoke with MTV’s in-house hip hop expert Sway, cultural critic extraordinaire Nelson George, and international journalist Boss Lady about the resonance that this LP had then, and also now, 20 years later. And while A Tribe Called Quest appears to still be somewhat re-acquainting themselves with each other after dissolving in 1998 and wrestling with the last few years? shell-shocking chain of events, it was clear from the time we spent with them that Kamaal ?Q-Tip? Ibn John Fareed, Malik ?Phife Dawg? Taylor, Ali Shaheed Muhammed and, yes, even Jarobi White are still very much an unbreakable Tribe of brothers.

September 18th, 2011 | 10:00 pm by Mark Graham (@unclegrambo)

VH1′s 40 Most Shocking Hip Hop Moments [COMPLETE LIST]

VH1 debuted the latest countdown in our long-running The Greatest series, the 40 Most Shocking Hip Hop Moments, this evening. If you missed it, don’t worry; it will rerun tomorrow night, Monday, September 19, at midnight. If you’re looking for the complete list, look no further. Here are the 40 Most Shocking Hip Hop Moments … so far!

40) Nicki Minaj gets butt slapped by Regis Philbin
39) Wyclef runs for president of Haiti
38) 50 Cent shockingly thin Twitter pics
37) Lil Wayne goes to prison and gets grillz removed
36) Redman?s shocking Cribs episode [WATCH]
35) Cam?ron?s anti-snitching 60 Minutes interview
34) Dr. Dre?s shocking transformation at VMAs
33) Sir Mix-A-Lot?s raunchy ?Put ?Em on the Glass? video
32) Lil Mama crashes stage during Jay-Z and Alicia Keys VMA performance
31) Suge Knight knocked out

September 15th, 2011 | 5:30 pm by Mark Graham (@unclegrambo)

40 Most Shocking Hip Hop Moments Set To Debut On Sunday, September 18

Ever since the first time that someone decided to break out a turntable at a block party in the Bronx, scandal and hip hop have gone together like peanut butter and jelly. From notorious murders and untimely deaths to sleazy sex scandals and high-profile arrests, rarely does a week go by without some sort of drama going down in the hip hop community. On VH1?s 40 Most Shocking Hip Hop Moments, which debuts this Sunday, September 18, at 8 p.m. ET/PT, we?ll count down the most mind blowing, controversial, stunning and horrific moments ever.

You’ll have to watch the show to guess the final order, but some of the things you can expect to see will range from the silly (like Gucci Mane?s triple scoop ice cream cone face tattoo and Nicki Minaj getting her booty slapped by Regis Philbin) to the serious (the murders of Biggie and Tupac, the latter of which occured 15 years ago this month). On VH1?s 40 Most Shocking Hip Hop Moments, we?ll revisit all the stories that caused people to either gasp or #SMH.

VH1′s 40 Most Shocking Hip Hop Moments is a two-hour special, which will immediately be followed by the television premiere of our latest Rock Doc, Planet Rock: The Story Of Hip Hop And The Crack Generation. It’s a night that hip hop fans won’t want to miss! To get a taste of what it will be like, follow along to watch comedian and familiar VH1 talking head Donnell Rawlings share his personal thoughts on what the most shocking thing about hip hop is.

August 1st, 2011 | 2:45 pm by Lacey Seidman (@Lacezilla)

MTV Memories: How YO! MTV Raps First Made Hip Hop Mainstream

With MTV officially celebrating its 30th birthday today, music nostalgia is in the air. But for each music fan, the initial introduction to MTV’s music programming was unique and personal, and likely rouses up flashbulb memories to this very day. Speaking only for myself, that initiation process started with YO! MTV Raps.

After being on the air for almost seven years, MTV first aired YO! in April of 1988. While other television outlets like BET were showcasing African-American culture at the time, MTV, quite frankly, wasn’t really in the business of having black artists’ videos on the channel. And hip hop, specifically, was certainly not yet used as a vehicle of pop culture; if it wasn’t an indisputable, mainstream force like Michael Jackson, you probably wouldn’t see African-American artists on-air besides an occasional crossover video from Run DMC and Jazzy Jeff. Unless you witnessed hip hop music and culture bubbling within New York City’s five boroughs or other domestic regional pockets first hand (or watched Video Music Box), the genre probably hadn’t really made its way into your world yet.

From it’s inception, YO! MTV Raps curated an balance of hip hop via in-the-moment self-exploration. Since hosts Fab 5 Freddy, Doctor Dr? and Ed Lover didn’t have quite enough content to populate the show’s segments at first, videos from other genres like reggae, funk, R&B and soul were peppered-in to help hip hop’s still-developing definition expand its scope. From that fundamental, harmonious and educational coexistence came more of the same, and soon light-hearted videos like Digital Underground’s “Doowutchalike” and “Humpty Dance” were seamlessly airing beside Public Enemy’s political anthem “Fight The Power” and sonically dynamic “Passin’ Me By” from The Pharcyde, and the South’s sexually-charged posse 2 Live Crew were showcased just as much as funky artists from Queens like A Tribe Called Quest. Additionally, lyrically savvy Juice Crew member Big Daddy Kane would spin alongside the West Coast’s gangster juggernaut N.W.A., and strong female voices like Queen Latifah, MC Lyte and Roxanne Shant?: all women who didn’t need to sell sex to survive.