In the first decision of its kind, a federal judge in Florida
has ruled that a sexually explicit record album is obscene.
REPORTER: The rap group 2 Live Crew performed the original lyrics
from an album ruled obscene by a federal judge.
Shortly after the concert, county sheriffs' deputies
arrested lead rapper Luther Campbell and one other member of the group
and charged them with breaking the obscenity law.
What he was making was essentially spring break music.
It was Playboy or Hustler magazine, if you put that to music, right?
It was girls, it was some nudity.
But Luke got taken to court and he fought it tooth and nail
to say that my First Amendment rights are my rights,
they're the same rights that are given to every American at birth,
which he won.
The censorship started off with that.
The fact that rap music also was becoming a language
that brought commonality across the world was a problem.
Once hip-hop starts to take a gangsta turn
in the early '90s, thanks to N.W.A. and Dr Dre
and early Death Row, the success of those records,
the sales, you know, it's phenomenal.
But the misogyny just got huge.
The way that women were spoken about, the way that women
were seen in videos, the whole perception of women.
When the most important figure for a woman in hip-hop was the video girl,
when she was more important than the female MC,
it saddened me because some of our greatest MCs are women.
For every song that came out disrespecting women,
we had to then, like, do the debriefing.
They say this, but look at us - we're doing this.
# Come on and get down Uh, uh
# Get, get, get, get, get
# Come on and get down Uh, uh
# Get, get, get, get, get
# Come on and get down Uh, uh
# Get, get, get, get, get
# Come on and get down
# Fight the power Yes, yes, yes, yes, y'all
# Fight the power
# We've got to fight the powers that be. #
Out here in Los Angeles, you had the Rodney King incident.
When that happened and then they acquitted the officers,
it was like, yo.
You know what? We trying to be Americans here...
..and truth and justice should be served,
and it hasn't.
I think 2,300 businesses were burnt.
63 lives was lost.
You couldn't breathe.
It was horrible.
It was so...
..sad that we had to tear up our community...
..to hear us.
Uprising did a job.
We still trying to rebuild from it 30 years later.
That's the price we pay as a society when the criminal justice system
loses its legitimacy in the eyes of many in the community -
all hell breaks loose.
And so that's what we certainly saw there,
that those riots expressed that,
they expressed our rage at the utter loss of moral credibility
and legitimacy when in the criminal justice system.
The police were on the defensive now
and there had to be a way for the police to grab the offensive
in this culture war against police brutality.
REPORTER: Self proclaimed gangster rapper Ice-T plays to raw emotion
and outrageous themes.
Today, a group of Texas police officers condemned one
of his latest songs, Cop Killer, as an invitation to commit murder.
I don't...I don't want somebody going out, listening to these lyrics
and deciding they're going to dust a cop.
The song was written before the LA riots.
Ice-T says it was a warning to abusive police officers
of simmering tension in the black community.
And until these cops realise that we're not just going to
continually get our butts kicked in the street and we will retaliate,
they're not going to act like human beings.
# Cop killer... #
HEAVY GUITAR RIFF
This song, Cop Killer, it's not a hip-hop song at all.
It's actually a heavy metal song
created by a heavy metal group called Body Count,
whose lead singer happens to be Ice-T,
who is on other records an MC.
# Cop killer, better you than me
# Cop killer, fuck police brutality... #
He launched his career with this hip-hop song
called 6 'N The Mornin'.
But he wants to form a second act and they create this album.
# Cop killer I know your mama's grieving
# Fuck her
# Cop killer But tonight we get even
# Yeah... #
My art mimics me.
So when you listen to my music,
you're getting all the facets of Ice-T.
The dirty rhymes, the political stuff,
heavy metal, the gangsta shit, that was part of Ice-T.
# Fuck the police For Daryl Gates
Fuck the police For Rodney King
# Fuck the police For my dead homies
# Fuck the police For your freedom... #
GUNSHOTS
That's why heavy metal and hip-hop have a lot of affinity.
A lot of it has to do with exaggeration and overstatement
and political speech.
Cop Killer is a song to just allow people to understand the rage...
..of a person and how far it can go.
The record is not a call to murder police.
It's just a way of saying, this is how angry we are.
Nobody got killed over my record. Nobody.
Ain't no record make you go want to hurt somebody.
Situations and issues make you go want to hurt somebody.
What Ice-T was talking succinctly about - bad cops, abusive cops,
one-sided policing, the Fraternal Order of Police just thought that,
"What the hell?
"This cat got so much influence."
The song goes on, "I got my brain on hype, tonight'll be your night,
"die, die, die, pig, die."
Catchy little number, isn't it?
Gangster rap... Gangster rap... Gangster rap...
That's more graphic than the evening news.
Critics call their music insulting.
Why did they get mad at it? You ready?
It's the little white daughter sitting at a table,
her father saying, "Oh, look at those niggers in LA.
