You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge….
I have returned once again just in time to properly commemorate a special hip hop milestone and one of my personal favorite albums of all time. Straight Outta Compton, the now TRIPLE-platinum-selling classic debut studio album from legendary West Coast gangsta rap supergroup N.W.A, celebrates its landmark 30th(!) anniversary today. This was probably the first album to launch hardcore gangsta rap with unapologetic full force (and I’m certainly not referring to the old school R&B group/production collective that made hits with Lisa Lisa); undoubtedly a revolutionary benchmark album for the culture, appropriately released in what was arguably the best year for Golden Era hip hop albums, 1988, alongside equally timeless releases from Public Enemy, EPMD, Slick Rick, Big Daddy Kane, Boogie Down Productions and countless others. It would additionally be the second full-length release from founding group member Eazy-E’s Ruthless Records, with distribution from Priority Records.
The production by Dr. Dre and DJ Yella is considerably harder, funkier and more sample-heavy than the duo’s previous work for the World Class Wreckin’ Cru (of which Dre and Yella were both members), and the emcee skills, vocal presence and charisma of Ice Cube, Eazy-E, MC Ren and Dre are expressed with supreme confidence. Cube and Ren also flex their ghostwriting skills on here, as the two wrote the lyrics for most of the album. As such, virtually every song on Straight Outta Compton is noteworthy in its own right. The singles “Gangsta Gangsta” and “Express Yourself” offer a sharp contrast between the unflinching glorification of violence and delinquent behavior versus taking personal responsibility and becoming self-aware, with Cube and Eazy dominating the former while Dre shines on the mic solo on the latter. The brilliant anti-police brutality and harassment protest anthem “Fuck Tha Police” (which is sadly still all too relevant today, three decades after the fact) creatively uses a courtroom scene and accompanying skits in between the verses to help drive the message forward; De La Soul is often credited as the first hip hop act to use skits on an album (see their classic Prince Paul-produced 1989 debut album 3 Feet High And Rising), but with “Fuck Tha Police”, it would seem that N.W.A has them beat by a year.
The early single and B-side “8 Ball” and “Dope Man” are respectively presented here in their remixed versions, while the posse cut “Parental Discretion Iz Advised” features an opening verse from close affiliate Tracy “The D.O.C.” Curry (who also ghostwrote on a couple tracks). The latter would go on to release his own classic debut album No One Can Do It Better the following year with N.W.A in his corner before his vocal chords were drastically altered in a life-threatening car accident; he would soon after be credited as one of the crucial ghostwriting forces behind Dre’s essential 1992 solo masterwork The Chronic. The Dre/Ren duet “Something Like That” and even the lighthearted closing dance floor joint “Something 2 Dance 2” are additional highlights on Straight Outta Compton, as are the respective Cube and Ren solo cuts “I Ain’t Tha 1” and “If It Ain’t Ruff”; the former being a humorous (and notably curse-free) cautionary tale against gold-digging women, while the latter serves as a fine example of Ren’s mic skills and makes one wonder why he often got overshadowed by his fellow group members. It should also be noted that the title track is one of the best hip hop album openers of all time, and the album cover ranks among the most iconic in the culture’s history.
As groundbreaking and controversial as this shit was at the time (let us not forget that “Fuck Tha Police” alone earned the group the moniker “The World’s Most Dangerous Group” as well as a personal letter from the FBI!), the N***az Wit Attitudes’ next album (1991’s Efil4zaggin) would step things up a notch or two and push the envelope both musically and in terms of explicit content, even without Ice Cube. Straight Outta Compton‘s recent ascension to triple platinum status within the past few years can be largely attributed to the popular and critically acclaimed N.W.A biopic of the same name released in 2015. The group has also since been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, making them only the fifth hip hop act to hold such an honor, while Straight Outta Compton became the first hip hop album to be inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame in 2016. Furthermore, it holds the distinction of being one of very few classic hip hop releases to receive its own tribute album. In 1998, Priority Records released Straight Outta Compton: 10th Anniversary Tribute, containing new versions of the album’s songs performed by such hip hop luminaries as Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Snoop Dogg, WC, Ant Banks, Silkk The Shocker, Mack 10 and many more; the glaring highlight of this compilation is Big Punisher, Fat Joe and Cuban Link’s rendition of “Quiet On Tha Set”, which eclipses the original in my opinion.
Along with all the numerous accolades and praise from major publications and institutions that have solidified Straight Outta Compton‘s legacy in the three decades since its release, this joint will always be extra special for me personally, as it was one of the first full-length hip hop albums I bought with my own money and had to hide from my semi-strict parents; I initially copped it in 1999 while on my eighth grade class trip to Washington D.C. and never looked back. Times have certainly changed, but an album of this magnitude and importance will always reign supreme on the strength of street knowledge.
R.I.P. Eric “Eazy-E” Wright (1963-1995) and Happy West Coast Wednesday y’all….
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMZi25Pq3T8]
StretchCorleone
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