Luther Campbell

Vivian Host

This man probably needs no introduction to all of you but this is Luther Campbell, AKA Uncle Luke, AKA Coach Luke: the ringleader of 2 Live Crew, the man behind Luke Records, the owner of Pac Jam, entrepreneur, football coach and enthusiast, Miami-based rap pioneer and one of the biggest champions that the city of Miami has. Welcome.

Uncle Luke

Thank you, thank you. Sorry I’m a little late. My schedule has been hectic this week. I just lost my father a couple of days ago so I’m not even looking at calendars, people are just telling me where to go. I’m sorry.

Vivian Host

I’m so sorry to hear that. Thank you for joining us anyway.

Uncle Luke

You’re welcome.

Vivian Host

I think that definitely speaks to one thing that we’re going to be talking about today, which is your impressive work ethic and how you keep going no matter what’s going on in your personal life. But I want to start at the beginning. I just finished your book last night – this is your new book, Luther Campbell: The Book of Luke, which will be available after the show if any of you are interested. It’s terrific and in it you talk so much about Liberty City, which is a neighborhood of Miami where you’re from. Can you tell me and the rest of the world what it was like to grow up in Liberty City?

Uncle Luke

Liberty City was a great place to grow up but it became tough times, we saw things change. At one point it was just straight black and white and then there became more Latinos in Liberty City, as well as Miami. So we were just seeing the city just evolve from one thing to the next thing to people moving… Whether they were moving from Miami to Carol City, from Carol City to Davie to Broward, and this whole area right here developing into something this great when it used to be all warehouses and things.

Growing up, it was a beautiful thing. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, talking about how as kids we would be in the parks. We would be DJing at Manor Park – which is called Charles Hadley right now – and going from there to Allapattah Junior High, just DJing and playing the Egyptian Lovers of the world, Herbie Hancock and different tunes like that and then going to the park playing on a Sunday and going to the skating ring on a Saturday and playing and a lot of those different things we were able to do, as well as break artists.

Once I started making some money I said I need to put a teen disco here and we eventually put up the Pac Jam. A lot of people they call it the “Hey, hey.” You know, the Pac Jam junkies.

Vivian Host

We’re going to get to that in a minute in a big, big way. But first… Your parents are from Jamaica and the Bahamas, respectively. I remember you said that your mom would kick you out of the house at 9:30 in the morning and insist that you couldn’t come home until 4:30.

Uncle Luke

Oh yeah. If you know anything about island parents, you know they’re all about working. Like you said, my mom was Bahamian, dad was Jamaican. Our household was what you call a cross household – that means everybody is talking about politics and at the same time you had to work, work, work. The work ethic was serious. I was the baby of four brothers. All of my other brothers… We got Navy pilots to guys who are like the who’s who... I call them all astronaut brothers. Everybody went to college but me. I used to sit there and listen to all the horror stories about college so I was like, “I don’t want to go there. I’m going to go get me a job.”

Vivian Host

I was wondering if when you couldn’t come home until 4:30 if you were actually working or if you were doing other things.

Uncle Luke

That was after I finished high school. Because I decided I didn’t want to go to college, it was like, “If you’re going to be here then you’re going to have to leave at 8 o’clock in the morning and then you can come back here at 4:30. But you’re going to leave. You ain’t going to be sitting up in this house!”

Vivian Host

I feel like if that happened to me I would just be messing around and playing videogames and hanging out at Taco Bell or something.

Uncle Luke

No, you had to go get the paper and actually go look for a job and then after a couple of weeks you had to bring some money home to pay some bills. Other than that, you got kicked out.

Vivian Host

What was the worst job you ever had?

Uncle Luke

When I was a kid, in the summer, we used to go to Miami Beach because I played football and they would give us jobs. I actually used to ride the back of a dump truck and go pick up trash on the side of the road in Miami Beach as a kid. That was probably the worst job being on the back of that dump truck. I’m at this young age – not 18, not a grown man – getting the trash off the side of the road. But now I can go through different alleys that people don’t know about to avoid the traffic when I’m over there.

Vivian Host

Way to look on the bright side. But originally you wanted to be a football player, right?

Uncle Luke

Yes, yes, yes. My whole thing in ending up going to high school on the beach was… I was going to Orchard Villa Elementary in Liberty City. They used to have this test they called the presidential test for scholastics and all that. We used to take the test and the guys from Miami Beach would come and look at who could run fastest, who could jump the highest and then they would recruit us to go play football over at Flamingo Park. That’s how I ended up over there. They wanted me so bad that they would pull a bus in my backyard to make sure I got on that bus to end up going over there and playing football.

I ended up playing football until I got to the 11th grade. A coach, a guy who had played in the NFL and blew his knee out, came back to say, “None of you guys are going to make it to the NFL,” and then he said, “There’s only 1,100 people that’s in the NFL and 10,000 people coming out every year so the chances of you making it is slim to none,” and the light went on and I stopped playing football right then and started focusing on my education.

Vivian Host

Do you ever regret that?

Uncle Luke

No, I’m happy he did say that but the part that he left off – and the reason why I’m so involved with youth sports right now – was because he didn’t say that I could get an education by it; like I can still play football and this football will pay for me in college and I won’t have to be like my brothers that are calling every day for money. “Mom, send money.”

If he’d have told me that, then I would have stayed playing football and I’d have ended up hopefully getting a college degree and be able to do probably more bigger and better things.

That’s why I’m so involved in youth sports right now today. I tell these kids that are in the city that come from disadvantaged households…. They have a 2.0 and I encourage them to get 2.5 and study for the ACT and SAT test. That’s why I’m so involved in the school system and getting rid of FCATs and things like that because it don’t prepare them to take that test to qualify to get into school.

Vivian Host

But I’m sure you’re not telling them, “You’re never going to make it in the NFL.”

Uncle Luke

No. I’m telling them to take this opportunity because Miami is a hotbed for football. They’ll take the third string guy. At a D3 school you’ll be able to get an education and come back and be a productive citizen.

Vivian Host

So you’re off like, ‘OK. I’m going to get an education. Nevermind football.’ Then you get really into DJing. How did the DJ bug grab you?

Uncle Luke

The DJ bug grabbed me because –

Vivian Host

And when did it? Were you already out of high school?

