Hey, Ladies, H-Town Is Very Sorry

Hip-hop means never having to say you’re sorry.

But not to the group H-Town. The Houston-based trio, which had such early-’90s hits as “Knockin’ Da Boots,” marked by silky soul vocals and sexy subject matter, is doing just that.

The group’s upcoming album “Ladies Edition” is an apology to women for what its members feel have been grievous transgressions in attitude on the part of the hip-hop world. They even dedicate the album to Nicole Brown Simpson.

“We’re apologizing for every man, not just us,” says group member G.I. “We know we’re looked at as role models. If we put it across, some people will take heed of it and change their ways.”

One man they’re apologizing for is not too happy about it: Luther Campbell, the Miami rap entrepreneur whose crude sexual content with 2 Live Crew put him at war with Broward County, Fla., officials and conservative watchdog groups in 1990, and ultimately made him an unlikely hero of free speech advocates. H-Town’s first two albums, 1992’s “Fever for Da Flavor” and 1994’s “Beggin’ After Dark,” were released by Campbell’s Luke Records.

Though they weren’t as raunchy as 2 Live Crew or Campbell’s solo recordings, they weren’t exactly in Gloria Steinem territory in terms of attitudes toward women--as evidenced in such song titles as “Cruisin’ Fo’ Honeys.” H-Town parted ways with Campbell after he filed for bankruptcy in 1995. The resulting legal entanglements were recently concluded.

“We used to be around Luke so much and saw so much of that [attitude],” says G.I.

Campbell’s response?

“Nobody has to apologize for me and what I do,” he says. “I’ve never degraded women as far as I know. I have a mother and three daughters. I wouldn’t do anything to degrade them.”

Campbell, in fact, says he disassociated himself from 2 Live Crew after growing tired of the other members’ crude, graphic sexual raps. His own material, including that on a new album, “Changing the Game,” due Nov. 18, is merely “party” material, he says.

And he’s unrepentant about using such terms as bitch and ho in his raps, insisting that the epithets apply to some women, and that it reflects the language of the streets.

That, though, is exactly what G.I. says H-Town is trying to stop.

“Some songs call women B’s and H’s, and we want to redirect that,” he says. “We never used that, but you hear it so much on the radio, so much in the streets.”

Michelle Mercer, program director of L.A. hip-hop radio station KPWR-FM (105.9,), which routinely edits such language from songs before airing them, welcomes H-Town’s stance.

“Any time someone takes a stand like [H-Town’s] and gets press, it will draw attention and raise awareness,” she says, citing Coolio and Puff Daddy as others who refrain from crude language. “And that’s a good thing.”