Original subtitles

[drums]

[Shad] At some point, all true hip-hop fans

want to know about the culture's roots,

and for me, as an MC,

hip-hop's history is my history, too.

So, the opportunity to hear the story

from the people who created it

is every hip-hop head's dream realized.

♪Two years ago, a friend of mine ♪

♪i> Asked me to say some MC rhymes ♪

[hysterical laughing]

What is that?

♪Took a dare to become an MC ♪

[Shad] From the moment New York's pioneers created this new form of music,

based on break beats and rhymes,

its appeal was instant,

and its momentum was unstoppable.

♪Straight out of Compton Crazy motherfucker named Ice Cube ♪

[Shad] L.A. broke through first,

adding booming funk and hard rhymes to the mix.

But this was just the beginning of hip-hop's evolution,

because from coast to coast,

hungry innovators in every city, town, and neighborhood

wanted their say.

[Shad] And in true hip-hop fashion, they were going to be heard.

["Hip Hop" by Dead Prez plays]

♪Uh, uh One, two, one, two ♪

♪Uh One, two, one, two ♪

♪One thing 'bout music When it hit you feel no pain♪

♪White folks say it controls your brain I know better than that, that's game♪

♪And we ready for that Two soldiers head of the pack♪

♪Matter fact, who got the gat? And where my army at♪♪

♪Rather attack than not react♪

♪Bigger than hip-hop, hip-hop♪

♪Hip-hop, hip♪

♪It's bigger than hip-hop♪

♪Hip-hop, hip-hop♪

[Shad] By the early '80s,

rap scenes were bubbling up in every corner of the U.S.

and one of the first places for the culture to take root was here,

in the tropical heat of Miami.

Miami was a party town before hip-hop hit.

Influenced by a Caribbean culture

and a strong mobile DJ scene,

it was all about outdoor block parties and big bass.

[Shad] Hip-hop's first Southern ambassador emerged from those parties,

an ambitious Jamaican and Bahamian DJ with a rebellious streak.

He's gone by a lot of names,

but today, most people call him Uncle Luke.

-Hey, what's up, man? -[Shad] You good?

How you feeling, man? You in the neighborhood.

-[Shad] Yes, sir. -This the community of Liberty City.

[Shad] How much of the early Miami bass scene

and the people involved were from here?

Everybody was from Liberty City, you know, everybody.

Here, in Liberty City, that's where it all started,? and it all began.

It all-- Right in that yard, right there.

Right-- The window was pointing this way right here, and I used to DJ

out of the window, onto the grass.

And I would have the people come right up there to the grass,

-and they would be dancing in the grass. -Reggae records and...

Reggae, all kind of records.

I was the DJ trash talking on the microphone,

had the records in the little shed,

and I'm DJing.

So, I had a little business going on out the house.

-[Uncle Luke] Yeah. -Young entrepreneur.

[reporter] Miami's Luther Campbell works as a cook at a hotel,

but he says this is when he really gets cooking,

performing as the leader of The Ghetto Style DJs,

playing music in the streets for poor black youth

in the Liberty City section of Miami.

[Uncle Luke] I was an up-and-coming DJ.

We would DJ in the pit at African Square Park.

It was, like, literally down in a hole.

And the pit was our home.

Most people come down here in the sun and fun, and it's all great,

but Miami, you know, had its challenges.

[police sirens wail]

[reporter] The trouble started at African Square Park.

Street discos were going on past closing time there.

Officers sent to stop the music a little after 10:00

said rock and bottle throwing youths then moved from the park.

[Uncle Luke] I was DJing this one night,

and this officer, he ran the whole neighborhood.

White guy. His name was Officer Butler. Everybody was scared of him.

He was this notorious bad motherfucker.

So, he came to the pit and, "All you niggas get out of this hole here!

Y'all shut the fuckin' music down."

And I was like, "Fuck you!"

And, before you know it,

we had a nice, good, old-fashioned

Liberty City riot.

-[police sirens wail] -[gun shots firing]

[indistinct chatter on police radio]

[Uncle Luke] My uncle taught me to watch the news

and understand what they're really talking about.

[reporter] Police estimate they made 25 to 30 arrests:

Some for looting,

others like this pickup, apparently for prowling.

[Uncle Luke] Another black person acting like an asshole,

another white guy acting like a good?guy.

And they would drill that into me.

So, that kind of got me really politically active and aware.

[man] We young disco groups,

We just ask the city to give us a better facility to play in.

Right now, you know, the world, there's no jobs,

so you've got to have something to take the people's mind off of

going out and doing something wrong.

[Uncle Luke] We had no skating rinks, no teen discos. We had nothing.

So, it was always into me. I wanted to own my own.

I'm going to work for the man for a minute,

but I always want to own my own.

I remember the day like it was yesterday when I told the guys, I was like,

"Yo, we got to own our own teen disco."

They were looking at me like, "What? Are you serious?

How we going to do that, you know?

Black people don't own their own business."

But I wasn't raised to lay down,

so I raised enough money

and then opened up the Pac Jam Teen Disco.

