Rap on Trial: Crew, Obscenity, and South Florida Justice, 1990

In 1990 the rap group 2 Live Crew's album, "As Nasty As They Wanna Be," with its hit single, "Me So Horny," was declared obscene by a federal judge in South Florida. Broward County subsequently arrested 2 Live Crew for a live performance of the banned album at a Hollywood nightclub and also arrested a Fort Lauderdale record store owner for selling the forbidden CD. Acclaimed author and diarist Richard Grayson (The Brooklyn Diaries, With Hitler in New York, WRITE-IN: Diary of a Florida Congressional Candidate) here takes us back to the courtrooms of Broward County in that tumultuous fall of 1990. Grayson's diary entries from those two obscenity trials -- both with shocking verdicts -- make for an amazing historical record of a time when hiphop music was considered not fit for "civilized" people.