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As Nasty As They Wanna Be Review
08/05/2007 6:30 AM, AMG
A year after N.W.A. and Too Short significantly raised the bar for sexually explicit rap in 1988 with Straight Outta Compton and Born to Mack, respectively, the 2 Live Crew go one step further, to outright pornography, with As Nasty as They Wanna Be. The Miami foursome are certainly no strangers to sexually explicit rap, as they'd already released a pair of albums, 2 Live Crew Is What We Are (1986) and Move Somethin' (1987), with their fair share of dirty rhymes, particularly on songs like "Throw the 'D'," "Move Somethin'," and "Do Wah Ditty Ditty." The 2 Live Crew had been more humorous than literal then, though, whereas here on As Nasty as They Wanna Be they are precisely that -- not so much humorous as nasty. You furthermore have to wonder who the group are referencing as "they." You'd presume Luke and company are referencing nasty women in general, though it's just as likely they're thinking of their fans, who had grown proportionately to the degree of evident nastiness. It's perhaps not coincidental, then, that for their third album the 2 Live Crew offer their most evidently nasty one to date, where the majority of the 18 songs are directly about recreational sex and the minority are about partying, rather than the other way around, as on their previous albums. The album opener, "Me So Horny," perhaps summarizes the album's mood best, in title as much as in substance, and other songs like "D.K. Almighty" (aka "Dick Almighty"), "C'Mon Babe" ("...f*ck me!"), and "If You Believe in Having Sex" ("...say hell yeah!") need little introduction. Elsewhere, the few non-directly sexual songs like "Fraternity Record," "Mega Mixx III," and "Coolin'" highlight Mr. Mixx, the group's impressive DJ, but are nonetheless pushed to the end of the 18-song album and understandably less immediate. It'd be easy to brush aside As Nasty as They Wanna Be as commonplace exploitation (or pornography, depending on your attitude) if only it wasn't so masterfully conceived. Like them or not, the 2 Live Crew have pieced together a brilliant album that's as rich in sophomoric merriment, animalistic voyeurism, and sampledelic soundscapes as in good old-fashioned perversity. A million and one teenage boys (and perhaps a few lighthearted adults) will gawk at Luke's "Seven Bizzos" and giggle at his "Dirty Nursery Rhymes" for years to come, and while the novelty of hearing porno rhymes over "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" samples may perhaps diminish with time, there's still something very special about As Nasty as They Wanna Be that goes far beyond guilty pleasure. ~ Jason Birchmeier, All Music Guide
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