From Huff Post Black Voices:
N.W.A. pushed the envelope like no other rap group.
Members Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, DJ Yella and MC Ren — the latter of whom?replaced founding member Arabian Prince?– were before their time. They questioned the law enforcement’s racially biased tactics in Los Angeles and were probably the voice of many black Americans at the time who felt overlooked and misunderstood. Nothing could censor these young Compton natives, including a?FBI warning, arrest threats for performing police-bashing songs?or general public criticism.
“Straight Outta Compton,” produced by Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, delves into the members’ kinship, music and finances. A prominent — and timely– theme the film touches on is the constant racial profiling of the group’s members by the police.
The police brutality of the late ’80s and early ’90s (i.e. the brutal beating of Rodney King in 1992), some of which is shown in the film, resonates with the problems the black community still faces today. So far in 2015, U.S. police and other law enforcement agencies have killed more than 700 people, according to “The Counted,” The Guardian’s database which records the number of people killed by the police nationwide. And almost 26 percent of those people were black.
For many, N.W.A’s music was a call for change and the soundtrack to a revolution. Before the biopic hits theaters on Aug. 14, let’s reminisce on a few classic tracks from the legendary hip-hop group and its individual members that are still all too real.
Read more at Huff Post Black Voices.