Uncle Luke

Yeah. I was still in high school. I used to sit and listen to the radio a lot just like every other kid. But I had some Jamaican friends that lived across the street, some straight Rastas. They were real gangsters. I didn’t know they were gangsters until they were on TV and everybody was looking for them. [laughter] The Shower Possee and all of this. I was like, “Those are my friends over there.” They would give me an ounce of marijuana to make tapes for them. Back then it was 8-track tapes, so I became the guy to convert the records to 8-track tapes for them, and then I would get the weed and roll up dollar joints and sellt them in school. That’s when I knew I was an entrepreneur. [laughter] I was like, ‘OK. I’m all about making money.’ So I eventually fell into that. I loved spinning the music and then I started mixing the music. Then I started having dances in the front yard by playing these different reggae tunes.

Vivian Host

So you were making mixtapes for the Rastas. What kind of things were on these mixtapes?

Uncle Luke

You name it. From Bob Marley to [Lovindeer’s] “Don’t Bend Down.” You name it. It was all kind of reggae.

Vivian Host

Was this also around the time that you had a Pac-Man machine that you were charging kids to use?

Uncle Luke

You did read the book. [laughs]

Vivan Host

I read it.

Uncle Luke

I started off doing the DJing thing, making money with mixtapes and things like that. Once I started making that money, I eventually bought me a Pac-Man machine. I said, “Well, there’s no game rooms around here. I’m going to put the Pac-Man machine in the wash house.” The kids would come and listen to me DJ. I’d turn the speakers into the front yard. After the music started playing, I’d encourage them to go in the back and play the Pac-Man machine.

[laughter]

Vivian Host

Were you MCing at this point anywhere? I guess you were gaining the skills to sell things to people because you were like, “Hey, go play the Pac Man and, by the way, there’s a mixtape,” and, “Okay, have a dollar joint.”

Uncle Luke

Well, the joint business stopped then because I got caught. Dad, he’s a Rasta so he’d be like “Hold on, you can’t have this in here!” But eventually everything all led up to knowing that, okay, I wanted to be in some kind of business, I wanted to be some kind of entrepreneur and then I had this love of music. And then, because of my household, like I talk about in the book, my dad was playing Burt Bacharach and all kind of different music throughout the house. And on Friday nights around this time, my mom and her girlfriends would get together and play all the cuss versions of Millie Jackson and the night ended off with Redd Foxx and Leroy & Skillet. That’s where I pretty much got a lot of my influence, from all these different types of music.

(music: Skillet and Leroy – “Working Girl”)

Vivian Host

I read somewhere that your mom thought you might be a minister when you grew up.

Uncle Luke

Yeah, right.

Vivian Host

You said that in your first book. What’s that about?

Uncle Luke

Yeah, I was like, “Why did you name me Luther. Did you name me after Martin Luther King?” It was like, “No, your dad’s brother’s name is Luther. But you could always still be a minster,” I’m like, “Well, I don’t know about that one.”

Vivian Host

How good did you get at getting yourself out of trouble once you got in it? Were you good at talking yourself out of getting in trouble?

Uncle Luke

Yeah! I learned along the way. I would go to class and tell the teacher, “Oh, your hair looks nice today,” and I would bring goodies and stuff. “Would you care for any doughnuts? Hiiii!” Because I know you just go to class and you automatically get a C by being nice. I would go in and I would tell nice things to the teacher and sit in the front then all the tough guys in the back would be like “Hey, shut up.” And [the teacher would be like] “Oh, I like you.” So I kind of learned how to do reverse psychology.

Vivian Host

So you got out of trouble and you learned your way with women around the same time?

Uncle Luke

Yeah, when I was a kid I had long hair. When I kind of got introduced to women it was because I had this long hair, all the girls wanted to braid my hair. I ended up between their legs some kind of way... Back in the days you’d get your hair braided and you would sit like this in between the girls legs while they braided your hair. So I found that to be a very comfortable place that I liked to be.

But one thing I did learn was... I learned that girls are either gonna like you or they’re not going to like you. So there’s no reason to lie to girls. I pride myself on never, never telling a girl a lie, even my wife. You don’t have to lie – if they like you, they like you. My friends would be sitting there lying, “Oh, I love you. This is my girlfriend, you’re the only one,” I’ll be like, “No, we’re friends and I like a lot of girls.” It was all about being honest.

Vivian Host

We’re like ten minutes in and you’re already dropping so many knowledge darts.

Uncle Luke

It’s better to be honest. Just say you’re friends and get your hair braided.

Vivian Host

You talk in your book about going to high school on Miami Beach. I was wondering if being a teenager in Miami was already pretty wild?

Uncle Luke

Yeah, it was kind of wild. Like I said, you had a lot of things going on. When I was 18, everybody sold weed, everybody sold cocaine on every corner. Money was flying everywhere; everybody had money. Guys in the hood had Ferraris and Testarossas in the projects. It was crazy.

During those times, you could either get into something bad or you could be a seller, a drug dealer, or you could be dead. You had to make up your mind as to what you wanted to do in life during those times because it was easy to get in trouble. My mom would just always tell us, “It’s easy to get in trouble and hard to get out.” Here are these five boys in a two-bedroom home; she would preach that on a consistent basis. And then I used to look at some of my friends that was on drugs and things like that and I’d be like, “Look, you all lookin’ like zombies.”

I pride myself on never, never taking drugs. I smoked one joint in my life. I tried it and when I did smoke it, that was the day that some guys were coming to beat up me and my friends and they were moving in slow motion. I was like, “Never no more. Let me get out of this one right here.” And that was it. It was wild back then.

Vivian Host

What about the sex aspect of the high school parties? Were people more prudish back then or was that crazy too?

Uncle Luke

That was crazy.

Vivian Host

I think people think that you invented people acting freaky at a party but I was wondering if maybe you were just “reporting the news,” in a way.

Uncle Luke

I did get into a lot of different things. But my high school days... Really, to be honest with you, it’s sad to say: in my high school days, the prettiest girls did the teachers back then. That was sad. They would sit in the front and get all As and they would date the teachers. They didn’t want nothing to do with no high school guy. Back then, unlike right now, the guys used to pull up in cars, the dope guys, and they would come get the girls from high school and take them to lunch.

