At a Time of Ferguson, Freddie Gray, 'Straight Outta Compton' Still Resonates Almost 30 Years Later
— -- Compton, California was where a group of young, gifted, black artists sparked a movement with a new sound no one had heard before in the late '80s.
Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, DJ Yella and MC Ren were the original members of N.W.A. Undeniably angry in their raw lyrics, they had a swagger that shocked the nation.
“The name is 'N****** With Attitudes'...you can't listen to N.W.A. asleep, you got to be wide awake,” Ice Cube, whose real name is O’Shea Jackson, told “Nightline” in a recent interview.
N.W.A. pushed back against police violence with a blunt object readily acceptable to them: Music, at a time when rap was still new.
“You know, it was our only weapon,” Ice Cube said.
In this year of Ferguson, Freddie Gray and Sandra Bland, N.W.A.’s lyrics still resonate almost 30 years later.
Their sounds from the street are now on the silver screen in a new biopic about the group that has been 10 years in the making called, “Straight Outta Compton,” in theaters Friday.
Ice Cube’s oldest son, O’Shea Jackson, Jr., plays his father in the movie.
“This movie is so relevant with the times because nothing's really changed, except, you know, we got camera phones,” Ice Cube said.
The movie takes its title from the group’s 1988 title album, back when N.W.A. says the federal government tried to censor them.
“We had the F.B.I. against us,” Ice Cube said. “We had major media against us...people who really didn't understand what we was about.”
The group formed in an era when crime in Compton was at an all-time high, crack cocaine was introduced to the streets and police were making routine gang sweeps. It was a time when if you were black, you felt like a target.
Before there was the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, N.W.A. started their own movement with a song that even today has the power to shock called “F*** Tha Police.”
The real-life group, shown in this 1989 photo below with rappers The D.O.C. and Laylaw, was prohibited from performing the song in some cities. But that didn’t stop them from performing it anyway.
Frederick Staves, a former gang leader of the Santana Block Crips, remembers when N.W.A. came out with that song.
“They basically were saying every black male in America is feeling because we weren't saying it out loud,” Staves told “Nightline.” “But when they were saying it we were feeling it because we had been through the bull**** so you know when they say f*** the police we was lovin’ it.”
Along with the controversial lyrics against the police, N.W.A. got a lot of criticism for their attitude towards women, heard in their song “Automobile.” They were also accused of being anti-Semitic and homophobic in their songs, which Ice Cube says is “a little unfair.”
“That's not who I'm about,” Ice Cube said. “You know, being a black man, you can't discriminate on anybody, and you shouldn't. And you should understand anybody's position, when they're being discriminated on, or when they're being singled out for their color or whatever. So, you know, that's something we're trying to fight. That ain't something we're trying to embrace.”
Now 46 and married for 23 years, Ice Cube has mellowed some, even if Compton hasn’t.
Today, the leading voice for change in Compton is not an edgy rap group, but an elegant, young female mayor with a degree in urban planning from nearby University of Southern California.
