“It just felt silly yelling ‘South Central’ when everyone else was yelling ‘Compton,'” he said, according to the book Original Gangstas. He’d met Eazy-E as a teenager and gave him the lyrics to “Boyz-N-the Hood.” When it came time to write the title track of the group’s debut album, he just decided to shout out his friends’ home locale. The rapper was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles. ![]() Ice Cube wasn’t from Compton, but that didn’t stop him from writing about it. Before he returned in September 1988, he’d written two new songs for Eazy-E’s solo debut, Eazy-Duz-It.ģ. The emcee went on to get a diploma in architectural drafting and design from Arizona’s Phoenix Institute of Technology. ![]() “The rap game wasn’t looking too solid at that time, so I decided to go ahead and go to school,” Cube once said, according to the biography Attitude. At the time, all N.W.A had released was the “Panic Zone” 12-inch. N.W.A almost didn’t make it to Straight Outta Compton.Īt the conclusion of the group’s autumn 1987 tour opening for Salt-N-Pepa, Ice Cube informed the crew that he would be going to college. Back then we was calling it ‘reality rap’ ‘gangsta rap’ is the name that the media coined.”Ģ. “Talking about what really led into the style that we ended up doing, which is now called hardcore gangster rap. “We were trying to make records that can go on the radio, and when we started doing mixtapes - which we knew wasn’t going on the radio - that’s when we really started to talk about the neighborhood,” Ice Cube told Rolling Stonein 2015. The group didn’t call their music “gangsta rap” when it came out. As the LP turns 30, here are 12 things you might not already know about it.ġ. Dre, Ice Cube, Eazy-E, MC Ren and Yella on the map, there’s still much about this record that didn’t make it into the movie. The album subsequently surged back up to Number 38 on the Billboard chart and was certified triple-platinum that year.ĭespite being one of the biggest gangsta rap albums ever and putting Dr. It was later included in Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and had a second act decades later, after its onscreen counterpart about N.W.A, also called Straight Outta Compton, came out in 2015 to blockbuster success. Straight Outta Compton was made in a matter of weeks for a reported $12,000, and when it came out on August 8th, 1988, it slowly became a hit without much traditional music-industry support, going gold by the following April and platinum by July as momentum built. Thanks to the notoriety around “Fuck tha Police,” which the FBI condemned, and their single “Straight Outta Compton,” whose video was banned from MTV, N.W.A quickly became not just the world’s most dangerous group but also one of its most intriguing. Despite a relatively short run as a group, N.W.A.'s legacy lives on through 2015's Straight Outta Compton biopic and their 2016 induction into the Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame.Gangsta rap was already a growing genre when N.W.A released their full-length debut, Straight Outta Compton, but none of the group’s peers inspired the same level of public vitriol or interest. Contract issues led to the group's end in 1991, and Eazy-E died of complications from AIDS in 1995. But the group's founding roster was short-lived. Eazy's nasal voice, Cube's brawny baritone, and Dre and Yella's funky production fascinated, offended, and inspired-a template that future gangsta rappers would follow for decades after them. ![]() They dealt with warning letters from the FBI and countless protests, but their skills and star power were undeniable. They lived up to their billing as the World's Most Dangerous Group: Their lyrics (written by Cube, Ren, and Ruthless signee The D.O.C.) on songs like "Dopeman" and "Gangsta Gangsta" were misogynistic, violent, and lewd, while the battle cry "F*ck tha Police" still rings out for its fearless rebellion against racial profiling and police brutality. and the Posse, but their 1988 follow-up, Straight Outta Compton, changed the game. They got their feet wet with their debut, N.W.A. The trio formed N.W.A.-Ni**az With Attitude––with Arabian Prince, MC Ren, and DJ Yella. Dre, a producer and DJ from World Class Wreckin' Cru, and rapper Ice Cube to write songs like "Boyz-n-the-Hood" for Eazy's label, Ruthless Records. They formed in 1987 when Compton drug dealer-turned-rap mogul Eazy-E recruited Dr. may not have invented gangsta rap, but their brash, unapologetic approach to hip-hop made them innovators and one of the industry's most controversial groups ever.
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