Now they don’t let kids out to go to lunch. You know, there would be lines of cars picking up the nice, pretty girls. We didn’t really have the opportunity to get the pretty girls because the girls who would finish school didn’t want nothing to do with a high school guy. They wanted a guy older than them.

Vivian Host

But then you became a DJ.

Uncle Luke

Yes, I became a DJ and then I used to play on African Square Park and I used to play at the dances and the parties. And then after the dances and the parties we found our way to this raggedy hotel on 79th street with the girls. You know, the groupie girls; afterwards they wanted to be with the DJs and that’s when the party started.

Vivian Host

So the groupies were happening even in the park jam days.

Uncle Luke

Yes, you’re a top-of-the-line DJ when you’re in Ghetto Style DJs. You’re in one of the top DJ groups and you had girls that would follow you, and the roadies. We had roadies but we didn’t know they were roadies until now! They were the guys who would pick up the speakers and they had girls. Everybody had girls! I got introduced to girls at a very early age. So when I got deep into the music business it didn’t faze me at all.

Vivian Host

You had already been doing that for a couple of years.

Uncle Luke

Yes, been there, did that.

Vivian Host

So when you were playing in Ghetto Style DJs what were the records that you had to play as Luke Skywalker?

Uncle Luke

Man, I kind of introduced people… If you could imagine 24 speakers, all bass bins. If you can imagine 2,000 or 3,000 people in the park and then another set of guys with 36 speakers set up across from you and everybody playing music at the same time and you then organize it and say, “Hey look, we’ll play and then you’ll play.”

We basically battled based on what we said out of our mouth, the slick comments that we would make on top – that was one part of it and then the other part of it was how deep your bass was. People would sit in the speakers and the fans would be the judges.

(music: Herman Kelly – “Dance to the Drummer’s Beat”)

I would play Herbie Hancock. I would play [Herman Kelly] “Dance to the Drummer’s Beat,” which was a song that you had to play and then you were playing that instrumental and you would have to have something to say on top of the beat.

I would play Run-DMC. I would play T La Rock “It’s Yours,” Original Concept, Mantronix; songs like that before Miami bass would come around. And then we’d be on this mad search for any song that had more bass in it and that’s how I introduced reggae to the people because I was looking for more bass.

The first reggae song I played at a party was [Lovindeer] “Don’t Bend Down” and then I slowed the pitch up to make it go slower to get more bass out of it and we won a whole bunch of jams off that, battles, and everybody then started playing reggae music at the time.

Vivian Host

Back at this time a lot of hip hop was pretty positive – there was a lot of storytelling, talking about what was going on in the ghetto or partying but it wasn’t that dirty quite yet, or not that many sexual lyrics at least. But were you saying like, “Get it, get it, drop it, drop it,” and dropping dirty lyrics even back in these times?

(music: Krush 2 – “Ghetto Jump”)

Uncle Luke

Oh yeah. My first song that I created was a song called “Everybody Ghetto Jump.” That kind of got us into the music business because in the dances I used to create all these different dances. One dance [was when] we played the “Wild Wild West” [theme] and we would say, “Everybody ghetto jump,” and the whole crowd jump, jump, jump, jump.

We would have the whole crowd just jumping up and down. These guys right here came to me and they said, “Hey look, can we do a song to that?” I was like, “Yeah, you can do a song to it, no problem. You just got to come do a free show.”

Vivian Host

Who were the guys?

Uncle Luke

That was Krush 2. Technically, that was the first rap song in Miami from those guys there and if you look at the label it says “Created by Luke.” At the end of the day I was like, “Okay, now you guys got to do a free show for me.” Back then I was on this [thing like] “I’ll break your song,” because I’m playing at a skating ring with 2,000 people on Sunday, I’m playing at the park Sunday at the daytime with 3,000 people and on Friday night I’m playing at the local high school with another 1,500 people. Your music was getting played to all these different people and I’ll break your song because I stand behind it.

Vivian Host

Were these same guys saying “ghetto jump” in the club or you were saying “ghetto jump” and you gave them the blessing to put this on a record?

Uncle Luke

I was saying it and they just took the same rhythm and everything and made the song. And then once they did that and they didn’t do the free show I was like, “Okay, well let me show you how bad I am. I’m going to make another song.”

At that time, that’s when I brought the 2 Live Crew down to do a show for me at the teen disco and then I said, “Look, I got this other song called ‘Throw the D’ and ‘Throw the P’ – the girls throw the P and the guys throw the D.” These dudes just screwed me right here; they didn’t do a show for me. I said, “I’ll show you all, I’m going to do another song. I’m going to create another song.” And eventually that’s how I linked up with the 2 Live Crew.

Vivian Host

What was your relationship like around this time – around 1985, ’86 – to other people in this Miami bass scene that was forming, people like Pretty Tony or Amos Larkins? Were you battling them or were you guys cool? Were they coming to Pac Jam or was it an adversarial relationship?

Uncle Luke

It really wasn’t too much of a relationship but I originally took 2 Live Crew to Pretty Tony and said, “Hey look, I’m not in the music business I’m into doing concerts.” I wanted my own thing. I wanted to be either a DJ on the radio or I wanted to be like Al Hayman and do concerts. That was my whole thing.

I was making money doing concerts. I didn’t want to be in no music business but then all those guys told me no. I took [2 Live Crew] to Pretty Tony, who I thought was a good friend of mine – which, he is a good friend. He had a record company; he was doing all this Trinere stuff, Freestyle, and all those different things. I said, “Hey man, I got a song.”

He came from the same background and used to have a DJ group called Party Down DJs and I’m just thinking it was a no-brainer. He was like, “Nah, we ain’t doin’ no rap,” I’m like, “Huh? I thought you was my friend.” Eventually I was like, “Okay, enough of that. I’ll just put the song out myself. I’ll figure out a way to do it,” and that’s how I ended up getting in the music business.

Vivian Host

Was that an attitude popular in Miami at that time? That people didn’t want to put out rap records?

Uncle Luke

Yes, it was pretty much the attitude. Everybody was doing dance. This was a dance town. Those guys did that song and that was pretty much probably one of the only rap songs that I know of, and Amos was doing a lot of dance as well. It wasn’t nobody that you could go and take the record to; I mean, even with me being a popular DJ that would automatically break a song which would be a no-brainer for people.

