NWA - STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON @ 45

Marking its 45th anniversary today is the debut LP from NWA (N****s With Attitude), Straight Outta Compton, which was released on August 8th, 1988. For many, this was the album which announced the arrival of "gangsta rap", giving the fledgling genre a sense of danger and risk which it had only flirted with up to this point.

Prior to the release of Straight Outta Compton, the rap music scene of the mid 80s was commercially dominated by mostly innocuous "party" music, built on electro-funk grooves and principally concerned with fairly non-threatening subjects. While the genre had debuted in the mainstream with a sense of social conscience on tracks like The Message and White Lines, the mainstream of the time was mostly filled with themes of hanging out, and having a good time. With NYC as the birthplace of the sound, the West Coast scene was largely overlooked as inconsequential. That all changed with NWA.

Formed in 1987, NWA brought together MCs Ice Cube, Dr Dre and Eazy-E. Relative unknowns at the time, they'd go on to become iconic names after the release of this album. Musically, driven by DJ Yella and the Arabian Prince, the sound slowed the groove and dragged it away from the Kraftwerk inspired thrust of Planet Rock, into a downtempo heaviness, built on sampled R&B & jazz records and anchored by the booming kick of Roland's TR-808 drum machine. Lyrically, the album pierced the furiously raw nerve of urban black alienation, dispensing with any restraint or politeness and thrusting expletives into the faces of unsuspecting listeners. Unlike the controversies around something like 2 Live Crew and their focus on vulgar sexuality, NWA's outrages came from a sense of revolution against authority, no more perfectly vocalized than by the album's most notorious track, Fuck the Police.

The sheer audaciousness of Fuck the Police became one of the driving factors in making this record such a notorious hit. The song even merited a stern warning from the FBI to the group, and police were refusing to work security at their shows. All of this blow-back from the authorities, however, only served to intensify the group's notoriety and publicity. While radio stations flatly turned away from the album, it still sold in the millions thanks to the shock factor that was unleashed by that track. I can clearly recall the sense of awe that swept my own social circle as this record hit our turntables. We'd never heard anything like it. It was so stark, so angry and so firmly footed against its oppressors. Someone had finally given voice to the deep outrage that was fuming in the guts of the disenfranchised urban cores of North America. It was a moment when you realized it should have been said so much sooner, but that it was about fucking time that it finally hit the mainstream.

While this new breed of rap uncovered the harsh realities of city life, it also unleashed a kind of misogyny which would form the unfortunate alternate thrust of this double edged sword. Women became "bitches and 'ho's" and subjects of abuse. It's only one of the more uncomfortable aspects of the genre which only became exaggerated in later years as the culture became less concerned with communicating the social injustices of the disenfranchised and more focused on the braggadocio of wealth, sexual prowess, violent confrontations and social status.

Yet at its best, NWA and Straight Outta Compton offered a desperately needed reality check for a culture which has continued to decline as disparities between classes continue to be aggravated. Along with Public Enemy on the East Coast, they brought rap music into the '90s with a sense of danger and urgency that has not been equalled since those heady heydays. This was likely the last time, in my recollection, when music was able to upset the establishment in a way which had any real impact. There hasn't been a musical movement since then which has threatened the mainstream in such a tangible and visceral way. However, such rage and determination has since been co-opted into mere consumerism for the 21st century, with artists assessed based on the quality of the footwear they put their names to instead of the validity of their message. That's not to say there aren't those still speaking truth to power, but those voices seem more pushed to the fringes rather than occupying the culture's central ranks.