-[indistinct chatter] -[drums and electronic beat]

[Freestyle Steve] You'll go in and it's dark.

You got the smoke. You got the green lights going.

And music's loud, you dancing, you sweating.

You looking for the chicks.

You're with your boys, your little crew,

and y'all fresh to death.

[Trick Daddy] You got the silk shirt, the corduroys,

the M&M boots with the fisherman hat.

And on the weekends, we would go to the Pac Jam,

and we wouldn't have to leave the club.

We were 12 and 13 years old,

and we was leaving the club at 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning.

[Disco Rick] It'd be DJs like Ghetto Style DJs,

Pure Funk DJs...

Jam Pony Express.

You can't forget them boys.

And there was walls and walls of speakers.

Then when the bass would drop...

you fucking felt your heart come out your chest.

That's the other thing I heard is, you had to have that bass.

Oh, no. If you didn't have that bass, you weren't shakin' shit.

[Freestyle Steve] It was dirty, grimy, and deep.

And that's how the Miami sound was defined.

[Uncle Luke] I became like this legend,

so I wanted to discover

records you don't hear on the radio, and that nobody else is playing.

And that's what I did. I found that "Beat Box" record

by these guys from California.

["Beat Box" by 2 Live Crew plays]

♪Beat box, beat box Beat, beat, beat box ♪

[Uncle Luke] The "Beat Box" record, it was electronic.

It was... ♪Beat, Beat, Beat, Beat Box ♪

I took it to the Jam that weekend,

and I put the record on.

And when they heard that, people just lost they fuckin' minds.

♪Beat, beat, beat box ♪

So, that's when I brought 2 Live Crew down to Miami.

♪Beat, beat, beat box ♪

[Shad] Miami loved the booming bass of 2 Live Crew's "Beat Box,"

and Luke, always the hustler,

recognized ,this as an opportunity to move beyond being a promoter.

So, he founded his own record company,

Luke Skywalker Records,

and made this unknown California trio his first signing.

♪i> Listen party people Let me tell you this ♪

♪Something I know you can't resist ♪

♪i> We came here tonight to let you know ♪

♪That we are the crew Gonna steal the show ♪

[Shad] How did Luke come to be part of?the group?

-Because, at this point, he's a promoter. -[Mr. Mixx] Promoter, manager...

We started doing some shows,

Fresh Kid Ice is you know, bashful, shy.

Marquis didn't have a particular focus.

It was, like, chaos.

Luke is standing on the sidelines, looking at all this

saying, "Man, they bombing out there.

I can't let this happen."

He just felt like his money was about to go down the drain.

So, he took his DJ skills--

You know, the type of DJing they were doing in Miami,

they would talk over the records.

And he started doing all of?this stuff in between the songs.

He did it two or three times, and he said,

"Man, if I'm gonna be?going out there doing this stuff, I gotta get paid."

So, that's how he became a fourth member in the group.

♪The rap you hear is our claim to fame ♪

♪So everyone in hip-hop Will know our name ♪

[Uncle Luke] When I joined the group, I told the guys,

"Yo, we don't want to sound like Run-D.M.C.

We don't want to sound like Ice-T.

We don't want to sound like anything that you have ever heard."

We have a dance that we do called "Throw the D."

"Throw the Dick".

That was the name of it.

So I said, "Do a song off of 'Throw the D,'

and I'mma make the song big."

I said, "It's got to have a lot of bass." And then we made...

the nastiest record you could ever imagine.

["Throw that Dick" starts playing]

♪Listen up y'all 'cause this is it ♪

♪Forget that old dance [distorted] And throw the dick ♪

♪Let's dance ♪

[Disco Rick] That Throw the D record set it off.

It was our first hip hop record, was 2 Live Crew.

That was our thing.

You know, It came from Luke.

Know what I'm saying? It came from Ghetto Style DJs.

♪It's a brand new dance And it's coming your way ♪

♪It was started in Miami By the Ghetto DJs ♪

♪Say some call it nasty But that's not true ♪

♪It's the only dance That you can do ♪

♪'Cause you need a sexy body Make your party come alive ♪

♪i> If you can't do that Don't even try ♪

"Throw the Dick" was one of my favorite dances

and one of my favorite songs,

and nobody can cuss better than Miami niggas.

Nobody can cuss like us.

♪i> Just get on the floor And suck my dick ♪

[DJ Laz] It was edgy.

It was in your face,

like, fucking audio porn...

is what it was.

♪It's all in the hips, so go berserk And let that dick do the work ♪

[Lady Tigra] It pissed off your parents.

[chuckles] You got to say all the dirty things

you wouldn't say in real life.

And you got to dance dirty.

[Shad] So, were you offended by the lyrics at all?

I mean, I think mostly they were

trying to express the culture of Miami.

The primary goal was to get you to move,

not so much to get you to think,

but to get you to move.

And we saw it as comedy.

It was fun. It was hilarious.

♪I, I, I want some ♪

♪I, I, I want some ♪

[Mr. Mixx] Finally, somebody brought to life that wide-open,

crazy, sexual thought process of the young people that was down there.

It was like we were the spokesperson for the whole area.

