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, 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. 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. No doubt about it, we would test music there.
I would test artists if you can perform. Growing up in that element we would test the songs, we would actually go make them and put them in there.
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. 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. Where did you get that lyric from?
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. 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 should have just gave all the girls credit. I know, right? You got to get creative when you get in trouble for everything you say.
They are originally from Riverside, California, which is a somewhat boring place. I was wondering what was the conversation went like with the 2 Live Crew guys. Mixx was the producer, always producing. They had two different things they were already doing. You had Yuri, who was like the first Common. He was the one putting out Blowfly and all that. Mixx was deep into that. We got to be different. We got be Miami. Yes, he sampled those records. Mixx was really, really creative.
All I would do is give him an idea. It became a hit song. Mixx told me no, we were not going to get into trouble for sampling. 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.
It was a little marketing thing but it was where we were from. 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. 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. Yeah, the little baldhead lady. Me and her would have some real deep conversations. From that point on, we was like real good buddies; we would talk all the time.
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.
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. When I would do the videos I would actually shoot the videos a certain kind of way.
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. 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. Those are for guys with motorcycles and helmets like you see in the movies. 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.
My first strip club? It was amazing. It was a real eye-opener. Then you realized not only were you a magician and a musician, you were also a gynecologist. You were somewhere between 19 and Yes, a young guy getting his eyes opened up wide to this thing called Miami scene.
By , things were so crazy for you. People were starting to attack you for obscenity. I looked at how much you did between and 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. 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. 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. Why am I fighting for hip hop? 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.
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. 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. No, not during that time. I went from businessman and then I ended up becoming this rebel. 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.
We should talk about the Campbell vs. Acuff-Rose case. 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. How could you allow them to use this song?
This is a parody. At that period of time you had everybody doing parodies. It goes back to what my old man always said: you either fight for something or fall for anything.
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. That was my first solo album. The guys still performed on the album. 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.
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.
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. That was an emotional album and emotional time. 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? We have over 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.
Chad Johnson played in the program, Devonte Davis. 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. Those are some of the kids that come out of our program that we inspire to do that.
Last question, when you look at your whole career in music and everything else, what do you think was the great motivator for you? Just the love for Miami. The south is going to rule hip hop at one point. 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.
Thanks so much for joining us. Session: Miami Uncle Luke Thank you, thank you. Thank you for joining us anyway. Uncle Luke Liberty City was a great place to grow up but it became tough times, we saw things change. Uncle Luke Oh yeah. Uncle Luke That was after I finished high school.
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.
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. Vivian Host Way to look on the bright side. Get the latest updates in news, food, music and culture, and receive special offers direct to your inbox.
Support Us Miami's independent source of local news and culture. Recently, I joined the ranks of the more than 1 million Floridians who've caught the coronavirus. Throughout the pandemic, I had been strictly adhering to the U.
Then I gave in to the peer pressure of going out to a party. Last month, a friend celebrating his birthday at a local strip club would not stop blowing up my phone. He kept begging me to come. I told myself I would go in for 15 minutes and duck out. As soon as I walked through the doors, it was like stepping into a coronavirus-spreading chamber. Everybody was wildin' out and getting drunk.
Almost no one was wearing masks. My buddies were all up in my face. Patrons and strippers were walking up to me and asking to take selfies.
Of course, I obliged when they asked me to take my mask off. Even though I felt like everyone in the club was an asymptomatic carrier, I stayed late. Campbell established the first and only African American owned record label in Luke Records -originally named Skywalker Records.
His highly publicized obscenity trials and Supreme Court parody cases were First Amendment victories upon which the entertainment industry still benefits. He is not just a company he is an enterprise. In addition he is the coach to the young players in the National Youth Football League, which is, affiliated with The Liberty City Warriors, a youth football organization he co-founded in his hometown to keep wayward boys out of trouble.
Book Luther Campbell for your corporate event, appearance, speaking engagement, private party, public concert, fundraiser, or endorsement.
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