On July 13, 1990, the first album to be adorned with a parental advisory sticker hit the shelves, ushering in a new era in the recording industry and re-igniting a heated discussion about censorship, freedom of speech, and morality.

Banned in the U.S.A. was 2 Live Crew’s fourth album, and certainly not the first with the highly sexual content the Miami group had become known for, but it was the first since two of the group members were arrested for obscenity (and later acquitted at trial) in June of 1990. While not as commercially successful as 1989’s double Platinum-selling As Nasty As They Wanna Be, Banned in the U.S.A. and its sticker represented, for many, the manifestation of a Puritanical assault on not just human sexuality, but the sexuality of African Americans.Formed in 1985 by DJ Mr. Mixx, Fresh Kid Ice, and Amazing Vee, Southern California’s 2 Live Crew took on Brother Marquis and Luke Skyywalker on as members after a fateful move to Miami, where Luke gave them a record deal, becoming the front-man and manager. The 4-man group (Amazing Vee did not go to Miami) became synonymous with “Porn Rap,” a label that has also been assigned to works by Too Short, Necro, Kool Keith, and others. Also popular in the worlds of Ghettotech and Baltimore Club Music, Porn Rap was certainly first and most commonly associated with the Miami Bass scene, of which 2 Live Crew became the face. Sexual explicitness had been around for decades (some early Blues, called “Dirty Blues”, was filthy), but in an era of high media scrutiny and the nationwide concern about Rap music and its content, 2 Live Crew became the social pariah du jour, boosting album sales and making Banned In The U.S.A. a musical middle finger to the mudslingers.

Originally envisioned as a solo vehicle for Luke, the album was eventually released as a group effort, perhaps indicative of a desire to show a united front in the face of such criticism. That criticism, mostly launched atop of a platform of moral superiority and concern for children, had followed the group since its 1986 debut, The 2 Live Crew Is What We Are. Shortly after its release, a man was charged with a felony for selling the obscene material to a minor, and while he was eventually acquitted, tracks like “We Want Some Pussy” and “Throw the D” earned the group lots of attention and even more naysayers. Lyrics like “With my dick in my hands as you fall to your knees / You know what to do, ’cause I won’t say please / Just nibble on my dick like a rat does cheese” and “It’s all in the hips, so go berserk and let that dick do the work” were not any more explicit than, for example, Blues singer Lucille Bogan’s 1935 song “Shave ’em Dry” (“I got nipples on my titties, big as the end of my thumb / Daddy you say that’s the kind of ’em you want, and you can make ’em come”) or Blowfly’s 1980 track “Rapp Dirty” (“Ride down the road carrying a load / Feeling more sexy than a pregnant toad”), but the group’s presence in the Miami Bass scene gave them a ton`of exposure`and their wild stage antics contributed greatly to their reputation.