♪I, I, I want some ♪

[Uncle Luke] The first album was... This is who we are.

You know, so we had to live up to our reputation.

That's the highway on which we are traveling now,

and so we need to create more songs like that.

It was like, "I'm gonna make the records worse than what they are.

["Me So Horny" plays]

♪i> Oh, me so horny Me love you long time?♪

[Shad] By the time "Me So Horny" hit,

Luke's raunchy and comedic vision for 2 Live Crew

proved more successful than he ever imagined.

Luke records had become one of the biggest black owned labels in America,

but 2 Live wasn't just big with black audiences.

They crossed over and that brought a whole new set of problems.

[Disco Rick] When you got to "Me So Horny," it changed.

That shit was over the top.

That's when white folks were like, "Hey! Hold the fuck up."

♪Sitting at home with my dick all hard ♪

♪So I got the black book For a freak to call ♪

♪Picked up the telephone Then dialed the seven digits ♪

♪Said "Yo, this Marquis, baby Are you down with it?"?♪

A lot of people were like, "That stuff that y'all are talking about,

we don't understand it."

And you know, I'm young,

so, you know, I'm like, "Whatever."

It was exciting. We were pissing people off,

and fucking with everybody.

♪Girls always ask me why I fuck so much ♪

♪I saw what's wrong baby doll With a quick nut ♪

[reporter 1] There is mounting concern

that the music teenagers are listening to, rap,

is getting too explicit.

[reporter 2] Susan Pierce is a parent who is not impressed by 2 Live Crew.

It's your job as a parent, is to set some standards for your kids.

[Uncle Luke] When we started crossing over,

white kids starting liking it.

These kids were blasting this,

in the parking lots at the high schools.

These were Bible Belt towns.

Parents and everybody started freaking out.

I think this is nothing but verbal pollutants.

[Trick Daddy] There was a sheriff called Nick Navarro.

He was a hater for reasons he didn't even understand.

Sheriff Nick Navarro basically said,

"This music is garbage, I'm gonna shut it down."

[reporter 1] A federal judge in South Florida

declared 2 Live Crew's album, As Nasty As They Wanna Be,

obscene by local community standards.

On Friday, a record store owner was arrested

for selling the album to an undercover deputy.

[reporter 2] This is the only album banned in Broward.

Despite that, Freeman continued selling the records and tapes

and challenged Sheriff Nick Navarro to arrest him for it.

I saw him on television saying,

"I've been selling it, and I'm selling it, and I will continue to sell it.

We're here to arrest him, because there's no one above the law.

[man] America is free, free for everybody.

And, uh, as long as this is America, and I'm not living in Cuba,

I feel my rights are violated.

[Disco Rick] It was all over the news.

Don't go into Broward County,

and do this type of music in our fuckin' city.

Oh, buddy. But they did it.

[Uncle Luke] Yeah, I ended up telling the guys,

"Look we going to go in this club.

and we're going to sing these songs, in Broward County,

home of Nick Navarro,

the guy who started this whole thing of banning our music.

I'mma tell you now, there's going to be undercovers, all that.

We're going to jail tonight."

[crowd chanting] 2 Live Crew! 2 Live Crew!?2 Live Crew!

[Uncle Luke] Everybody knew we were doing this gig

after the song was banned,

and so they're all ready to go to jail, too.

You know what I'm saying? Everybody knew what the deal was.

[man] We have drug problems tearing the whole world apart,

but why they concernin' on this?

We got all these police sitting around here,

waiting for something to happen.

Why they can't go out there when they see what's happening every day,

not a one-time event?

[crowd cheering]?2 Live Crew!

[Uncle Luke] I got on stage, and I could smell a cop a mile away.

They'll have a Dolphins jersey on with a cowboy hat-- police.

You know what I'm saying?

They had these tight pants on-- police.

They just looked totally out of place.

It was like, "F this, F the police, F everybody."

We gonna sing the songs and if we go to jail, we go to jail."

In the end, we start singing the songs.

-Let me hear you say, "Oh, me so horny!" -[crowd] Oh, me so horny!

♪Somebody say, "Oh, me so horny!" Oh, me so horny ♪

♪Let me hear you say?"Oh, me so horny!" Me love you long time ♪

[Shad] What were you thinking at that time with the police attention?

I'm like,"This shit is fuckin' cool!

We're out here singing these crazy ass songs.

Let's go to jail!"

♪Sitting at home with my dick all hard ♪

♪So I got the black book For a freak to call ♪

[Uncle Luke] As soon as we went out the back door...

-[siren wails] -[police chatter on radio]

...they hauled me off to jail.

[Shad] That night, 2 Live Crew were arrested and charged

for what the Broward County police

deemed to be an obscene performance.

And the battle that started with Sheriff Nick Navarro

had exploded into a legal war

with wide-reaching consequences.

2 Live Crew were now facing a trial

that would challenge one of America's most sacred values,

the right of free speech,

and put hip-hop's entire future, as a voice for the voiceless, at stake.

[Donahue show intro music]

[Donahue] This is a multi-millionaire and he's going to jail.