Vivian Host

When you were promoting concerts you were bringing people like Run-DMC and MC Hammer and a lot of rappers from New York, early rap groups, to town. Do you have any funny stories about bringing artists to Miami?

Uncle Luke

Oh yeah, it was funny. Back then it was crazy because a lot of guys from New York at the time, they wasn’t travelling nowhere. Miami was something that they only saw on a postcard. I didn’t know it at the time. I’m just bringing these guys down because I’m breaking their records.

I remember one time I brought down Divine Sound… Back then they used to have this airline called People’s Express. Anybody know about People’s Express? See, now you gonna tell your age.

A lot of young people don’t remember People’s Express. It was this airline that you didn’t buy a ticket, you paid when you got on the plane. You are 30,000 feet in the air and then you whip out your money and the stewardess comes around: “Okay, give me the money.” There was People’s Express; on Eastern, you had to have a ticket. I was like, “I don’t trust whether these guys are going to come here or not. I’m going to book these guys on People’s Express.”

Every time they would get on there and they would tell the stewardess, “We don’t have any money.” They were like, “The guy is going to pay for it when we get to Miami.” Every trip, I would walk up – me and the police! – because the police was like, “Yo. You’re all going to jail,” and I would be there to pay the stewardess the money every time, from T La Rock to Jazzy Jay.

Another story! I had this little Honda. I would pick the guys up from the airport and my car broke down and we needed to jump the car. I had all these speakers in the back so the battery died and I was like, “Hey, Jazzy Jay, connect the jumper cables over here.” He said “Jumper cable? Motor? Battery?” The guy did not know what a battery was. I was like, “Y’all people in New York are weird.” That was funny. He never knew a battery was in a car.

Vivian Host

Did you go to New York at that time or were you just staying in Miami?

Uncle Luke

When I was DJing, I never went to New York. The farthest I got was when I was really, really getting out of hand as a kid, my mom sent me to stay with my Navy pilot brother in Washington DC. I ended up staying there for a year and that just totally changed my life. I saw people doing things. I saw African-Americans doing things; with briefcases, going to work. Because I wasn’t seeing that down in Miami, that set off an alarm in my head that you can do some positive things other than being a DJ or a straight garbage man, a janitor. You could be something.

After staying there for a year, winter came, some blizzard, and I was like, “No mom, you don’t have to worry about me getting in trouble. I’ll be back and I’m going to be on the right track.”

Vivian Host

You became such a Miami champion and you were able to make so much money just in Miami alone, but I was wondering if in the early days the dream was ever to make it big in New York.

Uncle Luke

No, the dream was making it big in Miami for the South and everything. That’s why I did this book because it’s so important and I just want people to know the story and the history of it. Once I started doing things, I looked at… Most people in my community, in the African-American community, they get educated and then they leave. They go to Atlanta; they go work in Atlanta, Detroit, or somewhere else, New York. I always said if I ever get to send all my lunch money somewhere, if I ever become successful, I’m going to stay here and hopefully inspire other people because it was so easy.

I was offered jobs to run major record labels in New York. I started getting into the movies and they wanted me to move to California. They said, “Okay, you need to be serious about the movie business. You can keep your record company here, but then there’s going to be times where you’re going to be on the set for four months.” I had to make that sacrifice. I had to make that decision. I’ll just do some movies and I’m going home.

I wanted to be here to hopefully inspire other kids to be involved in music industry in the same way I was.

Vivian Host

On the note of anticipating people’s needs, let’s talk about the Pac Jam Teen Disco that you started.

Uncle Luke

Pac Jam grew. It grew with me. Pac Jam started out in a skating ring. We were going to a skating ring that was doing badly on a Sunday night and we’d [rent it out] and call it the Pac Jam. We started making more money and then the whole goal was to get our own teen disco and not go rent other people’s buildings. So we purchased the Pac Jam on 54th Street and 12th Avenue.

Vivian Host

How much did it cost you?

Uncle Luke

We were actually paying rent, not purchased. I’m sorry. We were leasing the building. The rent probably was about $500 a month. This was 1986. When you look at the first album cover you see us in the back with my University of Miami underwear on my hand and my UM drawers on and my Hurricanes jacket – that was actually in the back of the original Pac Jam teen disco. It was a teen disco on the weekend and it was the warehouse throughout the week that we would store the records in.

Vivian Host

So you guys had to take all the records that were stored there during the week and move them into the back to make the club? How long did that take?

Uncle Luke

It would take quite a bit of time. We would stack them on and off and then when the teen disco was over on the weekend … Again, that’s where we had one of the first underground radio stations because now I’m in the music business; I’m selling records. I ended up going to England and I learned about all these pirate radio stations that was all shows and between pirate radio stations and acid parties I was like, “That’s a great idea.”

Vivian Host

What was it like the first time you played in England?

Uncle Luke

That was crazy. That was the craziest gig ever. You’re sitting up there and… I don’t know how many of you have been to an acid party or even know how it works. It’s like, “We’re all going to wait right here at the phone booth and the guy is going to call and say this is where the party is.”

We would all have to sit there and wait at the hotel and it’s like, “Ready, set, go.” Everybody that was involved in the party was all lined up in cars at different phone booths and they’ll get a phone call: “Party is over here on Second Avenue at this place right here.” Then everybody would rush to that place and you only had a certain amount of time to actually do the concert before the cops could come because it was illegal.

Vivian Host

So you didn’t play at a hip hop show in the UK, you played at a rave.

Uncle Luke

That’s what you all call it now? Just like you all changed twerking on drop it like it’s hot.

Vivian Host

What was the reaction of that crowd to your music?

Uncle Luke

They loved it. Performing in England was almost like performing at the Pac Jam – it’s the hardest place in the world. It’s like the Apollo. Those people are really serious about their music over there and if you don’t perform for real you would get ran out of town. That was crazy. I was like, “No more acid parties for me. I don’t want to end up going to jail over there. I don’t know what the prisons look like.”

Vivian Host

Back to the pirate radio guy that you found…

Uncle Luke

Steven J. Grey. He is the guy on Channel 7 right now who does the traffic report in the morning. He was the guy that actually built my pirate radio station. You all hear him in the morning, “Hey, this is Steven J. Grey reporting live.” That guy, he knows!

(music: Anquette – “Miami”)

Vivian Host

If you look on the B-side of Anquette’s “Miami” you can see J. Grey’s got a song called “Miami.” I thought it was nice you gave this man a shout-out.