"They're rioting." She says, "They're not niggers, Dad,
"and the police have been doing this and that for this many years",
and she addresses all our problems and he doesn't realise...
..she's listening to Ice-T and Public Enemy. Home invasion.
That's the fear.
REPORTER: The police here in Texas were the first to call for a boycott
of Ice-T and Time Warner last week.
The effect? Sales of his album have tripled in Houston,
doubled in three other cities.
This happened in 1992,
not coincidentally, a presidential election year,
where George Bush, the incumbent president,
is being challenged by Bill Clinton,
the Democratic insurgent.
And this song will become...
..a lightning rod in this campaign.
APPLAUSE
It is sick.
It is wrong for any company to issue records
that approve of killing a law enforcement officer.
It was a way for Bush to solidly position himself as tough on crime.
Which really helps with white voters who are particularly...
..predisposed to think of black folks
as the threat to their existence.
It was an awful time...
..and hip-hop became the sort of punching bag
in this presidential election.
CHEERING
Eight years of Reagan, four years of Bush...
..and the country was going through the ending of R&B,
that was Reagan and Bush, with the hope that we were clearing out
of the swamp and out of the muck with a Bill Clinton nomination.
Give us a job!
4,000 Democratic Party delegates are in New York today
for the start of their convention at Madison Square Garden.
It will end on Thursday with the formal nomination
of Bill Clinton as the party's candidate
in November's presidential election.
In the name of the hard working Americans
who make up our forgotten middle class,
I proudly accept your nomination for President of the United States.
CHEERING
Bill Clinton, who is the governor of Arkansas at the time,
enters the presidential stage as a candidate.
Bill was interesting cos we saw Bill Clinton on Arsenio Hall's show.
Something as simple as that
really kind of made Bill Clinton appeal to us.
You know, playing his music, he hung out with black folks,
he, you know, spoke in this kind of charming Southern accent.
He was from down-home Arkansas. He was one of us.
But there was a sense that Bill Clinton was going to be
someone who responded to the issues we were having in our community.
APPLAUSE
White racism may be black people's burden
but it's white people's problem.
We must clean our house.
APPLAUSE
He decides that he is going to engage civil rights leaders.
So he speaks at Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition Convention
in 1992.
But it's there that Bill Clinton decides
he's going to take on hip-hop.
Namely, the activist component in the form of Sister Souljah.
It's definitely a warning about the fact that we are under
a police state, we are under military domination in this country,
and that we have a criminal justice system
that absolutely does not work for African people.
Clinton had been closely associated in the minds of many people,
many white Americans, with black folk.
CHEERING
It becomes, "How can I demonstrate that I'm not beholden
"to these, um, African-American activists?"
By then critiquing this rap artist.
I defend her right to express herself through music.
But her comments before and after Los Angeles
were filled with the kind of hatred that you do not honour.
She told The Washington Post about a month ago,
and I quote, "If black people kill black people every day,
"why not have a week and kill white people?"
I know she is a young person
but she has a big influence on a lot of people.
We met Sister Souljah, Lisa Williamson,
as an organiser and an activist.
We in Public Enemy thought that, like, what can we do?
She doesn't rap but we could include her voice - a dynamic...
Probably one of the most dynamic speakers ever.
# We are at war Come on!
# Black man, where is your army? Come on!
# The black man is so dope there's no reason we can't win
# Everybody's going to have to get serious
# Terminator X
# I try to teach and reach I drop bombs... #
They used it as, "Oh, look what she's talking about.
"She's being divisive. She's really kind of, like, charging up
"these disenfranchised troops of hers to make them think that,
"you know, that they got to come forward with the uses of violence
"in the United States of America," and that was just bullshit.
They used it as campaign fodder.
She's talking to the black community and the gang bangers,
like, "Listen, don't kill yourselves," right?
You know, "be able to understand
"that there's somebody bigger than you that wants to kill you."
Sister Souljah was used as a vehicle,
like black victims of racism.
A poor excuse for an agenda-less candidate.
What is your relationship to black youth beyond the patronising gesture
of picking up black babies and patting them on their heads?
It was a way for Bill Clinton to position himself.
"See? I'm a Democrat and I support liberal social policies...
"..but I'll protect white voters against the 'them'."
In the end, Clinton wins.
In just 11 weeks, the presidency of the United States
will change hands from George Bush to Bill Clinton.
CHEERING
The American people have voted to make a new beginning.
And perhaps most important of all, to bring our people together
as never before so that our diversity
can be a source of strength in a world that is ever smaller,
where everyone counts and everyone is a part of America's family.
CHEERING
Not only did we have a new president sworn in in the early '90s,
but a whole new sound was coming out of the West Coast.
It would change hip-hop forever.
We have our own way that we sound in the West.
I'm born in Oakland, raised in LA.
We have our own tone of voice.
We have our own energy.
The West Coast is a car culture.
Right? When you think about LA and Oakland. That's significant.
