The year is 1989, and the place is Grand Forks, N.D.
I am 12 years old, and a friend has obtained a cassette copy of what would become 2 Live Crew's most famous release: "As Nasty As They Wanna Be."
The cover art is four members of the group staring at four women in thong bikinis. The key single, which made its way onto radio play, is "Me So Horny." Even the dirty, explicit version of the song is one of the cleanest, least explicit tracks on the entire cassette.
The only real exposure to rap music before this came in the form of Tone Loc's "Loc-ed After Dark." It came out two weeks before "As Nasty As They Wanna Be," and Tone Loc might as well have been singing choir songs by comparison.
2 Live Crew is outrageous. The lyrics are so shocking — again, remember, 1989, Grand Forks, 12 years old — that they almost seem incomprehensible. This is way before Internet pornography or even sexually explicit content on TV was everywhere.
The leader of the crew is Luther Campbell. He is brash. He has one thing on his mind. He gives zero you know whats.
Now the year is 2016, and the place is Minneapolis.
I am close to 40 years old (shut up), and I have just learned that Luther Campbell — yes, the same one — has been hired as a defensive coordinator of a Florida high school football team.