thoroughfare 125th Street aimed megaphones demanding that street vendors withdraw the shirts. Such apparently sold on Los Angeles sidewalks, too, maybe till 1995. By then, Reverend Butts—who, romanticizing "the black community," had called gangsta rap "antithetical to what our culture represents"—had receded from the battle. But in 1994, US Congress had invited Butts to speak about gangsta rap. National battle In September 1993, C. Delores Tucker, chair and 1984 founder of the National Political Congress of Black Women, a lobbying group in Washington, DC, reentered the public eye to take up the battle against gangsta rap. Swiftly becoming the battle's national leader, she expanded it against offensive rock lyrics, too, but especially targeted "Bitches Ain't Shit," The Chronic, and Death Row Records. Of a background in civil rights activism and state political office, Tucker demanded congressional hearings. Illinois representative Cardiss Collins, already chair of Congress' standing committee on commerce and consumer protection, convened them in 1994 on February 11. There, Tucker called gangsta rap, especially Snoop's, "pornographic smut." Congress convened again for the inquiry on May 5. No government action ensued. Tucker, a Democrat, soon teamed, however, with Republican conservative, onetime US education secretary, William Bennett. In May 1995, Tucker and Bennett aired a TV commercial, in four major cities, attacking Time Warner, and gained an ally in Senate majority leader, Republican presidential candidate, Bob Dole. Time Warner called them political opportunists, but divested from Death Row's intermediary, Interscope Records. Interscope's 1991 cofounder Jimmy Iovine was promptly dined by four of the other five major labels, the then Big Six's rivals to Warner Music. At Interscope's options, Iovine reacted, "I'm just happy we got our company back." Interscope chose MCA, soon renamed Universal. Suge Knight, too, expressed relief, and his Death Row label, unfazed, steamrolled onward. In the late 1990s, as G-funk's era closed, The Chronic grew into a popular classic. And yet "Bitches Ain't Shit" would refuel recurring rebuke and debate over this slang term for women, such depictions of them, and, more broadly, its album's pivotal role in popularizing the values of idealized street gangsters. Female listeners Bay Area rapper Too Short had smeared types of women since 1985, or 1983, more vaguely. "Bitches Ain't Shit" apparently "scorned all women," and "presented misogyny with an explanation." Although the words bitch and ho can be playful or even loving, the song scorns any trust or love for such. While