Here is 2 Live Crew.

♪I met this bitch standing on the block Singing doo wah diddy ♪

[Donahue] Is this music obscene?

This is the first time that a record

has been the center of an obscenity charge

with an arrest ordered by a federal judge.

♪She'll suck on my dick If I buy her a rock ♪

[Uncle Luke]?Millie Jackson did this. You know, she cussed on her records.

Eddie Murphy, and Richard Pryor.

They're doing it on comedy records.

You know, Dice Clay was probably more raunchy than we ever could imagine,

but the difference between them,

these record labels are owned by white guys.

Why wasn't no pushback against them?

It became a free speech issue for me.

You know, "Does the First Amendment apply to African Americans?"

-So, I got to fight this. -[Shad] Yeah.

I originally lost in federal court

when Nick Navarro banned the record.

So, we had to fight this, on appeals.

I'm out to put Luther Campbell and Skywalker Records out of business,

out of the business of trafficking in obscenity,

which is criminal activity.

[crowd] 2 Live Crew, too obscene!

[man 1] We don't want this garbage in our town.

[man 2] Our society is plagued...

-[lady] It's sick. -...by sexual immorality,?incest, rape,

and we wonder what's causing this.

Sex is to be enjoyed in a good Christian marriage.

[reporter] Do you think 2 Live Crew should go to jail?

Yes, I sure do.

[Uncle Luke] It came at a time where hip-hop was going pop,

And a lot of white families didn't like that.

We're asking the recording industry

to voluntarily assist parents who are concerned

by placing a warning label on music products

due to explicit sexual or violent lyrics.

A woman is not dog meat, you know.

If you listen to the lyrics, it's telling a woman she's nothing

[Jack Thompson] There are 600 sexual references.

There are descriptions and glorifications of the brutalization of women.

We don't talk about harassment

and sexually brutalizing women in my music! You're out of your mind.

You quote that from another album.

We don't do that in my music! I'm tired of you saying that, too!

[Uncle Luke] I remember my uncle telling me these stories about him

owning his painting company,

and when he got so big,

you know, the white people start coming at him to try to shut him down.

And this is them coming after me.

It's almost like Elvis.

You got this guy shaking his hips in the white households.

Where you got that from? You got that from the brothers?out the corner.

You dancing like the black guys.

And so it was the same thing, but mine was on steroids.

It was, "You're going to jail."

I tell you, this is about race.

You listen to those words,

and you listen to the last song about Opa-Locka, about Liberty City,

and when you see some of the videos that we've got,

this groups speaks from a special place,

and it may be that the Jack Thompsons and other people who complain about it

have no sense of that world.

You would have to know our culture in order to judge us,

and those people in there don't know our culture.

When are you going to give back to the state of Florida

the proceeds from your sale of this album to children?

[Uncle Luke] Hey, Jack, have a nice day, Jack!

You're losing, Jack!

[Uncle Luke] The fight eventually ended up becoming a fight for hip hop.

You'll hear violent sex acts, you'll hear women being abused, you'll hear

"suck my [bleep], lick my [bleep]."

All of these things--

[Uncle Luke] If we had lost that case,

because it was a federal case, everything in hip-hop

with explicit lyrics would have been deemed obscene,

and there would have been case law and precedent already set.

That would've been on the books,

-wouldn't have been able to came off. -[Shad] Wow.

So, you wouldn't have had no explicit lyrics in any hip-hop record.

[woman] State of Florida, Plaintiff, versus Luther Campbell, Defendant.

We, the jury, find as follows as to?the defendant, Luther Campbell,

the defendant is not guilty.

[crowd applauds]

[chanting] 2 Live Crew!?2 Live Crew! 2 Live Crew!

[Trick Daddy] When Luke won that freedom of speech lawsuit,

that solidified everything when it came to music.

[crowd cheering]

There's a lesson here, I think, for everybody.

When you live in this country, no matter what color you are,

you still have a right to speak.

♪-Suck my dick -Suck my dick ♪

♪-Lick my balls -Lick my balls ♪

♪-Kiss my ass -Kiss my ass ♪

[man] The entire music and record industry has been watching this trial,

and it's just great to know that

the First Amendment's alive and well in America.

[Disco Rick] Every rapper right now should thank him.

Motherfuckers wouldn't be able to say shit on those records

if it weren't for that goddamn person.

Luke fought for freedom.

♪I saw this bitch walking down the block Singing ♪

♪Doo wah diddy Diddy dum, diddy doo ♪

[Shad] Luke's victory for the right to free speech

was a historic win for all artists.

But it was going to take more than bass and ass

to earn respect in hip-hop.

As far as the rap community in New York was concerned,

the South was still country.

The third coast needed MCs that could compete

with Mellie Mel, Rakim, and Chuck D.

And they would find their champion.

A boxer with a take-no-prisoners mentality from the Fifth Ward in Houston.