If you're a proper California girl, you are checking out cars
more than the guys sometimes.
I used to see Ice-T...
..driving around LA, specifically up and down Crenshaw,
in these amazing cars.
See, the difference in LA and East Coast music
is East Coast is the train.
Like, "Arrrgh".
Which is more erratic.
LA is lowriders, so it's smoother.
Hey. Matt. What up, Matt? What up, Matt?
Dr Dre went from his N.W.A. persona,
which was by and large forceful, muscular, aggressive,
angry and in-your-face,
to a much more kind of chill...
Like, he sounded, "Yeah, it's the next episode."
You know, he was...chill. He was relaxed.
Maybe they smoked a lot of chronic.
Name that tune.
Dr Dre just sonically hit hip-hop where it needed to be.
# Look at me now and tell me what you see
# I am what I am, it's only me
# Little ghetto boy
# Playing in the ghetto street... #
Aesthetically and musically, The Chronic...
..was once again the genius of Dr Dre looking at
the total array of hip-hop and rap music.
Dre slowed hip-hop down.
# 27 years old, up for parole... #
You know? And he happened to find a person that could ride
that slow beat.
Guy by the name of Snoop Doggy Dogg.
# But now they blast, right
# Wake up, jumped out my bed
# I'm in a two-man cell with my homie Lil 1/2 Dead
# Murder was the case that they gave me
# Dear God, I wonder Can you save me? #
The power of The Chronic was not only in the production,
but he just debuted so many people.
It was almost like a compilation album.
He really put a stamp on what West Coast music sounded like.
# Throwing them dogs, getting that rep as a young hog... #
Dre, to me the number one producer in the world.
He's our Quincy Jones.
# Since I did the crime I gots to do my time
# Them say me grow up to be nothing, look at me now
# And tell me what you see I am what I am, it's only me... #
I think the difference between The Chronic and all the rest
of the records that came out was how clean it sounded.
Because you're used to hip-hop being, like, super...dirty.
But it sounded amazing.
He really told other producers to step up your game.
# Now I'm holding a dub... #
He was my step-brother.
We built the chemistry between us.
Me and Snoop and Nate and us was living with Dre.
We had parties everywhere.
We would drink our beer, smoke a joint here and there.
It was just fun, and creating music
and just feel...just feel free.
Whattup?!
Get your ass outta here.
# Playing in the ghetto street
# What you gonna do when you grow up? #
People in Texas, people in the Midwest,
you know, they listen to those Snoop and them Dre records,
it's a little different, you know what I'm saying?
So it's like, that was dope, to hear that new frame of reference,
to hear new people saying new shit, a new way,
you know, with new musical influences.
It was great. Amazing.
# No needing being calm if you pack right
# And learning just enough to keep your sack right
# Late nights, I wonder what they getting for
# Early morning on the corners What they hitting for? #
Lyrically, it's still X-rated raps,
but it's just said over a beat that feels and sounds better.
And that was a watershed moment in the sense that
you could take music that was very abrasive and very confrontational,
change the sound of the music,
and all of a sudden, a lot of people that for years
had been disparaging rap, and now, all of a sudden,
"Oh, this is the greatest thing ever."
# Cos you's a hustlin'-ass youngster Clocking your grip
# Playing in the ghetto street... #
In ten years, rap music has gone from ghetto streets
to main street USA.
Sales last year reached an estimated $5 billion.
Hip-hop was really becoming an industry.
The whole scene had matured.
The ascendancy of the gangsta rap scene.
You also had a lot of the major labels
really starting to get much more invested.
You had, you know, magazines that were dedicated
to hip-hop.
It meant a lot to me to become editor in chief of Vibe.
Because rap was hot, we didn't have enough pages
to cover all the people that we wanted to cover.
It just felt like hip-hop was taking over.
REPORTER: 72% of the rap records in Los Angeles are sold to white kids.
Here comes hip-hop.
White kids, black kids liking the same music.
White kids love hip-hop.
Just a different lifestyle
and they just tell us how they think.
It's not really so offensive as it is eye opening, you know?
When I was watching as a kid, you'd see MTV Raps
and you'd see somebody in an interview saying that, you know,
we're just basically reporting to you what's happening
on the streets where we live.
You know what I'm saying?
Um, my education is from hip-hop, honestly,
because that's... I look to rappers to know what's going on,
you know what I'm saying? And...
It just felt like rappers, certain rappers, were just talking to me,
you know?
A lot of people, especially young white kids,
very quickly learned that, unfortunately,
a lot of the music was based on what was happening in the United States.
Have you ever been shot at? Yeah. What happened?
Nothin'. I got away.
People wanted to hear these stories because they're authentic.
It's like a tour guide through the streets.
I don't have to ride down Crenshaw to find out what's really going on.
I can buy me a gangsta tape.
But the white establishment didn't like it
cos you had these articulate, angry black men
exposing some of the ugly truths
of the United States.
