Krazy Kristian Krusaders Against Rock 'n’ Roll: Part 5:

This is the fifth and (hopefully) final installment of a multi-part series about anti-rock ‘n’ roll crusaders from years gone by and the damage they do in the name of “protecting the children.” These pieces feature a parade of villainous villains of the rock censorship world, some that you’ll recognize, some that you’ve hardly even heard of. If you missed the previous articles check the Flaming Spuds Rhapsodies home page.

Believe it or not, the 1990s is the last time this great nation saw a significant pushback against rock ’n’ roll. The chief target during this period was rap music. (I know, some people don’t think that rap should be considered rock. I’ve always had a big-tent approach though, so if you can’t handle that, I suggest you go to your favorite loathsome social-media platform and get involved in a furious online debate whether Eric Clapton was greater than Jimmy Page or something equally important.)

First let’s go back to 1989, when the group N.W.A had a little ditty called “Fuck tha Police” that caused a bit of a kerfuffle. From the site of the National Coalition Against Censorship:

On August 1, 1989, the FBI’s Milt Ahlerich sent a letter to Priority Records — which distributed N.W.A’s debut album Straight Outta Compton — to register his feelings about the song “Fuck tha Police,” which he said “encourages violence” against law enforcement officials. And he made clear that these were not merely his personal views:

I wanted you to be aware of the FBI’s position relative to this song and its message. I believe my views reflect the opinion of the entire law enforcement community.

In a recent appearance on Conan O’Brien’s podcast, former N.W.A. member Ice Cube said the FBI letter initially worried him and others in N.W.A. But bandmate Easy E argued that this would be great publicity for the band — and that turned out to be correct.

Here’s the song in question:

So no, despite this FBI letter and grumblings of some police organizations, no official action was ever taken against N.W.A. for what basically was a protest song against police brutality. But the National Coalition Against Censorship in its “Fuck tha Police” article quoted rock critic Dave Marsh saying, ““Early censorship attacks are always greeted as no big deal, and they are always harbingers of worse to come.”

Skipping ahead to the nutty ‘90s, that proved to be true.

A previously little-known Miami-based rap group called 2 Live Crew released an album As Nasty as They Wanna Be in 1989. This record got the attention of then Florida Gov. Bob Martinez — who in February 1990 — asked Florida’s statewide prosecutor, Peter Antonacci, to conduct an investigation into whether those selling and distributing this record were violating Florida’s Racketeer Influenced, Corrupt Organizations Act and obscenity laws.

Several corporate record-store chains announced they’d stop selling Nasty because they didn’t have a warning label. But some local independent shops went on selling it.

Broward County Judge Melvin Grossman in March 1990 ruled that the album was obscene. A few months later, in June 1990, a federal judge in the state of Florida upheld Grossman’s decision.

Broward County Sheriff Nick Navarro didn’t wait long after the green light from the court. Just two days later, his courageous deputies swooped down upon E-C Records in Fort Lauderdale and arrested owner Charles Freeman for selling the album to an undercover sheriff’s deputy. In October 1990, an all-white jury convicted Freeman, 32, of selling obscene material. Freeman faced a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

The Tampa Bay Times reported that Freeman, as he left the courthouse, shouted that the jury “doesn’t represent my community … It’s unfair. The jury was all white. They don’t know where E-C Records is. They don’t know a god damn thing about the ghetto.”

The New York Times in June 1990 said:

The music of 2 Live Crew has provoked legal trouble before. Most recently, on March 15, a record-store clerk in Sarasota, Fla., was arrested for selling a copy of As Nasty as They Wanna Be to an 11-year-old girl. He was charged with selling material harmful to minors, a felony, that carries a maximum term of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. Charges in the case were later dropped.

But the case against Mr. Freeman is different because it has behind it the force of a federal judge’s ruling that the record is obscene and that the county may try to prosecute any sales of it.

I’ve always appreciated British-born journalist Christopher Hitchens’ take on the controversy:

“I don’t know the private thoughts of Sheriff Nick Navarro of Broward County, but I doubt they are worth a rat’s behind and see no reason why he should sublimate his own vagina-dreading disorders in this expensive and undemocratic fashion. The same applies to the preposterous Judge Jose Gonzalez Jr., who in ruling on Sheriff Navarro’s raid opined that the music appeals to ‘the loins, not to the intellect.’ In fact, I think they are a pair of racist shitheads who should be told to fuck right off.”

Music break: I wanted to post 2 Live Crew’s uncensored biggest hit, but all I could find were “clean versions” and “age-restricted” videos that can’t be embedded. But somehow this take, by the mighty Richard Cheese with original lyrics intact, was readily available:

“This bust has totally disrupted my life,” Freeman told The Los Angeles Times in late 1990:

“I couldn’t sleep last night. My business has been crippled. My wife and kids are upset and my ulcers are about to kill me. I vomit after every time I eat.”

The irony, Freeman said, is that he left “a life of crime . . . running with gangs” in his native Brooklyn, N.Y., and moved to Florida to pursue a legitimate career after his mother warned that he was going to end up in jail.

“I never imagined I’d be about to go to jail for selling a record,” he said. “I’m just trying to earn an honest living down here. No judge should be allowed to dictate what kind of music an adult can listen to.”

Eventually, in 1993, Freeman’s conviction was overturned.

Just a few days after Freeman’s arrest, Luther Campbell and two other members of 2 Live Crew were arrested after performing songs from As Nasty as They Wanna Be in Hollywood, Fla. They were acquitted of their charges a few months later.