♪When I left my neighborhood To make this big break ♪

♪I promised my road dogs That I'd dedicate ♪

♪A super jam to the hood That's sharp as a sickle ♪

♪So here it is, 5th Ward Better known as the nickel ♪

♪But when a sucka starts illing The chilling disrupts ♪

♪And like hemorrhoids We tear they ass up in the Ward! ♪

-[Shad] Willie, thanks for your time, man. -Hey, man, you got it. Any time.

[unintelligible whisper] [chuckles[ Nah, man.

Um, I want to start with asking you

about the area of Houston where you're from.

The Fifth Ward is where I grew up,

so that's on the north side of Houston,

and it's typical of any ghetto.

Bunch of crime, poverty,

insufficient living, insufficient income,

insufficient clothing, insufficient self-esteem.

All of that.

♪Everybody know my hood They say it's no good ♪

♪But they don't talk this shit In my neck of the woods ♪

♪We ain't got the homes Or the fancy rides ♪

♪So the only thing we have To fight for is our pride ♪

[Willie D] I was a product of my environment?and I felt like

in order to survive, I had to be tough.

When you're growing up in the hood, you can't show any signs of weakness,

even if you are afraid.

-♪You make a move and you're dead?♪-♪i> Crack is sold on the main ♪

[Willie D] So, I started boxing.

I just went on a knockout spree.

I fought everybody, like, anybody.

I was like, "I'm knocking everything out."

Around the same time, we were listening to Run-D.M.C.,

and a buddy of mine, he was like,

"Oh man, me and Willie can do that."

♪Watch your back, stash your crack Because you might get jacked ♪

[Willie D] So my thing was, "I'mma?either fight my way out the ghetto, literally,

or I'm going to rap my way out of here."

The way I came to the conclusion,

I said, "Girls love boxing and girls love rappers."

At the end of the night, I don't have headaches when I rap.

At the time, hip-hop was starting to catch on in Houston.

The nightclub that everybody went to was the Rhinestone Wrangler.

♪What's up with these motherfuckers Talking about what hood they from ♪

[Willie D]?People came there to party,

but on Sunday nights, people came there for the battle.

The battle wouldn't start until 2:00 a.m.

People would get fired from work, be late for work,

have issues at home with their spouses for coming in late,

because nobody would leave that club until they watched that battle.

The stage is here. DJ booth in the back,

and this place has people from wall to wall,

standing literally side by side.

It's packed with so many people

just to see the rap contest.

And the crazy thing was

the club wouldn't be crowded like that

until that time of morning.

Two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning,

folks would just start coming out.

I mean, just to hear names like Jazzie Red, Wickett Crickett,

Lester "Sir" Pace, Royal Flush, Rap-A-Tron.

[Shad] Of course, we hear about the rivalry between you and Willie D.

Oh, yeah.

[Willie D] He thrashed my ass the first dozen times that I went up against him,

you know, like, you know how Ali needed Frazier?

You know how Magic needed Bird?

I needed Romeo.

It was like, clash of the superheroes, you know.

I'll never forget, he did a round with me, and he said something like,

"You bad, and this is true, but your ass is blacker than barbecue."

And I mean, everybody just fell out on the floor, man.

-[mic drops, static whines] -[audience] Ooh!

We going for it, you know,

like, "Hey man, all is fair in love and war."

I find our your girlfriend pregnant by somebody else,

I'm talking about it.

I find out you working at Popeye's,

and you on this stage talkin' about how much money you got,

I'm talking about it.

So, needless to say, there was a few fights.

[K-Rino] These were all guys with dominant, aggressive mentalities,

so that's gonna automatically

translate over into the rap.

These battles were taking place in front of large crowds of people,

so there's a lot at stake,

because everybody wanted to be the best.

[Bun B] The mentality of being a Southern rapper,

even more specifically a Texas rapper,

was the fact of how people looked at Southerners in general.

as being a slower, less intelligent individual,

as opposed to an East Coast or a Northerner.

We were fighting against not just each other,

but also the outward image of who we were.

So, if we wanted to be heard, we had to scream loud.

You had to really make it known that you were trying to be out here

representing and doing this.

[Willie D] The big thing about the battle scene

is that that's all we had at the time.

We didn't have artists putting out records at the time.

All we had was the battles, that was the only...

way that we could really participate.

[Steve Fournier]?I made all these trips to New York, and all I heard was,

"Y'all ain't got nobody out there doing no music."

So yeah, you know, it got under my skin a little bit.

And I just said, "Man, somebody's got to do something."

And one night, I was in the parking lot at the Rhinestone Wrangler,

and Little J rolled up.

I'll never forget.

He was the only one at the time that rolled up in a convertible Mercedes.

He had the Kangol on, and the gold chain.

He rolled up and he goes,

"I got this record. Will you play it?"

And I said, "Where is it from?" He said, "It's mine."

Rap-A-Lot.

Houston.

First record. Car Freaks.

♪Girls, girls hounding homeboy All day nonstop ♪

♪Because he got a live car She's on his jock ♪

[Steve] This is the first Houston rap record

ever to be played in a Houston club,

and the reaction of the people was...

they were going crazy, because it was... theirs.