And that was intimidating, dangerous and frightening to a lot of people,
because now these guys do have a voice.
Now they have the microphone.
In the '90s, you know, a lot of things were escalated, and...
..things were getting worse because we had more police brutality.
A lot of gang activity at the same time, as far as a lot of drive-bys.
SIREN BLARES
POLICE RADIO CHATTER
One of the things that it's important to understand is...
..crime as a whole, and particularly violent crime,
had been increasing for 20 years.
SIREN BLARES
He's got his gun out!
REPORTER: Anger and tension exploding here,
as in so many cities.
A feeling that crime is out of control.
Watching brothers get killed, I mean, it can take a toll
on your life, it can take a toll on your mind.
Urban communities, African-American communities, Latino communities,
are under assault. They are under siege.
What this is is this is a search warrant.
They are being ravaged by drugs and by crime
and by poverty and inequality.
We're coming off this erroneous belief
that Democrats are soft on crime.
REPORTER: This is a special report.
President Clinton's State of the Union Address
to a joint session of Congress.
Thank you very much.
Bill Clinton is leaning into...
..sort of, "We've got to be tough on crime,"
because Bill Clinton is trying to save his presidency
after losing the midterm election.
Bill Clinton feels the pressure
to prove that he can be just as harsh
and just as punitive as Republicans
on the issue of law and order and crime.
In our toughest neighbourhoods, on our meanest streets,
we have seen a stunning and simultaneous breakdown
of community, family and work.
This has created a vast vacuum
which has been filled by violence
and drugs and gangs.
The Congressional Black Caucus
approach the President of the United States
and they say, "Look, our constituents are telling us
"we need to do something. We have to fix this."
It's a shame that we can't walk outside today.
I'm scared for my children to come outside because of the gangs.
There are black people who are represented by these people
who live in these neighbourhoods who wanted something to happen.
They wanted people who were repeat offenders
to go to jail for a while.
They wanted to have people stop shooting guns...
..freely in their neighbourhoods.
I encourage all my colleagues to vote for
the bipartisan crime bill.
One step is you must take back the streets,
and you take back the streets by more cops, more prisons,
more physical protection for the people.
It doesn't matter whether or not they're the victims of society.
The end result is they're about to knock my mother on the head
with a lead pipe, shoot my sister, beat up my wife, take on my sons.
So I don't want to ask what made them do this.
They must be taken off the street.
APPLAUSE
When this bill is law, we will have 100,000 police officers
on the street - a 20% increase.
It will be used to build prisons to keep 100,000 violent criminals
off the street.
We will have the means by which we can say
punishment will be more certain.
The weapons of mass distraction have always been in play.
People follow their sports teams more than they follow
the things that's going to affect them every day,
so a lot of times bills are passed and politicians go back and forth
and all of a sudden you turn around and there's a crime bill
that not only affects your present
but really seriously affects your future.
Clinton passed a crime bill...
..which allowed now 14-year-olds to be tried as adults,
more prisons being built.
The impact of the crime bill is devastating
and felt almost immediately.
For example, the three strikes law.
This idea that if you have three offences,
that you're out of here.
Like, you go away. It increases your sentencing dramatically.
That is embedded into the crime bill.
BILL CLINTON: ..violent crimes should be told,
when you commit a third violent crime,
you will be put away and put away for good.
Let's go!
What were you guys doing? Nothing at all, boss.
Nothing at all.
In fact, we have seen sentencing discrepancies
when it comes to drugs.
Cocaine versus crack.
Crack and cocaine.
Cocaine versus crack cocaine.
The penalty for possession of 5g of crack cocaine,
the drug used and sold by many young blacks, is five years in prison.
The penalty for possession of 5g of powdered cocaine,
the drug favoured by the white middle class, is probation.
Who in here has been in prison before?
And that's why so many people who got caught with very small amounts
ended up doing really major time.
Do you think you'll be coming back here again?
That's hard to say.
As a result of the Clinton administration policies,
you had one in three black males
caught up in the criminal justice system, with the numbers climbing.
These communities were asking for help.
We know that they were like, "We have problems."
But what they were asking for
was to get to the root of the problem.
So that doesn't mean locking up a generation of African-Americans
or labelling every black man who walks out of his house
a gang banger.
We can't really measure the affect and impact
that it has on us as a community
cos it's impossible to reverse the damage.
I've got friends who got sentenced to decades
and because they were in prison, they couldn't provide
for their families.
We don't know if they would have possibly married
and created families of their own.
We don't know who they would have grown up to become.
Oh, man, I've got friends now that if they're caught
with a butter knife, they'll be doing life in jail.
It's incredible.
It really hurt the community.
After a few years,
I didn't know a black family that didn't have a family member that
had been in jail and incarcerated for a long period of time.
A lot of men were being swept away and, you know,
the pipeline to penitentiary was just heavy, put into place and thick
and men were getting swept up off the streets
for low-level marijuana crimes. Let's just start there.
