Equally, the lyrical concerns and largely apolitical, amoral stance of the music set the blueprint for the musical style that would dominate the US charts for the next decade.Ī scene from Straight Outta Compton. NWA established the US’s West Coast as a vibrant centre of hip-hop production, setting up a rivalry with the music’s old East Coast stronghold that would ultimately result in the killings of two of the music’s biggest stars, 2Pac and the Notorious BIG. But, like the first albums by the Velvet Underground and the Sex Pistols, SOC’s success is more usefully measured by its influence, by the things it changed and set in train, than by the units it shifted. The effect is disorienting, caught somewhere between a cartoon and a madly heightened reality, the authenticity of which the majority of listeners and critics were in no position to confirm or deny.ĭespite a total lack of radio support, the record sold well, if not spectacularly it took four years to pass 1m copies. Where Public Enemy had crafted soundscapes that were echoes of the dysfunctional housing projects, NWA’s record is marbled with real gunshots, sirens and screams. Utterly unapologetic in its brutal portrayal of street life in the LA suburbs of Compton, Watts and South Central, it casually unveils a universe of drugs, firearms and no-ties sex.Īll of this is heightened by the music itself. The third bullet fired into the heart of the status quo is “Gangsta Gangsta”. Today, protesters in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri wear “Fuck tha Police” T-shirts. “Fuck tha Police” follows, its shockingly explicit description of the treatment of young black males by the LAPD a disturbing snapshot of life just down the road from Hollywood, and a chilling prophecy of the Rodney King beatings and the subsequent riots a few years later. The title track introduces the band members in a welter of profanity, braggadocio and middle-finger-raised political incorrectness. Straight Outta Compton official film trailer A record otherwise characterised by howling waves of noise and lyrical vitriol, it begins with a stunning moment of quiet certainty, as a single voice announces “You are about to witness the strength of street knowledge.” The three songs that follow are perhaps the most powerful opening salvo in music, a roaring cascade of youthful rage, all spat out in a black, urban slang previously hidden from most of the world. Straight Outta Compton was, and remains, extraordinary, right from the first second. NWA’s first album blew all that to smithereens. In the summer of 1989, hip-hop was East Coast, right-on and increasingly respectable. The following spring De La Soul unfurled their trippy masterpiece, Three Feet High and Rising, a lyrical firework display of child-like wonder. In the autumn of 1988, Public Enemy released their magnificent It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, a flaming torch of righteous indignation. The late 1980s rap world they entered was dominated by acts from America’s eastern seaboard, and by groups brilliantly espousing assorted brands of virtuousness and positivity. The inevitable questions about those three capital letters meant that the message got through loud and clear. Even as cocksure a bunch as Eazy and his cohorts Dr Dre, Ice Cube, DJ Yella and MC Ren must have known they’d never get away with Niggaz Wit Attitude (the quintet’s full moniker), so they settled on the initials. A quarter of a century later – with a new biopic about their phosphorescent impact on popular culture about to be released, and an imminent induction into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame – NWA are completing an unlikely transition from controversy and harassment to acceptance and acclaim.įormed from the bits and pieces of other Los Angeles groups, and financed by the drugs profits of one of their members (Eric “Eazy-E” Wright), NWA were, in retrospect, always going to be trouble. They united liberal left and reactionary right in disgust at their works, and were considered worthy of the unfriendly, and very public, attentions of America’s security services. A t the (very brief) height of their powers, the rap crew NWA were labelled “the most dangerous group in the world”.
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