One of the forces behind the attack on 2 Live Crew was a Krazy Kristian Krusader named Jack Thompson, who was a supporter of the American Family Association, which is as horrible as it sounds.

Thompson, a self-described born-again Christian and “radical conservative Republican,” once ran against future U.S. Attorney Janet Reno for Dade County state attorney. A June 1990 story in the Los Angeles Times noted:

Thompson’s 1988 campaign tactics were called into question by the Miami Herald. At one rally, the Herald reported, Thompson handed Reno a letter with a prepared statement, asking her to check the appropriate box: “I, Janet Reno, am a * homosexual, * bisexual, * heterosexual.” The letter continued: “If you do not respond . . . by that date then you will be deemed to have checked one of the first two boxes.” (Reno declined to comment.)

Luther Campbell told the L.A. Times that Thompson went after him because “one of my groups put out a record in favor of Janet Reno” during the 1988 race. But I’m skeptical. I think Thompson probably would have hated him with or without the Reno connection.

Like so many of these deranged agents of censorship, Thompson eventually faced public disgrace.

In 2008, he was permanently disbarred in the state of Florida. The American Bar Association’s ABA Journal said this was because Thompson “repeatedly attempted to harm his opponents’ reputations `with utter disregard to the administration of justice and complete indifference to the consequences his conduct would have on their lives, law firms, judicial careers, clients, families and reputations.’ ”

But Charles Freeman, the record-store owner, didn’t fare very well either, even after his obscenity charges were dropped. He went deeply in debt and lost his record shop. But even worse, even before the obscenity conviction was overturned, he was charged in federal court with conspiring with at least seven other men to manufacture and possess, with the intent to distribute, crack cocaine from January 1987 through January 1989.

The only source I could find online for what happened with these charges was in a 2022 post in a blog called The Antagonist by journalist Dustin Waters that said Freeman “pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 years in prison.” But I was unable to find out how much prison time he served. (Under federal corrections policy, convicted felons must serve at least 85 percent of their sentences, which in this case would be 15 years plus. I couldn’t find any source to determine whether he’s still alive. If he is, Freeman would be in his late 60s now.

After the horrors of the 2 Live Crew affair, there were other attacks against rappers. The most memorable was the reaction against Ice-T and his 1991 metal album, Body Count, recorded with the band of the same name. The record was released just a month before a California jury acquitted the Los Angeles police officers who viciously beat unarmed motorist Rodney King

According to a 2023 article in Rolling Stone, quoting a book called Body Count by Ben Apatoff:

The furor had kicked off in May [1991] when a Dallas policeman, Glenn White, published an article titled “New Rap Song Encourages Killing Police Officers” in a Dallas police department newsletter called The Shield. He printed the address of Warner Bros. Records President Lenny Waronker and called for a boycott of all Time Warner products. A Corpus Christi newspaper picked up the story, and a Texas coalition of law enforcement agencies called CLEAT, cofounded by a former Texas cop named Ron DeLord, set up a press conference at Arlington, Texas’ Time Warner–owned Six Flags where they demanded apologies from Ice-T and Time Warner, as well as a removal of the song and a donation to community services. They threatened to divest their pensions from Time Warner stock.

Of course, right-wing politicos had to get in on the action. Then-Vice President Dan Quayle said, “I am outraged at the fact that Time Warner, a major corporation, is making money off a record called ‘Cop Killer’ that suggests it is OK to kill cops.” His boss, George H.W. Bush, later echoed some of Quayle’s concerns.

I’ll admit. Even though I like Ice-T and had a few of his albums at the time, I was put off by “Cop Killer.” At the time I was working as a crime reporter and had been doing a lot of work on a case known as “The Chimayo Massacre,” in which a deranged asshole named Ricky Abeyta shot and killed seven people, including his girlfriend, her infant grandchild, and two police officers. One of those cops, Glen Huber, was the younger brother of an old high school friend of mine. So no, I was not a fan of “Cop Killer” and said so in my review of Body Count.

But I’m also not a fan of censorship and hypocrisy. Quayle and other opportunistic politicos wanted to punish Ice-T but didn’t give a rodent’s patootie about Rodney King, not to mention the other victims of police violence who weren't captured on videotape.

Rolling Stone quoted Ice-T:

“One cop was telling me that the record scares him. And I’m like, well, maybe you should be scared. Because I’m afraid. I’m afraid because some police are way out of control … There’s a point where a cop pulls you out of that car and starts abusing you or beating on you and at that moment he is no longer within the law.”

But in 1992, more than a year after the album’s release, Ice-T asked his label to remove “Cop Killer” from future pressings. Warner Brothers soon did so.

Also that year, George Bush and Dan Quayle were defeated for re-election. They were beaten by Bill Clinton, who had his own little beef with a rapper named Sister Souljah, who Clinton lambasted for saying something stupid about killing white people.

Like I said, I’m not a fan of “Cop Killer.” But here’s a Body Count song I can get behind:

This concludes my series on Krazy Kristian Krusaders Against Rock ‘n’ Roll, which took a lot longer to write than I thought it should. As I said previously, I’m actually worried about the state of rock 'n’ roll because even Moms for Liberty don’t seem that interested in censoring music. Currently the Krazy Krusaders now are more interested in banning books from libraries and inconvenient history from the Smithsonian.

But stay vigilant, fellow rock fans. You never know when these creeps will once again turn to the music we love.

I’ll leave you with a song by 2 Live Crew

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