# It ain't easy being me
# Will I see the penitentiary or will I stay free?
# It ain't easy being me
# Will I see the penitentiary or will I stay free?
# It ain't easy... #
And a lot of people who got out of the joint in the '90s
ended up in hip-hop.
# Wake up sweaty and screaming cos I can hear them... #
You know, it's in these records,
talking about guys who hit the bricks.
There's a lot of references to jail culture.
# Lookin' out for these killer kids cos they wild
# Bill Clinton can you recognise a nigga representin'
# Doin' 20 to life in San Quentin
# Gettin' calls from my nigga Mike Tyson
# Ain't nothing nice - "Yo 'Pac, do somethin' righteous wit' ya life"
# And even though you innocent, you still a nigga
# So they figure... #
Tupac Shakur wrote It Ain't Easy in the mid 1990s
when he was facing jail time of his own.
# No, it ain't easy... #
He was speaking directly to the hearts and issues
of young black men at the time.
# It ain't easy... #
'Pac was able to, like, take the everyday life
that he was even in the middle of
and be able to come up with a great song.
# Keep an eye on the cops while D-Boys slang rocks
# It's the project kid without a conscience... #
Tupac was a social commentator,
but he was also a skilled rapper, MC,
and had that revolutionary spirit.
Are you rolling, Eddie? OK. My name is Tupac Shakur.
I think I'm growing up good, in all sense of the word.
I think I'm growing up and learning about
responsibilities and everything.
My mother was a Black Panther and she was really involved
in the movement, you know,
just black people bettering themselves and things like that.
She could have chose to go to college
and got a degree in something and right now been well off,
but she chose to analyse society
and fight and do things better.
When we think about Tupac, you can't...
..understand Tupac as an artist, as a person,
without understanding, sort of, where he comes from.
This is a child of East Coast Panthers.
ALL: Power to the people!
We're going to...
They embraced a revolutionary critique of American society.
Tupac coming out of that tradition,
we see the critique of capitalism and the structures around us.
We have to be supportive, we have to be together
as we move forward in this world.
Tupac was a person that fearlessly said,
you know, I'm going to take all of my attributes
and all of my skill-sets that I've learned
and see if I can incorporate this into...
..my arts as an artist and an activist and make it all work.
And, um...
..that he did.
He's going to be so diverse,
he's going to talk about single mothers in Brenda's Got A Baby.
He's got a touch in there that's like, whoa!
Brenda's Got A Baby, which I think is one of the more political songs
in the history of rap, especially with regard to black women.
And it's wild that it's coming from a black man, but it did.
It didn't matter. The politics were always there.
He rapped about how Brenda's got a baby and threw her in the trash
and what a horrible situation this is.
He only did that because he knew of these stories
and he knew of these realities and he wanted to change that.
Tupac made the hardest records ever to do,
that people were afraid to touch.
You know, Keep Ya Head Up.
And Dear Mama.
Come on, man. Greatest rap, hip-hop songs of all time.
Tupac represented a lot of things to a lot of people.
On the one hand, he was very thoughtful
and supportive of women.
On the other hand, he had a lot of songs disparaging women.
# Take money West side... #
On the other hand, he had a lot of political songs
and he had a lot of songs about how he wanted to shoot and kill people
in the streets.
People don't want to hear your righteous side any more or as much
because they're not looking at you like that.
They're like, "Nah, he's raw, he's from the streets,
"he's hardcore, he's a gangster."
# Plus Puffy tryin' to see me weak, hearts I rip... #
So, when people think about 1994, people tend to think about the fact
that that was the year that Tupac was shot five times.
# You know the rules, Lil' Caesar... #
That was the year that he was found guilty
of sexual abuse and sent to jail. Like, that was a huge year.
Mr Shakur, can we get a comment from you at all? Hell, no. Thug life.
Pardon me? Thug life. Thug life. That's my comment.
What does that mean? I don't understand.
Tupac's persona blew up.
Yes, I am going to say that I'm a thug.
That's because I came from the gutter and I'm still here.
I'm not saying I'm a thug because I want to rob you
or rape people and things.
Was that everything that he was? No, it was a slice of what he was.
As you came at him, he came at you the same way.
# The clique you claim, Westside... #
You come with the attitude of, "Yeah, fuck you",
he's on, "Fuck you, too."
HE LAUGHS
I think the general public lost touch with Tupac.
# You keep on coming... #
They wanted to gravitate to Hit 'Em Up and to the violence
and to the rivalries.
# Cut your young ass up, leave you in pieces... #
The fact that he had all these other layers to him
and some of the political stuff just gets thrown by the wayside,
unfortunately, because, one, his life was so short,
but then, two, toward the end of his life,
it was consumed by chaos and tumult.
# See? Grab ya...when you see Tupac
# Call the cops when you see Tupac
# Who shot me, but you punks didn't finish
# Now you 'bout to feel the wrath of a menace... #
It started to feel like hip-hop was losing its way.
