‘People will be a whole lot better off.’ Uncle Luke to consider running for Congress

Luther “Uncle Luke” Campbell is a lot of things.

A founding father of southern hip-hop. A First Amendment warrior. A Miami sports superfan. Now, he may want to be a congressman.

“People want somebody to fight these m-----------s back,” Campbell told the Miami Herald on Friday, later adding: “If I represent them people, trust me: That s--- will be looking a whole lot different and people will be a whole lot better off [than] before I got there.”

The 63-year-old former 2 Live Crew frontman is still considering whether to run to unseat incumbent Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick in Florida’s 20th Congressional District. First reported by The Bulwark, Campbell even created a political committee named Don’t Stop Get It Get It and informally met with political consultants to further explore the possibility of a campaign, which he said was inspired by the Republican party’s consistent attacks on Black Americans.

“We used to have fighters,” Campbell said, referring to people like the late Rep. Alcee Hastings, who formerly held the 20th Congressional District seat. “But these people got old and they don’t have no more fight in them. And their party is consistently getting younger and they’re still fighting. You look at the Matt Gaetzes of the world, Marjorie [Taylor Greene], Ron DeSantis and s--- — they come in guns a-blazing. They not playing.”

The filing deadline is April 26, but news of his potential congressional run has already reached the right. In a recent X Spaces live audio conversation, Gaetz, whom Campbell already deemed “public enemy No. 1,” took aim at the hip-hop legend’s political prowess.

“Uncle Luke wants to talk big but won’t step up to the politics after dark spaces,” Gaetz said. “The only thing I know about Luther Campbell is when you had to pay players under the table in Miami-Dade County to go to FSU or UF or Miami.”

In response, Campbell rehashed allegations that Gaetz solicited sex, claims that the Department of Justice rebuffed in February 2023 after deciding not to charge the Republican congressman in a sex trafficking investigation. A congressional ethics probe into Gaetz as a result of the allegations is still underway. Additionally, Gaetz was recently subpoenaed in a civil lawsuit surrounding the allegations.

“All you had to do is pop on a Luke song so I can teach you not how to buy p----,” Campbell said on Friday’s episode of the Because Miami podcast.

Although Campbell’s legacy is more closely linked to Miami-Dade County and the Liberty City neighborhood that raised him, the congressional seat in question lies in Broward and Palm Beach counties. Nearly 50 percent of the area’s population is Black, making it one of the state’s few districts primarily made up of people of African descent. The overwhelming majority of Black voters means that whoever wins the Democratic primary is favored to win in November. And while Campbell certainly is a celebrity in every sense of the word, he wants his platform to be “created by the people” — even going as far as wanting to film a documentary about his potential congressional run in order to ensure transparency.

“For them to see that would be amazing,” Campbell said. “You’ll have more young people get involved in politics and you’ll have more of our people actually understanding how politics actually work.”

The exposure appears to be another motivation for Campbell. The Miami native frames the run as a necessity “to defend ourselves” but also to inspire the next generation of scrappy elected officials.

“What normally happens after you get one like myself to go up in there — you get others to get brave,” Campbell said. “I don’t want to be running but somebody got to do it.”

This wouldn’t be Campbell’s first foray into politics. A self-proclaimed “politics junkie,” Campbell made an unsuccessful bid for Miami-Dade County mayor in 2011, securing about 11 percent of the vote without really campaigning. In a 2019 column Campbell wrote for the Miami New Times, he heavily criticized then-Sen. Kamala Harris for her prosecutorial past and marriage to a white man. And while the two eventually hashed out their differences, Campbell has a long history of allegiance to Black America. That includes his recent “Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told” documentary, which explores one of the country’s most prominent Black culture phenomenons; his founding of the Liberty City Optimist Club, his unfiltered X Spaces chats and his return to his hometown to coach Miami Edison Senior High School’s football team.

What ultimately remains to be seen is how Cherfilus-McCormick, who made history as the first Haitian American elected to Congress from Florida when she succeeded Hastings in a 2022 special election, will fare if Campbell enters the race. The Democratic congresswoman came under fire in December 2023 when the House Ethics Committee launched an investigation into potential campaign finance violations.