Me So Horny

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"Me So Horny" was a hit song for rap group 2 Live Crew from their album As Nasty As They Wanna Be. It reached #1 on the rap charts and #26 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1989 despite lack of airplay due to the controversial nature of the lyrics. The explicit nature of the lyrics of this song and the album led to the initially successful prosecution of the group on obscenity charges and the album being banned from sale in Florida. This ban was overturned on appeal. The song samples "Firecracker" by Brass Construction.

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[edit] Origin of the phrase

The chorus of the song was sampled from the movie Full Metal Jacket. In the movie, UK actress Papillon Soo Soo, credited as "Da Nang Hooker" speaks the lines:

Hey, you got girlfriend Vietnam? Me so horny. Me love you long time.

[edit] Success and controversy

Despite, or perhaps because of, the explicit nature of the lyrics, the song became a major hit for 2 Live Crew, topping the rap charts and going to #26 in 1989. As Nasty as They Wanna Be reached #3 on the rap album charts and #29 on the album chart. The album eventually sold three million copies.

The success of the single and the album led to concern over the explicit nature of rap lyrics both by 2 Live Crew and by gangsta rappers such as Ice-T and N.W.A.. George Will highlighted the group in an article called "America's Slide into the Sewers" and referred to the group's lyrics in the context of the brutal rape and murder of a woman in Central Park.

Broward County prosecutor Jack Thompson prosecuted 2 Live Crew on obscenity charges and persuaded a Federal District judge to declare the album as obscene in June 1990. 2 Live Crew performed songs from the album including "Me So Horny" and were prosecuted for obscenity. Record store clerks who sold copies of the album were taken for questioning.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. gave evidence on behalf of the group during the trial. Sinéad O'Connor was one of the celebrities who supported the group on the grounds of the right to free speech. The decision was later overturned on appeal and the ruling was upheld by the US Supreme Court. The publicity from the trials led to further sales of the album.

In 1999, the group, minus former bandleader Luther Campbell, rerecorded the song as "Bill So Horny" during the impeachment of U.S. President Bill Clinton for lying under oath about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. However, the remix failed to chart.

[edit] Other parodies

A comedy hip-hop duo known as 2 Live Jews (whose name is an obvious parody of 2 Live Crew) released a spoof of the song, called "Oy! It's So Humid". This spoof also replaces the line, "Me love you long time" with "It's like a sauna in here." This is one of the tracks of their first album, titled "As Kosher As They Wanna Be".

Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine did a Lounge cover on the 2005 album, "Aperitif for Destruction".

[edit] Music Video

The music video mainly features the members of the band rapping while women wearing nylon shorts and sport brassieres are shown dancing on a stage. The full, unedited video replaces the women with women wearing thong bikini bottoms instead of the shorts. When the full video originally aired, rotoscoped black squares were placed over the women's buttocks.

[edit] Sample

[edit] See also

[edit] External links