Uncle Luke

Yes, that was the point. It’s all about giving people credit where credit is due.

Vivian Host

So, Steven Grey made a pirate radio station on the roof of Pac Jam?

Uncle Luke

Yes. It was inside during the week. We had to use this building to get our $500 out of it a month. During the week you would have, just like I said, the records on the dancefloor and then you had the booth that was used for the DJ booth on the weekends and throughout the week we would have the pirate radio station in [there] and we would have the transmitter on top of the building.

We maximized out of that. We knew having the transmitter there that the FCC ain’t coming in the hood. It was like, “We ain’t going in the hood to go track down some people,” because they knew they weren’t going to be able to come out of there alive. We lasted quite a long time doing that.

Vivian Host

It strikes me that some of the things that you were able to do in terms of pressing records and distribution and having a pirate radio and having this crazy teen disco were simply because either the law enforcement didn’t want to deal with it or there were budget cuts or the records were cheaper to press in Miami, it’s very do it yourself because nobody was really regulating it.

You might not have been able to do all of those things if you were living in New York or somewhere else where it was more systematic.

Uncle Luke

Like I said growing up as a kid I had no knowledge of the music business itself but there were record companies here. There was TK Productions, there was Bo Crane’s company Pandisc; you had a lot of different companies but you would be able to go to the pressing plants and they understood about distribution. I didn’t know anything about it. I went to this guy to get all my information then Fred Hill, God rest his soul.

Fred was the first record guy I ever met in my life and the first gay guy I ever met in my life. Fred would tell you he’s gay. Back then being gay was something different. Everybody loved Fred and Fred was a knowledgeable guy. He would sit there and break it down, him and his partner Jerry, and then you would get more education. When you go to Jerry Parson that’s like going into the Godfather movie.

I learnt the business through all these guys about distribution and then being an intern at [the radio station] 99 Jamz I learned how records got played. I would talk to all these record promoters that would come in; they would tell me how these records are getting played around the country. Jerry’s job was his record pool. He told me that, “There are other record pools around the country similar to what I do right here. You just got to tap into the same people.”

Vivian Host

It seems like Jerry Rushin, who was the program director at 99 Jamz, was an important person in breaking the Miami bass sound. Was that somebody that you were friendly with?

Uncle Luke

Yes, I was really friendly with him. I would be hanging around the radio station because I was just like a little intern. That’s why I always encourage all my artists – whether it is Pitbull to Trick Daddy or whoever – to be nice to the intern because the intern eventually is going to end up being the program director. It always happens! Call the music director and he will remember you three or four years down the line.

Jerry was a good friend of mine. He taught me a lot. He would make phone calls around the country to other radio stations and say, “Look, support this.” But early on they couldn’t play my records until I started making R&B music with groups like H-Town and stuff.

Vivian Host

Going back to something you said earlier about how Pac Jam was a tough crowd, can you talk a little bit about the acts on stage and how the audience would haze them?

Uncle Luke

It was brutal. If you didn’t get booed, you did great. If you didn’t like you, they would stand there and look at you like, “Okay.” Ain’t no “Throw your hands in the air, Wave them like you just don’t care.” None of that. [It would be like] “Can you get to the hit song? We want to hear the other stuff. Get to the song that we like because we got other music that we want to listen to.”

That crowd was a tough crowd. Biggie Smalls, I remember booking him in there, and he was like, “Yo. I’m not going in there without you. They just did in Lil Cease and them about two weeks ago you had them in there. They abused the Geto Boys; they were like, “Boo, get out of here.” Jesus Christ. That was the place where I would go – we had the studio right next to Pac Jam – and take a record, put it in there, and see if it worked. And then it’s the same place I discovered Trick Daddy.

I had this rapping battle in the Pac Jam and I was like, “Whoever is the best rapper I’m going to sign him up to a record deal.” We had a three-week battle. [Trick Daddy] eventually beat the guy out and they loved him and I was like, “Shit, they love you. You’re going to be good,” and I eventually put him in one of my songs. I put him on a song I was doing at the time, but I was filing for Chapter 11 [bankruptcy] so I couldn’t really sign him up. But it became a hit song and he became a great artist.

Vivian Host

We should explain that the club Pac Jam was running for ten years. There was a teen disco that started in ’86 and then eventually I guess in 1990 it moved to a different place and became more of an adult club and people like Trina and JT Money and Trick Daddy and all of them would go.

Uncle Luke

We moved it to a bigger building on 84 Northeast 2nd Avenue. As the business grew, the Pac Jam grew with us. It was all about having the offices in the same thing. We started a little place and then we grew into a bigger place and we would have bigger parties. Until right now today all those people who grew up in the Pac Jam have these big Pac Jam reunion parties once a month.

One of the DJs, Chico, he was a part of the group and he would do these parties once a month and they would do them at the Doubletree Hotel and thousands and thousands of people would show up. He would do anywhere from around 3,000 people on a given month, just all those people who grew up in that era. It would be there and it would be just like it was in Pac Jam.

Vivian Host

In the early days of Luke Records and 2 Live Crew, it seems like the club was a place to test records for you in a way.

Uncle Luke

No doubt about it, we would test music there. I would test artists if you can perform. I’m big on hazing my artists. Ask Pitbull, he’ll give you some stories about me, some wild ones.

Vivian Host

You can give me some stories!

Uncle Luke

Growing up in that element we would test the songs, we would actually go make them and put them in there. If people didn’t dance to them after you get to the second verse, [then they go] in the garbage.

For instance, before I put the lyrics on the song, the song was [tested] in the teen disco for at least six to eight months, maybe longer, before I actually put my vocals on top of the song. It was just the straight beat because, just like “Dance to the Drummer’s Beat,” people wanted the beat. They were more interested in the beat and that taught me the music business it was about the beat first and then it’s the hook and then it’s the lyrics.

If you got a good beat then people will like it. If you got a good hook then people will dance and sing the hook and then the lyrics will make it a long-standing hit record. That was my whole philosophy in doing music. If the beat wasn’t right, if Mr. Mixx didn’t make a hot track, I would be like, “I’m not going to sit up and fight this track. I’m going to test the beat first and then I put the lyrics on there. If people dance to the beat then we’re good.

