![]() ![]() ![]() The movie includes vulnerable moments of brotherhood and friendship, and a moment during the 1992 LA riots depicting the truce between the Bloods and the Crips gangs. "We just wasn't five guys crying wolf or complaining about our little incidents with the officers, but that it was an epidemic and it was everywhere." "This song was bigger than N.W.A at that point - it was an anthem," Ice Cube says. "We always saw ourselves as street reporters," he told NPR, noting that "F** tha Police" continues to be used during protests against the police, from Los Angeles to Ferguson, Mo. ![]() Ice Cube, born O'Shea Jackson, was just 16 when he joined N.W.A to write what he called reality raps. And Charnas says their songs are still relevant today. The former writer for The Source magazine says N.W.A's diatribes against police brutality put West Coast rap on the map. "This kind of counter-cop resistance music existed before N.W.A, but N.W.A gave it its name," says Dan Charnas, author of The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop. The song had earlier prompted the FBI to write an angry letter to N.W.A's label, Ruthless Records, which in turn used it to generate publicity. One scene re-enacts a 1989 concert in Detroit as the band performs their song "F*** tha Police." The scene shows the cops descending onto the stage, inciting the audience to protest. After years of getting racially profiled and harassed by the police, N.W.A obscenely defied the cops on vinyl and onstage. The movie depicts how their attitudes were shaped in the badlands of Compton, a city in south-central Los Angeles County with a reputation for drugs, crime and street gangs and a shocking murder rate. Dre and DJ Yella, rappers MC Ren, Ice Cube and Eazy-E, whose character in the film explains to their manager what N.W.A stands for: "Niggaz Wit Attitudes." Like the group's story, the making of their much-anticipated biopic, Straight Outta Compton, is filled with drama.įrom the jump, the movie is a raw look at the rise of N.W.A - five tough, talented boyz-n-the-hood who became provocative hip-hop icons. In the late 1980s, Los Angeles hip-hop group N.W.A created a sensation and controversy with their music, which was labeled gangsta rap. It's impossible to overstate the enduring impact of Straight Outta Compton as polarizing as its outlook may be, it remains an essential landmark, one of hip-hop's all-time greatest.Movie Reviews In 'Straight Outta Compton,' Hip-Hop Legends Get The Biopic Treatment There are several undistinguished misfires during the second half, but they aren't nearly enough to detract from the overall magnitude. ![]() But although Straight Outta Compton has its own share of posturing, it still sounds refreshingly uncalculated because of its irreverent, gonzo sense of humor, still unfortunately rare in hardcore rap. Although Cube wrote some of his bandmates' raps, including nearly all of Eazy-E's, each member has a distinct delivery and character, and the energy of their individual personalities puts their generic imitators to shame. But despite all the romanticized invincibility, the force and detail of Ice Cube's writing makes the exaggerations resonate. Although they were as much a reaction against pop-friendly rap, Straight Outta Compton's insistent claims of reality ring a little hollow today, since it hardly ever depicts consequences. Given the album's sheer force, the production is surprisingly spare, even a little low-budget - mostly DJ scratches and a drum machine, plus a few sampled horn blasts and bits of funk guitar. All of that directionless rebellion and rage produces some of the most frightening, visceral moments in all of rap, especially the amazing opening trio of songs, which threaten to dwarf everything that follows. Unlike Ice-T, there's little social criticism or reflection on the gangsta lifestyle most of the record is about raising hell - harassing women, driving drunk, shooting it out with cops and partygoers. It established gangsta rap - and, moreover, West Coast rap in general - as a commercial force, going platinum with no airplay and crossing over with shock-hungry white teenagers. Straight Outta Compton wasn't quite the first gangsta rap album, but it was the first one to find a popular audience, and its sensibility virtually defined the genre from its 1988 release on. ![]()
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