Fresh Kid Ice keeps the new Crew live
By Ryan Ritchie

ILLUSTRATION by LUKE MCGARRY

Florida-based rap group 2 Live Crew is to music what Howard Stern is to radio—if you don’t like what they’re saying, turn it off. Nearly two decades ago, the rappers’ sexually explicit content landed them in trouble because of rhymes on their 1989 landmark, As Nasty As They Wanna Be, banned from sale on grounds of obscenity. But while the judges wanted to criminalize lyrics like original member Fresh Kid Ice’s “You said it yourself, you like it like I do/Put your lips on my dick/And suck my asshole, too,” the public felt differently. The dirty version of the disc went double platinum. The original Crew has since added and dropped members like Menudo, but Fresh Kid Ice has been the one constant. Recently the emcee started a new group, the X-Rated Rydas, with fellow rappers Fish N Gritz and Sean Juan. The trio uses dirty South beats, deep bass grooves and over-the-top sex raps, similar to what made the Crew famous in the first place. Ice is not messing with success when it comes to new rhymes—as he says, “Fresh Kid Ice, I’m off the chain/I brought the pussy to the hip-hop game” on a track called “Dem Bitches.” As far as the live show, this is actually just Fresh Kid Ice and his new crew, though as far as the live show goes, Ice says fans can expect new material along with 2 Live Crew hits: “It’s like a 2 Live show with the Me So Horny dancers,” he says. “I still perform music from the 2 Live Crew. We play some of the old stuff and then introduce the new stuff. X-Rated Rydas is the new era—picking up where 2 Live left off.”

X-RATED RYDAS FEATURING FRESH KID ICE RHYTHM LOUNGE 245 PINE AVE | LONG BEACH 90802 | 562.435.4288 | RHYTHM-LOUNGE.COM | THURS 8PM | $12-15 | 21+