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.
