The Strength of Street Knowledge

One of the best things about “Straight Outta Compton” was how it illustrated how much the “Boyz in the Hood” were just like most of us, boys in the hood. I was reminded how much I related to the individual members of N.W.A. In middle school I was a DJ like Dr. Dre, with an immense love of old school R&B and funk and hip-hop. As a matter of fact, one of my first and favorite records I ever owned was by Dr. Dre’s first group, the World Class Wrecking Crew. By high school I was an aspiring rapper with notebooks and notebooks of raps much like Ice Cube in the film. By my senior year, I was an ambitious small time gangster like Eazy E.

The docudrama “Straight Outta Compton” is, for me, a nostalgic ride back through some of my most formative years. When the film begins its narrative back in 1986. I was still a naive, relatively innocent middle school student. By the film’s closing credits, sometime around 1996, I was among other things, a two time felon and single father who had long ago lost his innocence to the street life I was living. N.W.A. and the “gangsta rap” genre of music they created provided both the soundtrack and blueprint for that life that I and thousands of young Black men led.

"Whoever said that what I say and portray is negativity/Need to come kick it in the city with me" - Dr. Dre "Appetite for Destruction"

It was immediately obvious to just about anyone who heard N.W.A.’s music for the first time that it was revolutionary - on multiple levels. Yes, artists like Bob Dylan and Marvin Gaye through music and lyrical social commentary, impacted lives and advocated for social issues way before N.W.A --  but this was different. The world was different.

We were one generation removed from Jim Crow but still one generation away from Barack Obama.

The Cold War, played second fiddle to the War on Drugs and the War on Crime. The assassinations and marginalization of most of our Black leaders created a social unease that even children could pick up on. Especially in urban areas across America like South-Central LA where N.W.A. was formed,  Black people were increasingly the main casualties in the so called “War on Drugs”.

Neighborhoods were violently divided in turf wars between armed gangs. Children were being literally and figuratively orphaned due to their parents addictions to or incarcerations for selling or buying crack. Police were notoriously racist, dirty and excessively violent and in many cases just as dangerous as the gangs. And N.W.A. spoke to all of that. Well.

“Homies all standing around just hangin’/ Some dope dealin. Some gangbangin.” - Ice Cube “Gangsta Gangsta”

 

Christmas of 1989 I got two presents that changed my life. A Radio Shack version of a Sony Walkman and a cassette tape copy of Straight Outta Compton. I listened to that tape every day as I rode the city bus to and from school.

I was a 15 year old sophomore at George Washington. a Denver Public School that had been blindsided by the burgeoning gang presence. Gradually more and more of the friends I had rode bikes with, played childhood games with and simply grown up with began to either associate themselves with or flat out became full fledged members of LA style gangs. Additionally, many of us acquired a certain financial independence from selling crack.  

We imagined ourselves as the next Tony Montana, or even better - the actual Dopeman that Ice Cube and Eazy E rapped about being in the song of the same name. Through lyrics penned by Ice Cube and MC Ren, Eazy E convinced the me and millions of others that he was the super successful, invincible, gangbangin drug dealin, hypersexual fifteen year old who he portrayed himself as.  

That image became one of the most prevalent models of what success looked like for a young black man. Never-mind, the reality, unknown to us then, was that Eazy E, was actually Eric Wright, a 25 year old ex drug dealer who got out of the business due to too many close calls with the law and brushes with death.   

Portraying himself 10 years younger than his actual age was a brilliant marketing strategy most likely conceived of by his business partner, Jerry Heller, a music industry executive with years of experience in marketing and record sales. Eric 'Eazy E" Wright and Heller created a character which was irresistible to a generation of young Black and Hispanic men because he was an anti-hero.

Through his songs with lyrics like “money up to here but unemployed” and “Yeah, high rollin/big money I’m foldin.”, Eazy and N.W.A. painted a distorted picture of what success looked like for us, young black men.

I know no one in my generation, the hip-hop generation or Generation X, as we were called, realized then how influential (and possibly detrimental) the music was to our mindsets.

