By the time N.W.A., a rap group out of southern California was ready to release its album Straight Outta Compton, America was heavily divided among racial barriers that hadn’t been seen in many years. The failure of the Ronald Reagan Administration had been obvious with the collapse of the American Middle Class, the Iran-Contra Affair and the crack cocaine epidemic.
Even though it was 1988, Reagan had drastically cut programs and raised taxes in a futile attempt to move America back to the mythical 1950s. He had been one of the biggest opponents of the radical changes in the 1960s and 1970s. There had been so many problems with Black Monday Stock Market Crash of 1987 and the economy that were mostly caused by Reagan’s deregulations, Americans on both side had grown tired. There had been numerous candidates seeking the Presidency in 1988 as Republicans tried to distance themselves from Reagan’s administration. (It was only after it was publicly announced Reagan had Alzheimer’s and had probably had dementia during some or all of his Presidency, that Republicans were more sympathetic.
Crime was out of control. Homelessness was on the rise. Police had firebombed a predominantly black neighborhood in Philadelphia. Even though he was a Democrat, Ed Koch was not so popular among many people in New York City as its mayor. Spike Lee would note this intolerable hatred toward him in his landmark 1989 movie Do the Right Thing. But even Lee wasn’t too well known at the time. The 1980s had been had been hard on African-American performers as Robert Townsend would note in his 1987 movie Hollywood Shuffle.
With the exception of Eddie Murphy and Whoopi Goldberg, most actors/performers found themselves in stereotypical roles as criminals in some form or lower-income people. Even Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington weren’t too well known and had to take on roles as pimps in Street Smart and a former slave in Glory respectfully to earn critical acclaim. Damon Wayans had been fired from Saturday Night Live for playing a uniformed police officer as if he was gay while performing a skit. Wayans had originally been a detective but SNL producer Lorne Michaels made the comment that he looked like a pimp while dressed in a suit.
White Americans only liked African-American entertainers when they were like Bill Cosby, despite his skeletons of hanging out at the Playboy Mansion. Would they like him if they knew he loaned Mevlin Van Peebles the money he needed to complete Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song? The movie was notable for its unsimulated sex scenes and a scene in which a young Mario Van Peebles may or may not have had sex with an actress on screen. And then theres the fact that Van Peebles contacted a STD and filed for worker’s comp using the money to further finance the movie.
Richard Pryor was doing what In Living Colour would call “Scared for No Reason” movies which kinda functioned as pseudo-minstrel roles. Even Oprah Winfrey was just some actress and and TV host. Wesley Snipes, Giancarlo Esposito and Laurence Fishburne were only cast in “thug roles” mostly. And Run DMC was considered too hardcore for people. Most of the popular rap/hip-hop groups were coming from the East Coast, as people got a taste of movies like Beat Street, the Breakin‘ movies and Krush Groove. But mostly, they all played it safe for white audiences such as The Fat Boys or D.J. Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince.
And then there was N.W.A. They were young and angry. O’Shea Jackson Sr., aka Ice Cube, was only 19. Andre Young, aka Dr. Dre, and Eric Wright, aka Eazy-E, were in their early 20 when their debut studio album Straight Outta Compton was set to be released in early August of 1988. But it was on this date, July 10, when their single “Straight Outta Compton” with the B-side “Fuck tha Police” was released. From this point on, rap music and music in general wouldn’t be the same ever again.
“Straight Outta Compton” begins with Dre saying, “You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge.” And then, there’s the anger of Cube as he sings with the musical cadance of a drill instructior, “Straight outta compton, crazy motherfucker named Ice Cube” and the rest of the song is a bombastic declaration of self-worth that N.W.A. isn’t like any other groups. They’re not going to play the minstrels. This their music. This is their lyrics. And go fuck yourself if you don’t like it. The song is only about four minutes and 22 seconds but it contained more profanity than most R rating movies. But it also contains more realism.
N.W.A wasn’t using profanity the same way 2 Live Crew did. They used it to show the criticism of the music industry. David Allen Coe can make vulgar songs and he’s considered an “outlaw.” The Rolling Stones sun about having to “scrap the shit right off your shoes.” Even their album Sticky Fingers has a raunchy mean as what we presume is Mick Jagger’s crotch in tight leather pants. No, 2 Live Crew was like a bunch of middle schoolers who make dirty recordings on a tape recorder at a sleepover. N.W.A. used the profanity as a sign of their anger and protest.