♪When a car freak Grabbed me from behind ♪

♪i> It was a close encounter Of the worst kind ♪

♪i> Jams and inner rhymes Make the girl feel fine ♪

♪I can hear the beat Just don't get left behind ♪

[Shad] Houston finally had something that was theirs.

The brains behind it all was a car salesman named Little J,

aka J Prince.

As a founder for Rap-A-Lot Records,

J wanted Houston's baddest MCs for the Ghetto Boys.

But it would take him three tries before he would set the final and legendary trio.

The Rhinestone's resident champ, Willie D,

a wild Rhinestone B-Boy named Bushwick Bill,

and Scarface, a young, Houston hard-head from the South Side.

Together, they would change hip-hop's perception of Southern MCs forever.

Yes, slate the motherfucker.

[PA] Scene 113, Take 1, Scarface.

Yeah, what he said.

[chuckles]

[Scarface] James Prince was the founder,

the mastermind, the brain, the business mind behind the Geto Boys.

He saw some shit at 22 years old

that we couldn't even fathom... even imagine.

[Scarface] Okay, this is a fucking kid, a couple of years out of high school

with a vision like this.

You see what I'm saying?

So, he was light years ahead of his time.

[phone ringing]

-♪i> The Grandmaster speaking?♪-♪i> Yo D, what's up? ♪

[Willie D] First step was going right into?the studio. We're now...

We're writing and recording about 18, 19 hours a day,

and we sleeping 4 or 5 hours.

Jay was like a general and we were soldiers.

"Okay, what's my assignment? Okay." You know?

Wake up. Give me my assignment.

Go execute. Like soldiers.

♪Gimme my card radio sucker ♪

♪I'll kick your ass And take the motherfucker ♪

♪Everybody knows New York Is where it began ♪

♪So let the ego shit end?♪

-They only gave us a week. One week. -One week?

♪When will you stupid motherfuckers learn One way or another you get burned ♪

I know how to do an album now.

I can do a whole album in two days...

because I've always had to do it in a week.

If you didn't get the song right it's off the album,

next motherfucker is up.

♪Paranoid, sitting in a deep sweat I've got to fuck before the week ends ♪

[Romeo Poet] hey all had different personalities.

And that's what really sold the Geto Boys, you know.

Willie D, I would say was more like country ghetto style rap.

♪Now I developed a criminal behavior Fuck me with me and I'll slay ya ass ♪

[Matt] Willie D came out just on his own vibe,

his own voice, the southern drawl, the southern slang.

On his first album, dude was in some overalls without a shirt on.

That was a look back then out in Fifth Ward.

You go to Fifth Ward, dudes are in overalls without a shirt,

riding a horse on a street, just like this.

Literally, he came out and represented

exactly where he's from, what he does,

and those days were raw.

♪Sit alone in my four-cornered room Staring at candles?♪

♪i> Dreaming of the people I've dismantled ♪

Face was more a lyricist, you know what I'm saying,

and more so like hustle-type lyrics.

♪I said before Scarface is my identity?♪

♪i> Homicidal maniac with Suicidal tendencies ♪

[man] Down here, motherfuckers were rapping about the streets.

This is a hardcore fucking town, bro.

I'm ain't talking 'bout how clean my fuckin' car is.

I'm talking about these motherfuckin' streets,

in a very polished, skillful manner.

Scarface was so fuckin' talented, that little bastard.

Everything he said you can visualize it and see it.

[Lil Troy] Like, "Damn, that's what's happening, that's what's going on."

♪The cops have the place surrounded Hunting for a way out, I found it ♪

[Lil Troy] You know, he's so vivid, so vivid with his perception of life,

and it touched you, right here.

Whether you lived it or not, you could feel it.

♪The sight of blood excites me Shoot you in the head ♪

♪Sit down and watch you bleed to death ♪

[Romeo Poet] And Bushwick was known as?the psychotic one.

♪This is what goes on in a mind Of a lunatic ♪

[Bushwick] That was reality horrorcore hip-hop.

My lyrics were talking about killing this, killing that,

fuck this, fuck that. I don't give a fuck about whatever.

That's all my lyrics were about.

♪I got the mind of a lunatic ♪

[Romeo Poet] People used to always say, the best rappers?were out of New York.

They'd say educated rhymes,

but we were the first hardcore people to be saying anything goes.

[Willie D] New Yorkers were very resistant toward us.

But it wasn't just because we were from the South.

It had a lot to do with our content.

We were like, "Fuck this, fuck that, motherfucker, bitch, ho, nigga...

fucking motherfucker, fuck that, fuck..." We didn't give a fuck.

[Willie D] We played this spot in New York, and

it was packed.

[crowd booing]

[Willie D] he crowd just started booing.

"Boo, get the fuck off stage.

Boo, motherfucker, boo!"

[crowd booing]

[Willie D] And, I swear before God,

I remember looking out into the audience and I saw...

dudes booing us so much, they started taking breaks and shit,

like they're booing us in shifts.

Motherfucker over here started booing,

and they start getting tired, and people over here started booing.

The whole time they're booing, I said,

"Yeah, motherfuckers, we'll be back."

And I slammed the mic on the stage, and walked off stage

Then one year later...

[hums]

You know, one year later.

