But it wasn't until it reached South Florida that it truly became bigger than music.
Luther Campbell was a Miami-born rapper and leader of the hip hop group 2 Live Crew. Many parents and local governments already were concerned about sexually explicit lyrics in rap songs but that shifted into overdrive when 2 Live Crew dropped its album, "As Nasty as They Wanna Be," in 1989.
It was the group's most successful album but also its most controversial. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in 1990 ruled that the album was legally obscene — the first time that ever happened.
Shortly thereafter, Campbell and two other 2 Live Crew members were arrested after they performed a few of the controversial songs at a Broward County club. A six-member Broward jury in October 1990 found the band's lyrics were not obscene and acquitted Campbell and others.
A federal Appeals Court in 1992 overturned the lower court's decision that their music was obscene. The group faced another legal battle when it was sued for its version of the 1964 Roy Orbison classic "Oh Pretty Woman." The U.S. Supreme Court in 1994 unanimously ruled in favor of the rap group, saying it did not infringe on copyright because the 2 Live Crew song was parody.
The legal battles were a win for free speech and the First Amendment.
Henry Louis Gates Jr., a prominent scholar and Harvard professor of African-American history who taught at Duke three decades ago, testified on behalf of 2 Live Crew at its 1990 trial.
Gates said the rap group did not call for violence in its lyrics.
"What you hear is great humor, great joy and great boisterousness," told jurors at the trial. "It's a joke. It's a parody, and parody is one of the most venerated forms of art.''
Campbell, now 60, addressed that era on the Netflix Original series "Hip-Hop Evolution."
"The fight eventually ended up becoming a fight for hip hop," he said on the streaming show.
"It became a free speech issue for me. You know, does the First Amendment apply to African-Americans? So I've got to fight this."