Vivian Host

I have to ask, when was the first time that “Doo doo brown” was said? Where did you get that lyric from?

(music: Freedom – “Get Up and Dance”)

Uncle Luke

Probably when I was DJing the Freedom song “Get Up and Dance.” That was one of the big songs in the parties. Like I said we played the instrumentals and I would just go off or whatever. I would lock onto one girl dancing and things would come out of my mouth and I ended up doing my music the same way when we were creating this whole party.

I never wrote no records down. I was like, “Bring the girls in, bring the party, bring the Bacardi.” To this day, I still drink Bacardi. Bring the Bacardi and nice girls to the party and before you know it turn the track on and give me the microphone and the girls start dancing. They would actually write the songs for me. I didn’t give them credit. I don’t know why. I should have just gave all the girls credit.

Vivian Host

2 Live Crew songs are like The Simpsons I think, where they operate on different levels. If you’re an adult you understand some of the jokes on an adult level, but if you’re a kid you still think it’s funny.

Uncle Luke

It’s like when I say, “Free willy, free willy.” Free willy means two different things.

Vivian Host

That was a fabulous movie! What are you talking about?

Uncle Luke

I know, right? You got to get creative when you get in trouble for everything you say.

Vivian Host

Let’s go back a second to you linking up with the 2 Live Crew. They are originally from Riverside, California, which is a somewhat boring place.

Uncle Luke

Yes, it is.

Vivian Host

You found them and brought them out to Miami and showed them something different than Riverside, I’m sure. Right before they were with you they were making songs like “Revelation,” which was a serious song about the state of the world.

Uncle Luke

And then I corrupted them.

Vivian Host

I was wondering what was the conversation went like with the 2 Live Crew guys. Like, “Hey guys, this ‘Revelation’ song is cool but I have this other song idea called ‘We Want Some Pussy.’”

Uncle Luke

No, actually the first song was “Throw the Dick.” I was mad because, like I said, it was when the guys did the “Ghetto Jump” that was the conversation because in the group it was this guy Yuri Vielot and then it was Fresh Kid Ice and then it was Mr. Mixx. Mr. Mixx was the producer, always producing.

They had two different things they were already doing. You had Yuri, who was like the first Common. 2 Live Crew was more conscious than anybody would ever think with that song they had on there, “Revelation.” On the other side, Chris [Fresh Kid Ice] had the little “Beat Box” going and that was more of a dance song and that was the one that we really played at the Pac Jam because that fit what we were doing at that particular time. Just like I said when I brought them down it came at the right time and I said, “Hey look, do this song here: ‘Throw the Dick,” and Yuri was like, “No, I’m not into that. I’m into astrology and the world and it’s all peaceful. I’m not doing that.”

Chris was like, “Okay, well, I’ll do it.” And then eventually I gave him the idea, the concept, said “Here’s the dance, look at it,” and then that’s how he came up with the lyrics for the actual song and Mixx came up with the music. We was like, “Hey man, we got some famous comedians around here.” He was into comedy like I was – Dolomite, Leroy & Skillet, all that stuff Bo Crane was putting out. He’s was the one who corrupted me; that guy over there, the white guy. He was the one putting out Blowfly and all that.

Mixx was deep into that. I was like, “Yo, we got to make it different. We don’t want to make it the same way like every other hip hop. We got to be different. We got be Miami.” He would add uptempo to it and at the same time he put the comedy in there.

Vivian Host

So you would sample those records.

Uncle Luke

Yes, he sampled those records. Mixx was really, really creative. All I would do is give him an idea. I was like, “We’re going to make the song ‘Throw the D’ Okay, cool, let’s go,” and then they would tell me the lyrics and I would be like, “Okay, that’s the dance,” describing the dance, and he would have the beat and when I heard that Aunt Esther [from Sanford & Son] screaming in there. I was like, “Boy, we gonna get in trouble?” And he said, “No, don’t worry about it.” That’s Aunt Esther. It became a hit song. Mixx told me no, we were not going to get into trouble for sampling. I didn’t know anything about sampling.

(music: 2 Live Crew – “We Want Some Pussy”)

Vivian Host

Let’s hear a little bit of “We Want Some Pussy.” I can remember that in grade school the two tapes that you had to hide from your parents were Guns N Roses and 2 Live Crew. Guns N Roses you couldn’t let your parents see the lyric sheet because that was very vulgar and crazy but with 2 Live Crew and the naked girls on the cover you couldn’t even let them see the front of the tape.

Uncle Luke

That was a marketing idea that I came up with. I used to actually release my songs, the albums, at the same time there would be a big release. If Michael Jackson was getting ready to release an album, everybody would be lined up in the store; so the week before that I would release an album and I would have a girl in a thong, or a bunch of girls in thongs. While you go in and look for this Michael Jackson song and you browsing and you’re like, “Oh shit, this girl is wearing a thong,” and then get the record and turn it over to the back and [the track titles are] “Throw the Dick?” “S&M”? “We Want Some Pussy?” What the hell?!

It was a little marketing thing but it was where we were from. I felt like it would have been real corny if I’d have been acting like… I looked at Ice-T, I love him to death, but Ice-T is from California and he always acted like he was from New York, talkin’, hanging out with Bambaataa and all these guys. I was like, “I don’t ever want to be like Ice T.”

We’re from Miami, everybody in Miami goes to the beach, the women wear thongs and the women wear bikinis and we party with jet skis and all these different things. We don’t have no stickers on the wall, we don’t do no breakdancing. We booty shake. This is Little Havana, we got uptempo music.

Everything about what I wanted to do was about being true to Miami and not trying to be like somebody else.

Vivian Host

Did you ever go on tour with any heavy metal guys or rock guys? Their tour bus probably looked a lot like your tour bus.

Uncle Luke

Yeah, Motley Crüe, those guys were good friends of mine. Weird as it may be, Sinead O’Connor was one of my good friends. Yeah, the little baldhead lady. She’s a real rebel; boy, I’m telling you. Me and her would have some real deep conversations.

Vivian Host

How did you guys get to be friends?

Uncle Luke

At the MTV Music Awards, I met her and she knew everything that I was doing, what I was doing, how I was doing it, why I was doing it. We’d have these deep conversations about politics – she was deep into politics and me and her became cool. From that point on, we was like real good buddies; we would talk all the time.

