Banned in the USA and At Home
Way back in the wonderful year of 1990, I was twelve years old and starting to find my own way as far as music went. I had grown up traveling with my old man and listening to Waylon and Willie, as well as CCR in his truck on long trips. And when we were home on Saturday nights, we’d tune into the Silver Eagle radio show that played country music while we shot pool in the basement.
But in the late ‘80s, I was gifted a single of Bust a Move by Young MC, and my musical tastes started to change. While MTV was frowned upon in our house, my brother and I would turn it on when mom was out of the house and we’d catch episodes of Yo! MTV Raps and other hit shows. It was probably there that I first heard the song and saw the video for Banned in the USA by 2 Live Crew.
While I didn’t know that 2 Live Crew had quite the reputation, nor had I heard any of their other songs, I loved what I heard in Banned in the USA. It probably had more to do with it sounding like Born in the USA than anything else, but I really liked it just the same.
Soon after, on a trip out shopping, I spent my allowance on the single version of Banned in the USA. I got home and fired it up in my knockoff Walkman and probably listened to it two dozen times or more over a couple of days. But much like would happen as a regular occurrence, my older brother and I got into some kind of argument and I probably pissed him off. Unfortunately, at this time, he knew how to get me back.
I don’t recall every single detail, but I do remember him going to my Mom and telling her that I had bought a “dirty” tape. Of all the songs that 2 Live Crew recorded, Banned in the USA was probably the cleanest by far. When he told Mom she had a cow. Apparently she had heard of the 2 Live Crew’s legal troubles and immediately confiscated the tape.
I begged and pleaded my case with her…about how it wasn’t a dirty tape. I begged her to listen to it and see for herself, but she was having none of it. After a while, I finally talked her down off the ledge a little, and she agreed to listen to it and see if it was dirty or not. The problem was, though, that she didn’t intend to do that immediately.
She locked the tape away, and every couple of days I would ask her to listen so I could get it back. No deal. This went on for MONTHS…so long that I eventually forgot about it.
About a year later, I got brave enough to go get it from where she had it locked away, and she never mentioned it. She must have forgotten about it as well. I don’t know if I have a point in telling this story, but it’s a memory that has stuck with me for years, so I thought I would unload it on all of you as well.
- Mick
I had a lot of leeway with the music I was allowed to listen to as a kid and teen. In seventh grade I actually asked my parents' permission to listen to Ozzy Osbourne. I remember my mom saying, "you get straight A's on your report card. I'm not worried about what music you listen to."
It was around that same age that I discovered the 2 Live Crew -- a few years before you. We were on a school field trip and someone in the rear of the bus had a boombox and some of the 2 Live Crew tapes with song titles I can't even mention, hah. Let's just say by the time my parents thought I was ready to discuss the birds and the bees, Luke Skywalker, Fresh Kid Ice and Brother Marquis had already explained things pretty well.
I was one of those weird teens that listened to everything. I was always a metalhead and liked lots of alternative music too, but my love of 80s rap opened the door to gangster rap. Around the time I graduated was when Ice-T and NWA blew up. The thought of my kids listening to those tapes today would shock me but back then we knew all the words and strutted around rural Oklahoma singing songs about Compton, which might as well have been on Mars.
While my mom never confiscated any of my tapes, I had a few concert t-shirts that featured the f-bomb that somehow got lost in the laundry and also somehow reappeared when I moved out. :)