You know, the music was changing,
the morals were changing.
You know, the streets were becoming very dominant.
It was the "keep it real" era,
and keeping it real was going very wrong in a lot of ways,
especially when you talk about losing two of the biggest artists
in the genre at the time.
# When I'm serving ya... #
We lost Biggie and 'Pac...
# Guard your rank cos I'mma Take money... #
..'96, '97,
and I feel like the genre in itself was at a huge turning point.
# First off... and the clique you claim
# Westside when we ride come equipped with game
# You claim to be a player but I...your wife
# We bust on Bad Boy... for life
# Plus Puffy tryin' to see me weak... #
Sure, 'Pac aggravated some people, no doubt about that.
Tupac and other artists like Snoop and Dre became targets
in the debate over censoring hip-hop,
so it pissed a lot of people off,
the way that they delivered their rap content.
They just looked at rap music as, like, yo, you guys are talking
murder, mayhem, gangs, sex, drugs, rock and roll, that type of thing.
This was seriously a black urban angst
that was delivering a hell of a lot of words.
# Fuck wit' me and get your caps peeled
# You know, see
# Grab ya Glocks when you see Tupac... #
And some of the words were, like, naughty in the English language.
# Fuck you, too All you motherfuckers
# Fuck you, too Take money... #
We will begin the press conference. Marilyn.
Our crusade is against gangster rap -
rap that glorifies and promotes violence with guns,
knives or drugs.
Dr C Delores Tucker was a powerful voice
standing against the hip-hop movement.
She is someone who had been involved in politics.
She had participated in the Selma to Montgomery march.
She took a stand against misogyny in hip-hop
and that was a huge statement.
Gangster rap is not gangster rap.
Much of it is just plain old pornography, period.
It is unfortunate that these negative gangster rappers
have learned to have such low respect for women,
especially African-American women.
If you go back now and you listen to the lyrics
and then you look at her stance, she was right.
The music was misogynistic.
It did misalign and misappropriate the ways in which women
show up in the space.
The music was very, very dangerous in the ways in which people respond
to black women.
And for some reason it was OK?
She was one of the few voices that said it was not OK.
The corporate gangsters in their entertainment suites,
the true cause and propagators of this filth,
not the young gangsters in the streets who are exploited,
are merely the victims of the converging, malevolent forces.
She said, listen, this ain't playing out well.
What I see is the corporations that are pimping these kids
and they...and they dangling them.
Nobody out here wants to look at the conditions
and try to change them.
Change the conditions and then perhaps our music will change.
There's a rift that develops between the younger
and older generation in black communities.
It's so wrong.
As a black woman, I am not a dog and I refuse to be called a dog.
A rapper who changes from positive to negative
just to get a record deal is just like a black man
who will pimp his sisters on the street just to make money.
There are young folks who are making these records.
They're selling them out of the trunk of their cars.
And then you have the older generation,
somewhat more conservative.
Religious figures like Calvin Butts.
Recognise that this poison kills.
It kills young men and women. It kills old men and women.
It promotes violence and sexism in our communities.
It's dangerous to our police officers.
It is just wrong.
It didn't have to be the Reverend Calvin Butts
running over CDs in Times Square.
It didn't have to be Delores Tucker or any of these people
that were just against rap, against rap.
It was a constant battle and a constant fight.
You have the misunderstanding trying to govern misunderstood,
and so it was, like, eff all rap music, you know?
There was a cultural division.
We hope to create a climate in our community
that we believe once existed, where this kind of thing
is so intolerable that people would dare not suggest
that a black woman is a bitch or any woman is a female dog.
MUSIC: Gin and Juice by Snoop Dogg
# With so much drama... #
In to C Delores' office comes Dionne Warwick
holding Snoop Dogg's new album
Doggystyle.
# Every single day... #
They feel that this represents a nadir in hip-hop of misogyny,
and as black women, they vow to do something about it.
# In the livin' room gettin' it on
# And they ain't leavin' till six in the mornin'
# So what you wanna do?
# Shit, I got a pocket full of rubbers and my homeboys do, too... #
This is our responsibility.
It's not my responsibility, it's not her responsibility,
it's our... Our! ..responsibility.
APPLAUSE
# Sippin' on gin and juice Laid back
# With my mind on my money and my money on my mind
# Rollin' down the street, smokin' indo
# Sippin' on gin and juice Laid back
# With my mind on my money and my money on my mind... #
Gangster rappers don't seem to care if radios ban their music.
Snoop Doggy Dogg's album is already number one.
Look at the people before me that was black
and successful and powerful with words.
Where they at now? Where's Martin Luther King? Where's Malcolm X?
I know rappers will always get attacked by politicians though.
A lot of it was just to push buttons regardless.
And for you to take a lot of these lyrics seriously is like,
you're a fucking idiot.
