Straight Outta Compton: N.W.A and the Authority Against the Unauthorized

By Christopher Barr │POSTED ON AUGUST. 18, 2015

Fuck tha police

Comin straight from the underground

Young nigga got it bad cuz I’m brown

And not the other color so police think

They have the authority to kill a minority

Fuck that shit, cuz I ain’t tha one

For a punk muthafucka with a badge and a gun

To be beatin on, and throwin in jail

We could go toe to toe in the middle of a cell

Fuckin with me cuz I’m a teenager

With a little bit of gold and a pager

Searchin my car, lookin for the product

Thinkin every nigga is sellin narcotics.

‘Fuck Tha Police’ - Ice Cube, N.W.A

Straight Outta Compton was an exciting biopic about an American gangsta rap, West Coast hip hop group called N.W.A (Niggaz Wit Attitudes) and their rise to fame while surviving the police in Compton, California.  The group was founded by Eazy-E and along with the DJ talents of Dr. Dre, N.W.A was born in 1986.  Soon Ice Cube, DJ Yella and MC Ren would join the group and they would release their debut album Straight Outta Compton in 1988.

Compton, California, certainly at the time when N.W.A came to be, was a crime ridden city in southern Los Angeles County. Black and Hispanic Gangs like the Bloods and the Cribs ruled over the various neighborhoods as the Los Angeles Police Department, often without cause, would randomly and violently harass and arrest young black men.  To be far, the rule of law in these neighborhoods was out of control.  Drugs and various other crimes were committed by many of Compton’s residents.   

The problem here, which Straight Outta Compton dealt brilliantly with was the racial profiling side of the violence of Compton.  The LAPD seemed so out matched that their officers patrolling the streets of Compton became cynical and ultimately apathetic to the city’s residents.  Many young black men, who were not committing any crimes were often treated like criminals by the police.  This, quite understandably, divided the people of Compton from the very police assigned to their city to protect them from actual criminals.

The hypocrisy of this dynamic was often present in this revealing film.  These urban youth felt that they needed to survive the gang ridden criminality and the police on a daily basis while trying to go to school or even walk down the street on their way to the store.  The attitudes that subsequently had to develop were tough and that could appear to the police as ‘gangsta’ when all these youths were trying to do was what was needed to survive and live another day.

There was a scene early in the film when a school bus was pulled over by a couple of gang members because teenagers in the bus were yelling out the window at them.  Ice Cube was writing song lyrics when one of these gang members pulled a gun and threatened them all, advising them to not fuck with him.  This was daily life in Compton which N.W.A would later try to reveal to the world. 

Most people in the first world, along with this very writer, have really no idea what it must have been like to live in a place where the ‘good-guys’ and the ‘bad-guys’ both existed in gray areas, and where were both equal threats.  One’s ability to trust other people would be in turmoil.  No wonder the youth would stick to tight groups and fight for each other to the death if need be.  ‘War-zone’ might be an exaggeration but to a young person with no other environment to compare it to, this could easily feel like soldiers in the trenches being abandon by the very people they were brought up to believe would be there for them. 

Straight Outta Compton was about a group of talented young black men that expressed themselves, through embellished lyrics and heavy bass-driven thumps, conveying their desire not only to survive the trenches of their neighborhoods but also the nationally little known hypocrisy that made up their daily lives.

There’s also this Stockholm Syndrome of Compton that is present in this film where these young men love where they’re from.  Their identity is balled up in what they hate and what they love about where they’re from.  They want Compton on the map, for it to be known to the world but yet are consumed by its oppression, its instability, its racism, and its violence.  Psychologically this must be forever damaging.  These young men and women were brought up in a place where shots were fired hourly and where their protectors hate them for reasons neither side understand, but its home.

Home is a funny place because in spite of its bad memories, its decay, it’s still home, which is all we know, until we leave, if we do, and discover possibly better parts of the world.  For most people though, home is still home, no matter what bad memories existed there.  Home is where a person first connects to the tribe and that connection is often a lifelong one for most.

N.W.A expressed their love and their hate for their home in every song they jackhammer their audience with.  We shouldn’t forget though that most of these boys were teenagers, singing about these violent but ultimately expressive ideas.  Most of us were barely dealing with pimples and girls let alone dealing with the idea of being actually shot at for whatever reason.

“FUCK THA POLICE” I’m taking your black ass to jail.

N.W.A had a problem with the police and ultimately authority which in the street, the police represented.  As much as we want to apply the ‘law’ to the reasons as to why the police justified themselves, it’s hard to think about liberalism and freedom of expression and find a problem with what these artists were explicitly expressing themselves.

That said, these young men were not without their faults.  They carried guns and threated the lives of other people, they stood up to people and were willing to kill but yet didn’t.  Some of these boys went to jail and some didn’t but the ‘hood’ either way was breed in them all.  They made a record that expressed their ground, their plight, their war, which was received well in the community and across the nation but not by everyone.  Some decided to steamroll over many of their albums.

Straight Outta Compton showed these boys gained fame but also dealt with White America and the problem with the reality of their lyrics.  In Detroit they got arrested because they were ordered to not sing ‘Fuck Tha Police’ but they did anyway.  The FBI investigated them because of their decent.  This band was not popular among many groups, religious and minority, across the country.

What was really being rebelled against here?  White America, as they believe today, oppressed black people for reasons, without logic, that most people in the states still can’t explain for fear of sounding publically racist.  Black people are not equal, the problem is sadly our culture still perpetuates this.  Why?

Why?

There isn’t anything biologically that qualifies this line of thinking, so what is it?  Tradition.  Our ancestors believed in something ludicrous, just as they did with religion, and many to this day, stupid people, follow this line of non-thinking.  We do what our dad did and avoid going beyond him, mind and spirit.  Racist, simplistic thought are what the world has in common and what it needs to get rid of (ideally).

Straight Outta Compton dealt with the Rodney King beating and trial, which resulted in an acquittal for the police officers involved in the beating.   The LA riots occurred as these young men from Compton revaluated their own reality.  The question here is; what are they doing?  Are they causing problems in society or are they waking it up, and are these two questions mutually elusive?

With Ferguson and many other examples of police brutality against black people, to this very day unfortunately, conveys a reality that N.W.A rapped about over two decades ago.  White America still can’t equally accept black people into the American Dream.  The reality is; is black people are seen as black people and not people.  As much as this writer wished that this wasn’t the case, all one has to do is watch the news.  Objectively black people are simply people with dark skin, which we all started from back in Kenya before global migration happened.

Police brutality has become this license to beat down minorities and ultimately fuel the very cause as to why certain minority groups are not allowed to participate in the white man’s version of the happiness.  Straight Outta Compton represents these very minorities that artistically fought through the white man’s dream to stamp their claim to freedom.

N.W.A ended up going their separate ways after Ice Cube moved on and went solo. Eazy-E stuck with Dre for a bit before Dre went off and created Death Row. Eazy-E got sick and was diagnosed with AIDS, he died in 1995.

In the end, the film was about expression in the face of incredible odds.  Tupac, Eminem, 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg and many others, where not only influenced by N.W.A but were financed and produced by Dr. Dre himself.