We emulated NWA in every way. We wore Starter jackets, sports apparel, flannel shirts and Dickies just like the west coast gangsters/rappers. We modeled ourselves after N.W.A. so much so that shortly after attending a N.W.A. concert, the rap group I formed with two of my friends performed at a family talent show and made complete fools of ourselves. With white bandanas hanging from our back pockets, just like N.W.A. did. We rapped a completely inappropriate song in front of a bunch of elementary school aged kids and their parents, titled “On the Tip of a Gangsta” with lyrics that spoke to doing a drive-by from the back of Santa Claus’s sleigh.  

It was personal experiences like this  which link viewers like me the to the personal experiences of Andre, O’Shea, Eric and Lorenzo (better known as Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Eazy E, and MC Ren) that make “Straight Outta Compton” such a good film. The screenplay is written from such an authentic place that the audience relives certain scenes like a shared memory. No, we may not have been there for those particular conversations 25 years ago, but most certainly we had a very similar conversation with our group of friends in similar settings.

Because it’s a biopic, almost everything about the movie is familiar but thanks to the actual members of N.W.A.’s (and Eazy’s widow and co-executive producer, Tomica Wright’s) involvement in the writing and production, even the most hardcore, diehard fans are treated to untold details about how certain songs were written and produced and even some dirty laundry aired which tells the backstory of the infamous feuds that eventually made hip-hop history.

Unlike made-for-TV movies like the Jacksons or The Temptations, or the sanitized television MTV, VH1 documentaries “Straight Outta Compton” doesn’t gloss over many details. Even what role lesser known players like rappers D.O.C and producer like Sir Jinx played in the formation of the group is explored. The audience feels like a fly on the wall when we get to witness the guys hilarious reaction when first hearing Ice Cube’s diss song “No Vaseline”.

Because the writing, production, and acting are so well done, the on screen retelling of how one of Dre’s most masterful instrumentals was essentially an orphan until an encounter with some racist police officers directly outside of the studio inspired Ice Cube to write the groups (and maybe hip-hop’s) most notorious song, feels like a vicarious experience.

The music, which is equally important to the film as the story, is visceral. Many times throughout the movie, the audience would rap along out loud just like if we were back in 1990 listening to a cassette tape at a house party. The few times that new music appears in the film’s score, it is instantly recognizable as Dre’s signature west coast sound and only compliments - never distracts from the movie.

You would think that a movie about five young black men from the mean streets of Compton wouldn’t be funny or emotional but it is both, and very much so. The dialog and the transparent acting creates many, many laugh out loud moments. Great casting and skilled acting from a mostly unknown cast even during some of the most dramatic scenes allows you to forget that they are just actors portraying superstars most of us grew up knowing, not the actual people.  

The 147 minute running time is a bit long however it’s with reason and forgivable since the movie is so entertaining from beginning to end. It understandably requires over two hours to reveal the details about Dre’s relationship with Suge Knight and Death Row, Ice Cube’s solo career, Eric’s illness and other events that led up to the current state of N.W.A. and its members. Rather than end the film with the dissolution of the group, the film details the “aftermath” of the breakup.

Ultimately, “Straight Outta Compton” benefits from co-executive producer O’Shea “Ice Cube” Jackson’s post N.W.A. career in Hollywood. This wasn’t a rookie effort from him nor “Friday’ director F. Gary Gray. Their decades of movie making experience coupled with their passion for this personal of a project produced one of the best films of the year and quite honestly, maybe the best film about a musical group since Robert Townsend’s 1991 film, “The Five Heartbeats”, a movie based on the Motown R&B group The Temptations.

Times and society have changed dramatically. I remember vividly when political correctness didn’t prevent reporters from explicitly clarifying exactly for what the “N” stood when they discussed the controversial new rap group N.W.A.  The debate continues how negatively N.W.A. impacted culture or how much they are responsible for the downfall of those who looked up to them as role models. There is no question that N.W.A. were pioneers who paved the way for contemporary hip-hop artists who are less “journalist” as Ice Cube once described himself and more exaggerated characters in the vein of Eazy E. A little over a year ago, Dr. Dre became the first hip-hop billionaire. Ice Cube has become a icon in both music and film making some of the top grossing independent movies of all time and selling millions and millions of records over the past two decades. Eazy E’s legacy became a cautionary tale about the dangers of excess and singlehandedly, raised awareness about HIV and AIDS more than any other campaign before or after his death.

Those lessons about of what success, friendship, loyalty, racism, constitutional rights and death really mean are the strength of the street knowledge that “Straight Outta Compton” - both the classic album and the film - warned you about to witness.