Luther Campbell: The _Heeb_ Interview

We recently sat down with Luther Campbell, the 2 Live Crew ringleader and our latest Honorary Heeb (see Me So Normal: Luther Campbell Settles Down). The Godfather of Raunch Rap recently settled down and tied the knot but he still had lots of wild and crazy groupie stories to share. What follows is the uncut version of our interview with Uncle Luke.

On Luke Entertainment Group’s NASDAQ failure:

Being in the stock business is, like, in these times, difficult. You gotta really, really know the stock thing, which I don’t know. I depended on some guys to help me fulfill my vision. My career has always been independent, and [I have] not [had] to worry about going through the major record label to ask him for the approval of something that you already know is going to work and has been proven to work but you’ve been held up by the major record labels. So I’ve always been independent, and I felt the next move in my life would [be to] be able to do some things on the same level as some of these major corporations and not have to deal with the same old shit [telling] me I have to do something the way everybody else is doing it. Unfortunately, I got with the wrong group of guys.

Then [I] got with them, and when I did the research and I pleaded with these guys and I would not let something like this happen, and another thing I have … these guys wanted me to do a bunch of press releases and doing the research is … let’s mislead the public and tell them all these great things that are happening. And everyone’s buying stock and then these guys run off and dump the stock. They take off. I didn’t allow that to happen. I wouldn’t allow any false, uh, press releases to go out. That’s what they wanted to do. Pretty much we ended up going separate ways, and being that these were experienced guys in the stock game, I wasn’t going on with that program. And [I’m] left with the company, trying to decide what I’m going to do with it. And whatever experts I’m trying to align myself with, you, know to help me out with the company. I really think that this is something that could work. And I think there’s some… What I’ve learned in the stock business … My fan base, people love me for who I am, and I’m never gonna be the one to mislead them. That’s why I’m going to hold onto it, hoping I get some people [to invest]. There are a lot of things that I can do. To be the first to create a music/entertainment company in South Florida that can handle the distribution, the marketing, the production parts of it—it’d be really great.

The idea is, when you look at the South, you got so many kinds of people here, and you really don’t have a major record company in the South. They say they have Def Jam South, but that’s bullshit. That’s a subsidiary of some guy putting music out. So there’s really not a record label or entertainment company that can really go do a deal with a guy like a Jay-Z. You know what I’m saying? A production company that can go and do a movie, that can go to the market and say, “I need five million dollars to do a movie.” So it’s not necessarily from the standpoint where I get artists who wanna say what they wanna say on the record, but, to a large degree, what I’ve always stood for is: If you’re [gonna] use your comments, they need to be comments of substance. So if you wanna say, "We want some pussy," and you’re gonna shout it out in the club, that’s who you’re going to make the record for. I don’t support things where you just do what you wanna do. If you’re going to say, "F the police,” you need to have a reason for saying, “F the police.” Well, why? "Because the police did this and blah, blah, blah, blah." Then you got a reason to say that.

If you really listen to the songs, the songs that I played the role in, every individual writer in the 2 Live Crew gets credit for their writing.

On the 2 Live Crew breakup:

I think what broke us up was Joe Weinberger, who owns Virgin Records. It’s the weirdest thing in the world, because the group never broke up. He basically broke us up, and that’s probably the first time in the history where somebody that wasn’t a band member broke the group up. He had, from my understanding, this injunction for one of the members who filed bankruptcy. He had a contract with him, and the bankruptcy allowed him to tell the judge, ‘Part of the settlement would be this guy not being able to perform with the 2 Live Crew.’ And he could only perform through Weinberger. That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard in my life, because the guy told me…one of ‘em, Mr. Mix, and he filed bankruptcy to get out of his contract with Weinberger. He succeeded. Then Mark Raw filed to try to do the same thing David did. But Raw wasn’t able to get away from him.

Wong was responsible for holding the name of 2 Live Crew. He did some kind of deal with Weinberger, who ended up getting in a dispute about who owns the name. I had the name for so many years, and I would say majority ruled and wanted to do a deal with Wein. He eventually ended up doing something with these guys, and a part of the deal was not to work with me. I’m cool with everybody. I just learned that Chinaman and Raw have a problem with me.

I haven’t spoken to them in four, five years. In my opinion, Joe Weinberger manipulated those guys into saying something negative because he had a personal problem with me, and, in my opinion, he stole my catalogue and these groups that were part of my company. He’s living with that on his chest, because, even though I don’t do any business dealings with him, he’s preventing all these members who were on the label. He’s not paying these guys any royalties. He’s selling their 2 Live Crew albums, H-Town albums, all these things out of my catalogue. He’s not paying those guys one cent off those royalties. And some kind of way, the federal bankruptcy laws that allowed him to purchase this catalogue the way he did said that he don’t have to pay these people. And I think that’s really, really, really unfair.

