Uncle Luke has shared a fond memory of the late Sinead O’Connor, who died unexpectedly earlier this week at the age of 56.
The 2 Live Crew rapper shouted out O’Connor on Twitter on Friday (July 28), and revealed they first met in 1990 backstage at the MTV Music Awards following his group’s performance of “Banned In The U.S.A.”
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“When I got backstage, the first person to greet me was her, knowing the weight of the world was on me, fighting this fight for free speech and hip-hop,” Luke began his tweet. “She [hugged] me and we talked. She told me I was fighting a good fight.
“She knew the industry was not supporting me, she wanted me to know she was. I always love that woman for that. May God bless her soul my condolences go out to her family.”
May Sinead O’Connor rest in peace. Let me share my moment meeting this Great Women. I performed at the @MTV music awards crying singing band in the USA. When I got backstage, the first person to greet me was her, knowing the weight of the world was on me, fighting this fight for…
— Luther Luke Campbell (@unclelukereal1) July 27, 2023
The 2 Live Crew — comprised of Uncle Luke, Mr. Mixx (David Hobbs), Brother Marquis (Mark Ross) and the late Fresh Kid Ice (Christopher Wong Won) — gained huge popularity in the late 1980s while sparking outrage along the way after dropping their explicit debut album As Nasty as They Wanna Be, led by the single “Me So Horny.”
Shortly after the album’s release in 1989, multiple counties in Florida sought to ban the album from being sold, with a federal judge ruling it to be obscene. Some record store owners were even arrested, and Luke told ABC News in an interview earlier this year that they planned to be arrested too at one point.
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“Oh, we knew we were going to get arrested,” he explained. “It was so important for me because I knew that we were one. We were under attack. We were under attack because it was hip-hop.”
Luke and Fresh Kid Ice were eventually arrested during a performance in 1990, and the group went to court multiple times to try and overturn the obscenity ruling.
“It’s not just language, it’s music,” the group’s attorney Bruce Rogow told ABC News. “This is a form of art, and so it’s protected.”
An even bigger legal fight brewed in 1990 after the 2 Live Crew parodied Roy Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman” on their album As Clean As They Wanna Be.
Orbison had never given the group permission to use the track, but they instead released a parody version of it. The case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court, which ruled unanimously in favor of 2 Live Crew in 1994.
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Sinead O’Connor was no stranger to protest herself and spent her career advocating for issues related to child abuse, human rights, racism, organized religion, and women’s rights.