C Delores Tucker seizes on this moment.
She gets Congress to hold the first hearings ever on rap lyrics.
Our first panel today...
..will be Dr C Delores Tucker.
As I see it simply, there are three things that prevent gangster rap
from being a freedom-of-speech issue.
Number one, it is obscene. Number two, it is obscene.
And number three, it is obscene.
Thank you very much.
Whether it was misogynistic lyrical content
or gangster, you know,
it would have been unrealistic to think that
there wasn't going to be pushback.
But there was a feeling that we didn't want to be policed.
The issue here for hip-hop is that...
..this fight is coming from folks outside of hip-hop
who don't appreciate any part of the culture,
and then there are folks who defend hip-hop against this attack...
..and so they are literally fighting a culture war.
Mr Nelson George, who's a journalist.
A lot of people didn't like this music and felt offended by it
and thought it was, you know, bringing black people down.
But there were many conflicting agendas that were at play.
For me, the question of gangster rap's role in America
is not a question of the chicken or the egg.
The egg in this case is the economic and social breakdowns
that have taunted our cities since at least the riots of the 1960s
and that shows few signs of really being addressed.
The chicken is the culture of cynicism of our government
and verbal rebellion that rap represents.
If tomorrow every offensive gangster rap record was removed
from our stores, our airwaves and our video shows,
there would still be random violence, teenage unemployment,
teen pregnancy and drug trafficking.
The only difference is that the musical backing for our youth
would change, but the conditions that frighten our nation
and the Congressional hearings on rap would continue.
The hearings didn't amount to much.
Hip-hop wasn't stripped of its voice.
This macho thing that black men primarily brought out
in hip-hop and rap that, "Well, I'm being obscured,
"so I'm coming out and not only that, I'm going to be loud,
"I'm going to be me,
"and I'm going to be super black male from my point of view.
"And whether you all like it or not, go eff yourself."
The culture just was very masculine.
It was almost like there wasn't room for any level of femininity.
It was difficult for women to find their place and their footing,
especially when the guys that were out were so strong and loud.
Even some women, you know, dived in...
..with a...a masculine manner.
The good news is there were people such as Roxanne Shante.
CHEERING
We came here tonight to get started,
to go at them or get retarded.
I was participating in a all-out Battle For World Supremacy.
You would get this big belt that says you are the best in the world.
And I'm the only female, the only girl, and these are all...
..MCs and men.
I must have rhymed all day long,
until we got down to the last two people.
And it was myself and...
..it was Busy Bee, another MC.
I'm seeing, like, "Wow, I'm getting ready to be the best
"in the world and the world is going to know I'm the best."
And we got to the last battle,
everybody takes their numbers
and turns them up... Nine, ten...
Ten...
Nine...
Ten...
Four...
Four?
And the crowd went crazy.
Like...
It was just, like, pandemonium, people wanted to fight,
I wanted to fight...
I just walked out, and I never looked at hip-hop the same,
ever again.
She won that battle,
and she was deprived of the World Supremacy title.
Years later, I remember, one of the judges,
and he said,
"The reason why I gave you four is because we...
"..were just starting to be respected as a genre of music.
"If they thought the best in the world of this new genre
"of music, the one that no-one can beat,
"is a black, 14-year-old girl...
"..there's just no way they would have accepted it."
He said, "So, I had to let you lose in order for hip-hop to win."
This is why I respect people like Roxanne Shante so much
and some of the other girls, and it's because
regardless to how many setbacks they were faced with,
they still continued and I'm glad they did,
because that knocked down doors and that made room for the next set
of women to come after them.
What video do you want to see right now, Freddy, on Video Music Box?
Well, it would have to be the latest video that I directed,
which is Ladies First by Queen Latifah, featuring Monie Love.
# Ooh, ladies first, ladies first
# Ooh, ladies first, ladies first... #
Latifah, she was really a pioneer, very early on.
Ladies First had an enormous impact.
It was a record that influenced multiple generations of women.
You know, it's funny, when you're doing it,
you don't necessarily think about,
"Well, this is going to be a feminist statement for all time!"
# Who said the ladies couldn't make it, you must be blind
# If you don't believe, well, here, listen to this rhyme
# Ladies first, there's no time to rehearse
# I'm divine and my mind expands throughout the universe
# A female rapper with a message to send... #
That video was a huge part of making that statement.
# Throwing down the sound
# Totally a yes let me state the position
# Ladies first, yes? # Yes.
Monie at her side and it was a great video,
it had all of the fantastic images of powerful black women.
# Some think that we can't flow Can't flow
# Stereotypes, they got to go Got to go
# I'mma mess around
# And flip the scene into reverse With what?
# With a little touch of Ladies First... #
I thought she was very important, as a powerful black woman,
who stood with a straight spine, as she wore that African garb,
and celebrated her history and where she came from.
We needed that kind of messaging as kids, and I think especially
black women, young girls, needed to see the Queen Latifahs.