We come back with Mind Playing Tricks,

and we sold out Madison Square Garden.

♪At night I can't sleep I toss and turn ♪

♪Candlesticks in the dark Visions of bodies being burned♪

♪Four walls just staring at a nigga ♪

♪I'm paranoid, sleeping with my finger On the trigger♪

♪My mother's always stressing I ain't living right ♪

♪But I ain't going out with a fight ♪

[Devin the Dude] It brought the whole house down.

There's no other song in Houston history, I don't think,

that has more spins than that.

The storytelling, every verse kept you interested,

and kept you wondering what's gonna happen,

and the music, man, just...

[hums]

♪I make big money, I drive big cars Everybody knows me ♪

?祁?i>It's like I'm a movie star But late at night, something ain't right ♪

♪i> I feel I'm being tailed By the same sucker's headlights ♪

♪Is it that fool Who I ran off the block or?♪

♪i> Is it that clown last week that I shot ♪

♪Is it the one I beat For $5,000 ♪

♪Thought he had 'caine But it was Gold Medal flour ♪

♪Reached under my seat Grabbed my popper for them suckers ♪

♪Ain't no use to me lying I was scareder than a mother ♪

[Bun B] Seeing a group from Houston

go on?Yo! MTV Raps, be on the cover of The Source,

and finally knocking down a lot of proverbial doors

that we felt were closed to us,

it just felt like the sky was the limit, you know.

Yo, I want to say what's up to my man, Cool Floyd, Q-Dog, Shine...

-Who am I missing? -Fifth Ward in the house. What's up Dre!

[K-Rino] They the ones who gave us a voice to the rest of the world.

If people said Houston before that,

it didn't mean nothing.

But if you say Houston even now...

Geto Boys, Scarface, Willie D, Bushwick Bill,

they represent that.

-♪South Park's in the house?♪-♪i> Fifth Ward's in the house ♪

♪Day by day it's more impossible to cope 'Cause I feel I'm the one doing dope ♪

[Shad] The Geto Boys' breakthrough was a major turning point for hip-hop.

Not only did they make the hip-hop gatekeepers believe in the South,

but more importantly, they made the South believe in the South.

And an hour and a half east of Houston,

in tiny Port Arthur, Texas,

two hip-hop fiends, Pimp C and Bun B, took notice.

Pimp C's gone today,

but Bun B granted me an audience to tell the story of how their duo,

UGK, would lay the foundation for the Southern sound of hip-hop.

[Bun B] Yo, sir.

-Thank you for coming, man. -[Shad] Thank you.

-[Bun B] Welcome to PA, baby. -[Shad] Thank you.

[Shad] How much was the success of the Geto Boys

influential or inspirational for you guys?

Hip-hop to me was something that I thought

you had to be from somewhere else

to do it right,

and then I also thought that it took some special kind of talent.

I figured the same thing that made a person a great quarterback

made someone a great rapper.

I thought it was something you're born with,

inherently, right?

And as I got to see guys from my immediate area doing it, I'm like,

"Well, okay, he's from here... We're all from the same area.

If they can figure out how to do it,

you know, I might be able to figure out how to do it.

[Bun B] I started rapping the summer before ?my sophomore year

in this bedroom, right behind this wall,

but my timing was terrible, you know,

my rap name was terrible.

-[Shad] What was your rap name? -My rap name was Shadow Storm.

I thought I was some kinda black superhero.

I don't know really what I was thinking.

-Everyone was doing the superhero. -It was very awkward.

And at the time, I remember there was a guy that was at school named Chad.

His mom was a librarian,

and his stepfather was the choir director at the school.

You would go over there. His mom would let you in,

and he'd be in there either playing some records,

trying to find a loop or something,

or with a keyboard or something, trying to construct a beat.

[Shad] So, that's when you first connected musically with Pimp C.

Right.

[DJ DMD] By the time I met Pimp C, I'm a senior,

he's a freshman in high school.

And I remember the very first memory

is him walking through a door of a corridor,

leading from the band room.

And a trumpet player, trumpet man,

curly hair, Jheri curl with a few--

It wasn't even a real Jheri curl.

It was an afro with a couple of curls.

And he looked up to me and he said, "Man, I know you.

I like what y'all doing.

Can I learn from you or whatever?"

And from the very first moment,

I knew he just had a heart for hip-hop.

I had two turntables,

and those would operate as my sample mechanisms.

And then we would daisy chain cassette decks to be our multi-tracker.

That's?what I knew.

C, he saw my rigged up concoction,

and before I knew it, he had a multi-tracker.

He had a keyboard,

and he would chop up samples.

[Bun B] A lot of us come from either a Creole or Cajun background,

and we're very religious, too.

so a lot of our influence is gospel music, is blues music,

and you know, it's not traditional R&B,

you know what I'm saying? But more like lounge,

what we call a dew drop type of a sound.

You know what I'm saying? That's kind of what a lot of us were raised on,

[Bun B] and Chad's deep knowledge

of the music that was played in his house,

all of that brought to the table,

ended up informing the music.

We're down here. We're in the South,

making the Southern hip-hop.

