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In 1988, N.W.A. changed the course of popular music with their debut album, Straight Outta Compton. It wasn’t the first or the best "gangsta rap" album, but Straight Outta Compton sold two million copies, proving that white American teenagers hungered for profanity-laden, hardcore rap music. This month, Priority Records is celebrating their lucrative discovery with the 20th anniversary re-release of N.W.A.’s now-classic record.
 Gangsta, gangsta, that’s what we’re yellin’! N.W.A.’s landmark rap record Straight Outta Compton celebrates 20 years of hard knocks and Richard Pryor-inspired swearing. |
The re-issue includes four bonus tracks featuring gangsta rap stars like Snoop Dogg and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony performing updated versions of N.W.A. hits "If It Ain’t Ruff," "Gangsta Gangsta," "Dopeman" and "Fuck Tha Police," as well as a live version of "Compton’s In Tha House." But these covers sound like tepid tack-ons compared to the fury of the original tracks, especially the incendiary title track and "Fuck Tha Police," the song that punched N.W.A.’s ticket to fame. When the F.B.I. publicly condemned the song, Straight Outta Compton became a must-have for white teens eager to shock their parents.
Ironically, gangsta rap started out as a big joke. It was the raunchy comedy of Richard Pryor that introduced teenage buddies Andre "Dr. Dre" Young and O’Shea "Ice Cube" Jackson to the power of naughty words. Indeed, Straight Outta Compton captures the essential appeal of gangsta rap: After a long day, a bass-heavy tune full of f-bombs on the joys of smoking weed and killing one’s enemies somehow hits the spot.
Music video for N.W.A.’s "Straight Outta Compton." [Warning for suckas: Some content is mothaf#$%ing crude, yo.] |
Record executives that had scorned N.W.A. as vulgar and unlistenable soon embraced gangsta rap. Talented hip-hop artists found themselves pushed aside in favor of so-called authentic thugs. Gangsta rap began to resemble a new kind of minstrel show playing on age-old white stereotypes and, in a sad tale of life imitating art, rappers Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls both died as a result of a feud between California and New York gangsta-rap record companies.
Twenty years after Straight Outta Compton, the hip-hop industry is still rehashing N.W.A.’s blueprint. Perhaps the reissue of Straight Outta Compton will remind hip-hop fans how that record rose from the underground by defying expectations. Maybe they’ll wonder about the talent currently being ignored by a hip-hop industry fixated on a style that’s now 20 years old and counting.