Vivian Host

Was this after Banned in the USA and all the lawsuits?

Uncle Luke

Yes.

Vivian Host

You put out this first album and then subsequent albums things start to get crazier and crazier. Just like how you started off with regular dancers that you would audition and then eventually the dancers just became crazy girls from strip clubs.

Uncle Luke

Yes, it started off with boy dancers, girl dancers, regular Miami Heat-type dancers and then as people kept saying that we were this and we were that, I just realized that I can’t beat the big machine if the big machine is against us.

If we’re going to be the guys who wear the black hat, then we’ll wear the black hat and then we’ll wear it good. If we’re going to be the bad guy, we’ll be the bad guy. We just started really pushing the envelope a little harder then. We got rid of the kiddie-type dancers in the end and eventually started using full-figured women and those being dancers.

Back then there wasn’t no strip clubs. When I would do the videos I would actually shoot the videos a certain kind of way. We started using these really, really attractive women, full-figured women and that’s where the big butts came from and the dropping it like it’s hot and all that. Then they start opening up clubs like the Rolex and those girls who did my videos ended up in the clubs and now those same girls we would use on tour.

Vivian Host

What do you mean there were no strip clubs?

Uncle Luke

There wasn’t no black strip clubs. The first time I got introduced [to strip clubs] was when I was DJing at the Pac Jam, the guys who were my security – these guys named Rocco and Damian – their mother owned a strip club on Biscayne Boulevard right across from Houston’s Restaurant. There was little one and their mother owned it.

You know, these big, big white guys would do the security for the club at night. Tootsie’s was right on the corner of 199th and 441 – the original Tootsie’s, not the one that you see now – and they were like, “Yo. We’re going to take you to the strip club,” and so now, as I’m getting into the music thing, I was like, “No, black people don’t go to strip clubs. Those are for guys with motorcycles and helmets like you see in the movies. They’ll beat you up.”

They eventually took me there and that just totally blew my mind and it just all came together at the same time. Then this guy Carl changed the club Climax into club Rolex and before you know it strip clubs in the black community became big off the music.

Vivian Host

What year was this that you went to your first strip club?

Uncle Luke

My first strip club? It had to be around ’82 or something like that, maybe ’79. It was amazing. It was a real eye-opener.

Vivian Host

I bet it was.

Uncle Luke

Yes. They said, “You’ll go in. You’ll come out a gynecologist.” I had to go look up what a gynecologist was.

Vivian Host

Then you realized not only were you a magician and a musician, you were also a gynecologist. You were somewhere between 19 and 22.

Uncle Luke

Yes, a young guy getting his eyes opened up wide to this thing called Miami scene.

Vivian Host

By 1990, things were so crazy for you. People were starting to attack you for obscenity. I looked at how much you did between 1989 and 1990 and I was wondering, how did you not lose your mind? You were fighting legal battles, you were running a club, you were running a record label, you had other businesses as well.

Uncle Luke

It was a crazy time but, like I talk about it in my book, the influential people who prepared me to deal with all these different issues that I was going to have to deal with from the political standpoint were my dad and my uncle Ricky. They talked to me.

My uncle Ricky wouldn’t allow me to look at cartoons when I went to his house on the weekend. He would teach me about politics, to read the newspaper, look at the news, how to understand the news. He turned me on to H. Rap Brown and Malcolm X and Martin Luther King; he told me the difference between different people and the struggle that he had to go through as a Bahamian man and coming up in Miami and being a painter, one of the first African-American contractors here in Miami, and the things that he had to go through to be successful in his business.

I learned all those things along the way so when I got attacked it was like a full circle. I had already been told about some of these things that had happened to other people before me so I was basically really, really prepared.

It was stressful. I wouldn’t say it wasn’t stressful because there were play times that I would be by myself and say, “Why am I going through this? Why am I fighting for hip hop? Hip hop don’t care nothing about me.”

It wasn’t a case of going to jail. When we lost the original obscenity trial – when a federal judge said this song is deemed to be obscene – I wasn’t going to jail. I put myself in a predicament where I ended up going to jail by going to sing a song that the federal judge had just said was obscene because I believed in free speech and then I believed that it would be other guys before me.

If Ali is on the record, it would be case law and most people understand case law; if it’s still on the books, then they could take off a Lil Wayne record, a Drake record, NWA record – they could take any record off the shelf because the precedent would have already been set.

I could see lawyers and state attorneys and people using this to take whatever hip hop song they wanted to take off the shelf. I went back and got that overturned in appeal and I thought that was very, very important, more important than the case that we won in the Supreme Court.

Vivian Host

Probably everybody in this room knows, but if somebody outside is not familiar, you were in a legal battle with the Mayor of Miami and the Sherriff of Broward County who were calling your music obscene and pulling it from stores. Your music was ruled obscene. Another person might have just stayed home and fought that legal battle and instead you went on the road playing your shows and saying, “Fuck the police” and “I’m going to do this really dirty show” all around the country in various cities.

Was there a moment while this was going on before you went on the road where you were like, “Maybe I should just chill”?

Uncle Luke

No, not during that time. I went from businessman and then I ended up becoming this rebel. I just was like, “Okay, you can take me to jail.” I remember going to Cincinnati and the police chief came to the airport… No, he came the store where we were doing an in-store and said, “If you sing these songs in Cincinnati, I’ll take you to jail.” I was like “You need to get your jailhouse ready because I’m going.”

I would go to different cities and the same thing. I would not have a problem with going to jail again and again. We would go back to the studio and we would make a song harder than the song before that and it just became us against the government.

Vivian Host

We should talk about the Campbell vs. Acuff-Rose case. Probably, people confuse the two things together, but that was actually a separate legal case where you were sued by the music publishers of Roy Orbison because you did a parody version of “Pretty Woman.”

(music: 2 Live Crew – “Pretty Woman”)

Uncle Luke

It was “Pretty Woman.” We did that song and again just poking fun. How we ended up getting sued... Because again, I had already gotten sued by George Lucas, who originally gave me a license to use the name Luke Skyywalker. There were all these different... Tipper Gore and her group – they looked at everything that we did, anything that we did, anything that we sampled, anything that was affiliated with me that they could go and put pressure on somebody to come after us.

Roy Orbison and that whole group and family, they just went and said, “Look, you got to sue them. How could you allow them to use this song?” Blah, blah, blah, and all that and they would put pressure on them; they would force them to sue us.

