“N.W.A: The First Voice of The #BlackLivesMatter Movement”
Sean Bell, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Raymond Allen, and Walter William DeLeon are just some of the black lives that this country has lost to vicious police brutality in previous years. This ongoing trend of police brutality towards minorities has been going on for centuries now. A musical group by the name of N.W.A “Niggas With Attitude” was one of the first rap groups to bring light to this topic back in the late 1980’s. Reprimanded and ridiculed for their violent lyrics and hatred of the LAPD, N.W.A was really the first voice of the #Blacklivesmatter movement.
N.W.A was a hip hop group from Compton, California. They were one of the first musical groups to be a pioneer of the gangsta rap and West Coast hip hop subgenres, and is thought to be one of the more impressionable groups in the history of hip hop music. N.W.A was comprised of five members: Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, DJ Yella, and MC Ren. The group was founded by Erick “Eazy-E” Wright in 1986. Eazy-E was first introduced to Dr. Dre, and N.W.A consisted of just Eazy-E and Dr. Dre. Dr. Dre brought DJ Yella on board. Dr. Dre and Yella were both formerly members of the World Class Wreckin’ Cru. Ice Cube was added to the lineup after he started out as a rapper for the group “C.I.A.”. MC Ren joined N.W.A in 1988.
N.W.A put out their first studio album, Straight Outta Compton, in 1988. From the first track off their debut album the group reflected the rising anger and frustrations of urban youth. The opening song “Straight Outta Compton” introduced the group, then “F— tha Police” protested police brutality and racial profiling, and “Gangsta Gangsta” painted the worldview of the inner-city youth. Growing up as children in the Compton and South Central areas of L.A., they were no strangers to the violence that was plaguing the community. They were often wrongfully accused and assaulted on a daily basis by the LAPD. Based solely on how they dressed and the type of music they listened to, the youth were often thought to be associated with various street gangs, which was not the case. Ice Cube recently quoted in an interview with CBS News “The situation at the time was Daryl Gates, who as the chief of police, chief of the LAPD, had declared a war on gangs. Now to a law-abiding citizen, a war on gangs seems like a good idea, but if the cops think every single black, young male or brown, young male looked like a gangbanger, dressed like a gangbanger, well, now it’s a war on young, black males.”
“F— tha Police” is a protest song by N.W.A that appears on the album Straight Outta Compton. The song is listed at number 425 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Protesting police brutality and racial profiling, its lyrics express approval of violence against police. But the real message behind this song was that young black lives matter. N.W.A wanted the world to know that the inner city youth were being wrongfully violated and stereotyped by the police. They felt that as black men they were entitled to their civil liberties and the police were denying them that right. Milt Ahlerich, an assistant director of the FBI, sent a letter to N.W.A and its distribution company Priority Records, advising the group that “”F— tha Police” was advocating violence and assault, and is wrong and we in the law enforcement community take exception to such action.” The letter can actually still be viewed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. Since its release in 1988, the “F— tha Police” slogan continues to influence pop culture today in the form of t-shirts and different types of artwork.
The mentality of minorities nowadays is still like this. They don’t see law enforcement as their friend, but their enemy. The reason for this is because the police are killing the young black youth now in present day just as they were thirty years ago. The youth in urban communities are still being racially profiled, and it’s not a secret. Law enforcement has been killing people for decades. With police brutality becoming more visible, and thanks to social media and traditional news media, the need to catalog relevant demographic and geographic information about victims has become a national priority. Also, thanks to organizations such as Black Lives Matter that shed some light on the problem, now the government and politicians are at least talking about these topics during debates and interviews. Still, more needs to be done. There needs to be action, and this is exactly what N.W.A was expressing through their music. This is the effect that the group has over the culture now. They were the first voices of the Black Lives Matter Movement. They were one of the first rap groups to let us know that action needs to be taken in the inner city communities.
August 14th was the release date of the N.W.A biopic titled “Straight Outta Compton”. The movie was produced by former N.W.A members Dr. Dre and Ice Cube. Opening weekend the movie did an astonishing $56,100,000. The budget for the movie was an estimated $29,000,000. This was by far the biggest opening weekend for an R rated movie ever. Again this just goes to show you the influence and the impact that the group had. Dr. Dre produced the soundtrack for the movie. The soundtrack is called “Compton: A Soundtrack by Dr. Dre”. This is rumored to be the last album Dr. Dre will ever put out.
by Tamoya Daum