If you look at my career, and you look at guys like Pit Bull, Trick Daddy, Barry London, this guy Peach who manages guys like Hurricane and all these different artists, if you talk to these guys, Cool and Dre, they producing on Miami, who worked for me as interns, but now look at ‘em. I was telling my wife the other day: ‘You know I think I just need to go ahead and do some consulting, because that’s what I do best. I teach and mentor these people in the business. Luke Entertainment Group was a company designed to bring new talent into the business. I always discovered new producers. I was never one to go and jump on the hot producer guy. I always knew that some guy, if given the opportunity, he could be a great producer. So I always used new guys. Banned in the USA was done by unknown producers. That’s what I do. God gave me a gift for finding talent. I’m very good at discovering product and new things and all that, and I do that good. And I’m, you know, I don’t lose too much.

I’ve learned not to take advantage of the audience, and I learn to appreciate ’em. You got a lot of people who get on stage and say, ‘Oh, I’d like to thank my fans for supporting me!’ And those are usually the ones that shit on their fans. You have to be a little paranoid, because some of these people just want to take advantage of you. So you gotta be protective of what you do.

On marriage:

Lifestyle is the same. I always said, if you gonna marry somebody, why does your life have to change? I married somebody cool who appreciate [sic] my lifestyle and was not out to change me. She pays attention to me, and she knows I’m about money and business first. The dancers and shit, I don’t let that get me crazy. I created what Jay-Z and P. Diddy and those guys are doing—The Business Rapper—I’m not the guy who smokes weed in the hotel room. I found somebody that really loves me.

On getting freaky:

When I was a single guy, I did what single guys do. You know what I’m saying? I had my fun. They had they [sic] parties with girls, and I had my fun. I enjoyed myself. I did the things that young rap stars do. I only did them for a certain amount of time. You gotta think about the… I was 23 years old and running my own record label. I had my own warehouse. I was distributing the product out of the back of my mother’s washhouse. I was pimping records in the car and [taking] them to the distributor and UPS and [distributing] the product like that. Then when business got bigger, I had to get a warehouse. I was doing some incredible shit, and I didn’t have time to do all these things that everyone thought I was doing. I mean, yeah, when I was on the road and we was doing some shows, on the weekends, which was the only time I do a show—I couldn’t do a major tour—did a bunch of girls come to the hotel room? Yeah. Did we get naked partying and everything? Yeah. No drugs, just alcohol booze and having a good time. I had those on the weekends.

That’s what kills me, is that what the industry did was say, “Oh, they wanna have their own record label.” So they adapted to that. And they said, ‘OK we’ll give you your own record label, but it’s a production deal. When you have a label deal, you own the masters.” Those people don’t manufacture the product.

On songwriting:

I had fun, lemme tell ya. I said on our records what everybody wanted to say. When I was watching Full Metal Jacket, I said, “Whoa. I like this Asian girl who says, ‘Me so horny.'” And I was like, “Well, ‘horny’ is just a regular word.” People think, ‘I’m so horny right now,’ and I just say, well, ‘Me So Horny.’ So [when we wanted to write the song], think about times when you were horny. Think about what you were thinking at times when you were horny. Then another time I was like, Hey I wanna do a song called ‘We Want Some Pussy.’And we wrote that song because the average guy is thinking [that] in the club. They’re scared to ask girls for sex, so I just do a chant-song where they [say it back]. Then, ‘OK, how do you like to have sex with a girl? How would you describe that?’ Face down, ass up. Yeah, because most people like to have sex from the back. That’s what I like. OK, that’s my favorite position. OK, I’m gonna do a song called ‘Face Down Ass Up.’

‘Mama Juanita’ came from… I always like to do a song that spoofed Castro. The idea was the video … It came from the original song. The original beat/hook was … dun, dun, dun, dun…. I forget, and we came up with…

On Jewish girls:

I never really did a Jewish girl. I’m pretty sure Jewish girls and guys are horny, too, though. All my music was universal. I’ve never been with a Jewish girl.

White girls give better head than black girls. Black girls just don’t like giving head for some reason. The things you like doing you become very good at doing, I can clearly say that. I’ve never been with a Jewish girl, not that I know of. But I never asked, ‘What’s your religion?’ right before we have sex. ‘Oh, you’re a Jewish girl, OK. Are you a JAP or are you just a regular Jewish girl? … Are you a black girl? Oh, OK. Are you Baptist or are you Christian?’

For more, read "Me So Normal: Luther Campbell Settles Down" _in_ Heeb’s _Music Issue._

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