The same thing with George Lucas, put pressure, they’ll sue, they’ll call different municipalities, governors. Dan Quayle and everybody had something to say about 2 Live Crew and eventually we went, they sued us and they said it wasn’t a parody and I’m like, “Why are we getting sued? This is a parody.” My lawyer Bruce Rogow at the time explained it.

At that period of time you had everybody doing parodies. You had Weird Al Yankovic doing Michael Jackson, you had this guy doing Bobby Jimmy doing different parodies, you had everybody doing parodies, Saturday Night Live, every Saturday Night Live to this day they did parodies. We didn’t understand that.

It goes back to what my old man always said: you either fight for something or fall for anything. It was about fighting, I didn’t care how much money I had to spend in fighting the fight. Again, that was another situation that I didn’t have to fight that. That wasn’t a case that I was going to jail. All I had to do was say, “Okay, you’re right, Roy Orbison. I’m going to pay you $10,000 and walk away from it.” I’ll pay you a license fee, I’ll just discontinue the record and I won’t deal with this and I’ll save millions and millions of dollars.

But then it wasn’t about that for me. It was about fighting for free speech.

Vivian Host

You must have been tired. Were you tired or were you energized by all of these?

Uncle Luke

I was enjoying myself. I was really, really enjoying myself. I was enjoying every day getting up, strategizing, seeing how I could beat them who were trying to beat me. I just knew that they were up to no good and I was doing right. It wasn’t a problem fighting for that cause.

Vivian Host

Amen. And now Chris Rock won the right to parody you.

Uncle Luke

Exactly, every time I see him I say, “Yeah, you did me and I gave you a career.”

Vivian Host

We don’t have that much time left but I did want to ask you while this was going on you decided to strike out on your own without the rest of 2 Live Crew and become Uncle Luke, your next incarnation.

Uncle Luke

Yeah, that’s when I did the album Banned in the USA. That was my first solo album. The guys still performed on the album. It wasn’t like your traditional breakup, I was still a part of the group. I just wanted to do my own album with my own lyrics, my own party music, because it was so many years of defending what they were saying and defending free speech.

What people don’t realize is those guys wrote their own lyrics. I came up with concepts but they were responsible for their own lyrics. I had to defend their lyrics and I was always out front defending their lyrics. I wanted to do my own thing and my stuff, if you listen to it, is more party-oriented. It’s not as wild, it’s just to get party going, and that’s what I wanted to do.

“Banned in the USA” was the first song that I did and I talk about it in my book when I had the conversation with quite a few people and getting the song to be able to get done.

I did the MTV Music Awards. That was a very, very emotional show because at that time we had won all the cases and beat everybody in all the trials. When I did the show I had glasses on, but I was crying the whole entire show and people were feeling it and guys were coming on stage – MC Hammer and guys who I helped – and they all felt the moment. At that period of time, that’s when really, really traditional hip hop artists embraced us.

We fought this long fight, we got to sing this song to a national audience and now these hip hop artists from Chuck D and Flavor Flav to Hammer and all these guys, Run-DMC, they’re all coming on stage and giving us hugs as the performance went on. That was an emotional album and emotional time.

Vivian Host

I think it’s interesting that you still take on the hip hop artists of today in our Miami New Times column and on your Twitter. You’re still fighting. You do all these amazing things for the community, you coach football, you started a football league in Liberty City for the youths and stuff like that and you could be a sports commentator. Have you ever thought about that?

Uncle Luke

Yes, I do sports every Tuesday on 940 Radio because I’m so heavily involved in sports. We started our [youth football] program, Liberty City Optimists, 25 years ago – we’re celebrating our 25th year anniversary right now and we have over a hundred volunteers and nobody gets paid for anything.

We have over 400 kids throughout the year on a year-round basis. We got great kids that came through the program that are doing productive things like the commissioner for this area, Keon Hardemon; he was a kid that played in program, baseball and football. Then we got kids like Duke Johnson, Devonte Freeman, the kid that leads NFL right now in rushing and touchdowns. Chad Johnson played in the program, Devonte Davis.

We got about ten kids in the NFL right now but the ones we’re really proud of are the ones who are productive citizens, the ones who come back to the program and volunteer their time to help out the kids and that’s what my passion is. I love working with kids and I love working in a high school with sports because I could then help those kids understand that through sports you can go and get a good education. Every year on the football teams that I coach with Miami Northern and Miami Northwestern, 95% of our kids end up going to a university, whether it’s Stillman, Spellman. It ain’t got to be University of Miami or Florida State; they’re going to go and leave and go to some college. Those are some of the kids that come out of our program that we inspire to do that. That’s what I’m most proud of.

Vivian Host

Last question, when you look at your whole career in music and everything else, what do you think was the great motivator for you?

Uncle Luke

Miami. Just the love for Miami. When you ride around the country and you’re sitting up at this New Music Seminar where people come from all over the world and you’re sitting there and people say, “That Miami music. That’s just straight booty music. It’s a fad. It’s never going to last.”

This guy Hank Shocklee, I’ll never forget it to this day, said, “This music is a fad.” He’s sitting on this panel, 800 people in the room and then I stand up in the middle of the crowd and I say, “That’s BS. The south is going to rule hip hop at one point. You just keep living and you’ll live to see it.”

To me, Miami was being the forefront of creating hip hop, whether it was Krush Two or whether it was what was Bo Crane was doing, whether it was what Henry Stone was doing or what we were doing – we created hip hop in the South. It just wasn’t a Miami thing. It wasn’t doing it nowhere else.

I’m very proud of that. We don’t get the credit for it – you ask did the book, it’s because we don’t get credit for nothing. We don’t get credit for the parental advice sticker. We don’t get credit for doing two different versions of a record. We don’t get credit for the wrapped vans that you see – we were painting the vans back then. We don’t get credit for the Disco Dave and the soundsystems inside the cars. We don’t get credit for nothing in hip hop. So I mean, that’s what the struggle and the fight is about.

Vivian Host

Well, you’ve always been pulling out the crystal balls from your videos and looking into the future. There are many more great stories about things that Luke pioneered and I guess we’re out of time, but maybe personally he’ll take some of your questions. Thanks so much for joining us.

Uncle Luke

Thank you. Thanks very much.