Rappers Put on a Clean Show; Teens Void It

A show by the rap group 2 Live Crew wasn’t as nasty--or as long--as the audience wanted. But the group’s leader said it proved that 2 Live Crew could put on a clean show for teen-agers.

“They said 2 Live Crew can’t do a clean show and still rock. What we’re going to do is we’re going to prove them all wrong,” band member Luther Campbell said during Thursday night’s performance.

“I consider it the PG version,” said Gwinnett County Police Chief Wayne Bolden as the group finished its last song. “This is the first rap concert I’ve been to and I’m kind of enjoying it. I like the beat.”

Campbell and another member of the Miami-based rap group were arrested in Florida last weekend after they played songs from their sexually explicit “As Nasty As They Wanna Be” album at an all-adult show. A Florida record store owner who sold the album also was arrested.

The arrests followed a federal judge’s ruling that the album violates Florida’s obscenity law. The ruling is being appealed.

The controversy prompted the band to cancel one of two concerts planned at a club for teens Thursday night. Tickets sold for both shows were honored and the band played to an estimated 320 people--roughly half the Ozone Club’s capacity.

In a brisk 35 minutes, the band performed versions of some of the songs from “As Clean As They Wanna Be,” which lacks the profanities. Each time group members stopped short of singing vulgar lyrics, teen-agers in the audience gleefully shouted them out.

During the show, Campbell held up signs that read “no censorship” and led the crowd in chants of “no censorship” and “freedom of speech.”

Campbell said the group waited to leave Miami until they had talked to representatives of the Gwinnett County Police Department to make sure they would be allowed to perform a clean show without hassle. They left when they got it.