After being on the
road with Afroman as his DJ and guest performer, Mr. Mixx, co-founder of the 2
Live Crew has settled down at the famed Bunny Ranch in Carson City, Nevada to
start work on his solo album, VGNL MINDED.
The album will be released
on Mixx’s label, Mr. Mixx Recordings and will be distributed by Afroman’s
Hungry Hustler Records/Redeye Distribution.
VGNL Minded is
Mr. Mixx’s first solo album in three years, since his 2002 release, Nasty,
Controversial and Unauthorized.
“What Lil’ Jon and
Ying Yang are doing now is what we created back then,” Mixx told AllHipHop.com
about the speeded-up, boisterous, heavy-bottomed Miami bass sound that brought
2 Live Crew to national prominence.
2 Live Crew, the group Mixx
founded with Fresh Kid Ice and Amazing V in the spring of 1985, became one of
Hip-Hop’s most controversial groups.
Luke Campbell joined the
2 Live Crew shortly after its inception and the group released the groundbreaking
albums 2 Live Is What We Are (1986), Move Somethin’ (1988)
and As Nasty as They Wanna Be (1989).
The latter album spawned
the classic single “Me So Horny” and was the subject of national
attention, when the group was arrested under Florida obscenity laws for performing
songs from the raunchy album.
The battle over the explicit
lyrics on As Nasty as They Wanna Be went all the way to the Supreme
Court in 1994, which ruled in favor of the group, citing First Amendment rights.
“Basically,
I’m taking the same musical approach,” Mixx said of the new album.
“They [Lil’ Jon, Ying Yang and others] may feel like I’m going
behind them, but they went behind me in the first place.
VGNL Minded
will be filled with explicit, unedited party songs.
“People want
to hear the unedited versions first,” Mixx said. “They want to hear
what they’re playing in the street and in the clubs. And that’s
where my stuff starts. Otherwise, it’s not the same.”
The 2-disc set
will also include behind-the-scenes footage of Mr. Mixx at the Bunny Ranch and
bonus videos from Hungry Hustler Records.
VGNL Minded
hits stores March 28, 2006.