♪I got a girl and she treat me fine ♪

♪But my homies all think that I'm losing my mind ♪

♪I'm trippin' and I know it 'Cause I'm all nerved up ♪

♪'Cause every time I go to sleep I see this big ol' butt ♪

[Shad] Tell me about the reception to The Southern Way EP.

[DJ DMD] The impact was amazing.

When it dropped, everybody knew something had changed.

And it introduced to the world that R8 drum machine.

[R8 drum machine]

♪She gives me up ♪

[DJ DMD] Chad was?the one who introduced

the use of the R8, and the kicks, and the snares, and the highs

like they doing today.

♪i> I been to the mountain top And down to the valley low ♪

♪Went to Austin with 3, 2, 1 Still ain't find no finer... ♪

[DJ Bird] When the EP came out,

the whole community came out and supported us.

All I seen was hype.

Every show was getting packer and packer.

And people just started coming.

♪And everybody wonder why I smile all day ♪

[DJ Bird]?It was sold from record stores

and people played it in they cars a lot.

Guys had bass in they trunks,

and that's when it was hitting-- boom.

-Man, come on. -♪Just to spend it on sex ♪

♪But all that really matters Is I'm happy dude ♪

♪And I be happy long as I Get good soul food ♪

♪UGK sayin' peace out And plenty of luck ♪

♪And she could keep using Pimp C Just a use me up ♪

♪Baby, baby?♪

♪Baby, baby Yeah, just use me up ♪

♪Just use me up Baby ♪

♪Baby ♪

♪Just use me up Baby, baby ♪

♪Uh, just use me up ♪

[Bun B] Once it started to kind of get out in the city,

it just really took off.

We went from literally winning a radio station contest

to signing with Jive Records in like...

I don't know, a hundred days.

And the first thought of the record company was that

New York or LA really wasn't going to get it, but...

we always felt that if we could be able to tell our story,

in the way that we knew we could tell it,

musically, sonically, lyrically,

that everybody that heard it would be able

to embrace it in some form or fashion.

♪I got the front, back, And side to side ♪

♪I got the front, back, And side to side ♪

[Bun B] On Super Tight, we had been trying to

replicate big sound from Meters records.

So, we actually had someone help us track down Leo Nocentelli from The Meters.

[DJ DMD] We saw all kinds of people coming in. Musicians, legendary!

And we watched them piece records together.

♪Never let ho ass niggas ride ♪

♪I got a '64 Chevy in my yard ♪

♪A white drop top Pearl paint job is hard ♪

[Bun B] We had live guitar, live bass, live organ in the house.

It was a big deal...

and that was the kind of attention Pimp would want to bring to music.

♪Never let ho ass niggas ride ♪

♪Tearing up four motherfuckin' corners On your block bitch ♪

♪Nothin' but that bunny hop happenin' I had my daily routine ♪

♪My shit is plush interior crush And nigga, I'm too clean ♪

[Bun B] That heavy organ influence was the one key element

in UGK music that directly tied us into that gospel sound.

♪I got that front, back, And side to side, Daddy ♪

[Bun B] A lot of humming. He was very specific about

hand claps in certain songs. Bringing a communal vibe to the record,

and a lot of our credit breaking through

sonically had to do with that.

♪And side to side ♪

[Shad] Tell me about your dynamic with Pimp C in the studio.

-Here's Pimp. Here's me. -[Shad] Yeah.

It was always very simple.

He was my favorite rapper. I was his favorite rapper.

You know what I'm saying? Different reasons.

I always admired his candor.

He always admired my tenacity.

♪Never let ho ass niggas ride ♪

♪Front, back, side to side ♪

[Pimp C] We roll to all that music before we put it out there.

Hey, we just trying to bang their trunks loose.

Know what I'm saying? Keep it positive.

I want the hip-hop community, the world at large, to know that

we should never forget, um...

Um...

I'm sorry. I just caught a moment thinking about C, man.

[Shad] It's all good, man. Take your time.

That dude's supposed to be here.

The music was him.

There's no other way to put it.

He knew we would never have what other people had.

All we had was our music.

He gave his whole fucking life, everything,

so that we could look good.

That's what that shit was about.

That's why we went as far as we did,

why people love it as much as they do.

UGK the group was us,

but UGK the music was him.

♪Got front and back And side to side ♪

♪Got front and back ♪

[DJ DMD] We still loved and revered what Geto Boys and Rap-A-Lot,

and those production teams had done,

but Chad was doing something that was going to change everything.

And from that moment on,

slowed down, gospel flavor, soulful,

that became the sound of Southern rap.

♪Never let ho ass niggas ride ♪

♪I got a '64 Chevy in my yard ♪

♪A white drop top Pearl paint job is hard ♪

[Shad] As the spiritual home of black life in America,

it was inevitable that the South

would eventually put their stamp on hip-hop.

From the DIY entrepreneurialism of Luke and J Prince,

to the unabashed Southern voice and sound

of the Geto Boys and UGK,

the South was finally on the map,

and finally getting respect.

This was just the beginning,

because the South had something to say.