People like Queen Latifah was able to cut through the noise,
to kind of demand that women have a space at the table
in ways that they hadn't before.
"We belong here, we take the stage, we're speaking back,
"we're not going to be sidelined,
"we're not going to be disrespected."
She was doing a direct talkback to some of the lyrics
that were coming up at that time.
And, "Who are you calling the B-I-T-C-H?"
And, "Are you respecting me?"
Queen Latifah changed the game.
# Who you callin' a bitch?
# U-N-I-T-Y You gotta let him know
# U-N-I-T-Y Come on, here we go, uh
# U-N-I-T-Y You gotta let him know
# Love a black woman from...
# You ain't a bitch or a ho, here we go, U-N-I-T-Y
# You gotta let him know
# U-N-I-T-Y, come on, come on... #
She told a story about a girl
who's walking down the street, guy hollers at her,
she doesn't want to speak, and because she doesn't want to speak,
she's automatically then deemed a bitch.
It's not cool to do that.
# You know all of that gots to go
# Now everybody knows there's exceptions to this rule... #
I really think it had an impact.
Because I felt like I got a lot less male ego that gets turned down,
calling me a B-word...after that song,
I think because they felt stupid, perhaps,
because Latifah called them out on record.
# One of 'em felt my booty, he was nasty
# I turned around red, somebody was catchin' the wrath
# Then the little one said... # "Ha-ha! Yeah, me, bitch" # And laughed!
# Since he was with his boys, he tried to break fly, huh
# I punched him dead in his eye
# And said, "Who you callin' a bitch?" #
The nominees were announced today for the 37th annual Grammy awards.
The Grammys will be held in Los Angeles on March 1st.
Queen Latifah...
She was up against all men.
Coolio...
Snoop...
Warren G...
Craig Mack... # The silent type, yeah
# Ain't none of this worth gettin' your face sliced
# Cos that's what happened to your homegirl, right?
# Barking with no bite! She got to wear that for life... #
Queen Latifah won Best Rap Solo performance.
# U-N-I-T-Y Come on, here we go
# U-N-I-T-Y... #
She became the first woman to win this category.
I think, when she won that Grammy,
a lot of people were in shock.
They just said, you know, "That's overdue, and that's Latifah."
When Latifah won at the Grammys,
hip-hop still wasn't a respected genre within the Grammy association,
at that time, and she received her accolade,
or what have you, during an untelevised portion of the Grammys.
Hip-hop still wasn't at the level of respect that it should have been.
And then, on top of that, she's a woman.
Even to this day,
I'll meet women who were growing up
and they'll say, "Oh, man, that first Queen Latifah album...
"That really...inspired me."
Now, there's a lot of female players in the hip-hop game,
Lauryn Hill, a brilliant MC...
Missy Elliott broke through in such a huge way.
Megan...
The success of Cardi...
Doja Cat...
City Girls...
To a lot of female artists, she really had a tremendous influence.
Queen Bee is Queen Latifah, she's always been the Queen Boss.
SHE WHISTLES
She is one of those people that...
..people never really looked at as, like, just a female rapper.
As powerful as any male there ever was in hip-hop.
Even more so.
SHE HUMS
A lot of rappers who had that conundrum...
"I got one foot in the hood and one in the boardroom.
"Where should I be? I'm straddling both."
When you got power, then comes responsibility.
What are you going to do with it?
It's gon' take a black president to stand up, that has gone through
all of that pain and heartache and turmoil
in their lives, and struggle,
to be able to set things right and balance the world out.
Obama is the first hip-hop president.
What does it mean to have a black president
if the streets are on fire? Our folk are dying! Wake up!
Black Lives Matter got pushed off the front page
with the presidency of Donald Trump.
The way that he had divided the country,
some of the things that were coming out of his mouth...
I don't know.
The headlines this morning belong to Eminem
who released a scathing cipher directly at Donald Trump.
Sometimes you might need to take a stand and say certain things...
Why are African-Americans still dying at the hands of
law enforcement in this country? And so are white people.
So are white people!
More white people, by the way, MORE white people.
You see something that's an atrocity...
It's going to get a hip-hop response.
ALL CHANT: George Floyd!
All we gotta do is congregate.
We're going to posse up, we're going to build up to it.
That's what surprised the hell out of many.
They didn't think that the world would posse up.
# 19... 89, the number, another summer
# Get down
# Sound of the funky drummer
# Music hittin' your heart cos I know you got soul!
# Brothers and sisters! Hey, hey!
# Listen if you're missin', y'all
# Swingin' while I'm singin' Hey!
# Givin' whatcha gettin', knowin' what I know
# And while the Black band's sweatin'
# And the rhythm-rhyme Rollin'!
# Got to give us what we want Uh!
# Got to give us what we need! Hey!
# Our freedom of speech is freedom of death
# We've gotta fight the powers that be. #