Compton, located in the southern part of Los Angeles County, had become a prime example of the division in America. During the 1950s and 1960s, it was one of those cities where mostly white people began to move out when the middle-class black people began to move in. It had also been home to many Japanese-Americans before the firebombing raid on Pearl Harbor and many of them were removed with Executive Order 9066. The proximity to the Watts neighborhood also made it an undesireable place for white Americans to live.
Colors had just come out in April and it should a different side that people didn’t see among the gee-golly-gee save-the-community-center feel of Breakin’ 2. The C.R.A.S.H. units of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart Division had basically become a modern day version of the Gestapo Police. Intended to stand for Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums, then LAPD Chief Daryl Gates ordered Operation Hammer, a way to crack down on street crimes and violence that was later criticized for racial profiling.
So, it was almost fitting the B-side of the single would be “Fuck tha Police,” a somewhat comical but realistic protest song of the role of law enforcement not just in L.A. but all over the world. The song became controversial as any criticism of law enforcement at the time was seen as un-American and not-patriotic. Sound familiar? Those who say Back the Blue now would’ve been the same ones critcizing it back in 1988.
But for the members of N.W.A., it was a common form of everyday life to be harassed, arrested and even assaulted by law enforcement for no other reason than they were a different skin color. William Parker, who was chief before Gates, intentionally hired law enforcement from the Jim Crow south and other towns/cities were racial tensions were high. And while Eazy-E may have been a drug dealer, the rest were mostly law-abiding citizens. Performing the song would get them on the shit list of law enforcment and code enforcement for its public decency. It was like a modern-day censorship. Just as the Nazis demanded books to be burned, officials demanded the song not to be performed.
In an infamous action, a rogue FBI agent Milt Ahlerich had sent a critical letter claiming it was from top FBI officials. But N.W.A.’s manager Jerry Heller said Ahlerich was a “single pissed-off bureaucrat with a bully pulpit.” Ahlerich would say the song and others by N.W.A. was “were both discouraging and degrading to these brave, dedicated officers.” But like most music of the era, the more the powers that be criticized it, the more popular it became.
Released on Aug. 8, 1988, the album went gold by mid-April of 1989 selling half a million copies and went plantinum by mid-July 1989 surpassing one million copies. By the spring of 1990, it had sold two million copies and been certified double-platinum. Many of those sales (about 80 percent) were purchased from suburban white customers, which is very common among rap/hip-hop of the era and currently.
Ironically, the same summer that N.W.A. was breaking through Bobby McFerrin would release “Don’t Worry Be Happy” which seemed to represent what conservatives, Republicans and Christians (Oh, my!) wanted out of African-Americans in general. McFerrin was the Wayne Brady style singer white Americans who didn’t even say “dang” could enjoy. Public Enemy would later mock this song in their protest anthem “Fight the Power” which would be featured on Do the Right Thing.
African-American entertainers weren’t going to be censored and they definitely weren’t going to be silenced. Even Murphy, who had broken through with his time on SNL and movies like 48 Hrs. and Trading Places, was criticized for movies like Beverly Hills Cop II and Raw, his concert movie which had the record for the highest number of “fucks” in a movie for a while. Yes, even Murphy was now being criticized for being “too black.” What did people expect from a concert film called Raw? Now, it’s considered one of the best, most inspiring comedy films ever. (And his criticism of Cosby feels more like a premonition.) Hey, white people, Alfonso Ribero said he used part of Murphy’s “white people dance joke” when he’d dance The Carlton on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, so it’s not so bad.
Following a wave of movies and music in the 1970s, white America was telling them to “know their place.” But their place was changing pop culture and the entertainment industry. In the early 1990s, Lee along with Mario Van Peebles and the late John Singleton would make more movies with predominantly black casts helping change cinema with the indie craze of the decade. In Living Colour along with Roc, Martin and Living Single became popular on Fox. And an aspiring actress named Angela Bassett would work her way up from small roles in Kindergarten Cop to become one of the best respected actresses of all time.
Unfortunately, N.W.A. found themselves collapsing from within due to disputes over money, power and control of the songs. Heller and Eazy-E would find themselves fighting with the other members with Cube leaving followed by Dre. Cube and Dre would go on to have successful solo careers and Cube would venture into acting with Boyz N the Hood and later would write and star in Friday. His film career has been very active for the past 30 years. Dre would go on to be a successful businessman with Beats by Dre. Eazy-E would die in 1995 from AIDS-related pnuemonia. In 2015, N.W.A. would enjoy a resurgence of popularity as the biopic titled (what else?) Straight Outta Compton would open in the summer making over $200 million at the box office and introducing more people to their music.
They ended up becoming the forefathers of modern rap/hip-hop.
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Zane Says 