2015. Within three months, the movie "Straight Outta Compton", a biopic on the NWA that traces the entire history of the group, was released worldwide, describing the rapid rise and fall of one of the most important rap groups ever.
Also produced by Ice Cube, Dr. Dre and Eazy-E's widow Tomica Woods-Wright, with the advice of MC Ren and DJ Yella, the film garnered numerous awards and accolades, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. In addition, it inspires the third and probably final studio album in Dr. Dre's career, which releases "Compton" in the same year, 17 years after his last album: it debuts charting #2 in the United States and is a global success, published only a week after the release of the film, managing to create a big promotion for the biopic.
The movie soundtrack, composed almost entirely of NWA tracks, also ranks first among hip-hop albums. It brings to the minds of many fans, a group that lasted very few years, just four, and that broke up almost twenty-five years earlier. Last but not least, one of the historical tracks, indeed, the first historical song made by those guys who will soon become the core of the NWA, manages to enter the US charts for the first time after its inclusion in the soundtrack of the film: is "Boyz-N-The-Hood".
1986. Passionate about basketball and hip-hop, Andre Young attends the Eve After Dark, a place where several rappers and amateur DJs perform live: inspired by Julius Erving, he becomes one of the club's DJs under the moniker Dr. J. Later, in the club he meets Antoine "DJ Yella" Carraby and with him he decides to start recording demos in the small studio inside the club. Around this time, Young removes the J from his moniker and merges his name, changing it to the definitive Dr. Dre. The electro group World Class Wreckin Cru also debuts at the club, managed by the Kru-Cut label of Alonzo Williams, one of the first West Coast DJs to gain popularity in LA, as well as being the owner of the same club: in 1984, Dre and Yella, join the group.
In 1985 the group released its first studio album, achieving some success — despite the much-criticized sequin dresses inspired by Michael Jackson and Prince, which were later reprised in the Eazy-E dissing in the nineties — and are signed by Epic Records / CBS. In the same period, the group of Tony "Sir Jinx" Wheaton, cousin of Dr. Dre, consisting of O'Shea "Ice Cube" Jackson and Darrel "Kid Disaster" Johnson aka K-Dee, performed at parties organized by Dre. The group takes the name of Stereo Crew and has a single with Epic Records, but the label cuts the trio due to poor sales: Stereo Crew sign with Kru-Cut Records and change their name to Cru' in Action aka The C.I.A. Ice Cube shows off his writing talent right away and starts ghostwriting for World Class Wreckin' Cru: they get a decent following, but Dre isn't completely satisfied with the group's creative direction.
He's working on some projects by entrepreneur Eric Wright in Alonzo Williams' studios when, in 1986, he ends up in jail for failing to go to court following several traffic violations. Alonzo Williams has already saved him in the past, paying him the bail, this time he decides not to: Eric Wright shows up, who in exchange for the bail payment asks that the boy be the producer of his label. While other World Class Wreckin' Cru members fail or end up in church, Young and Carraby leave the group.
Eric "Eazy-E" Wright is a former drug dealer and former member of a local gang linked to the Crips, with the money he earned illegally he wants to start the music industry by founding a hip-hop label: Ruthless Records is born, to which Dr. Dre and Ice Cube join, fresh out of the C.I.A. group after the release of the unique EP in 1987, produced by Dre himself. The backbone of one of the greatest groups in the history of hip-hop music was born: Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, DJ Yella, and Kim "Arabian Prince" Nazel — later replaced by Lorenzo "MC Ren" Patterson — all natives of Compton, will form Niggaz Wit Attitude, the NWA.
One of the first songs that the Ruthless production team, also composed of DJ Yella and Arabian Prince, produces is "Boyz-N-The-Hood": the song is provided for the New York group Home Boys Only (HBO), who signed to Ruthless and came to California to perform the song at a recording studio in Torrance, but when the group sees the lyrics they decide to reject the song. Dre, who serves as executive producer on Wright's label, and DJ Yella who are currently in the recording studio — without Ice Cube — are sure the song is pretty good and convince Wright to perform it himself: under the pseudonym of Eazy-E, Wright goes to the studio and records the cut.
They were right, because it's the first of a long series of documents that testify to the lyrical genius of Ice Cube: released as a single, the song achieves great local success and sells over 200,000 physical copies. Eazy-E decides to found a hip-hop collective, the Niggaz Wit Attitudes (NWA), initially composed of Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, DJ Yella and Arabian Prince. With these effects, the following year the group releases what should be an eponymous EP, which is stretched by Macola Records with a few tracks of the affiliates, mainly from Tracy "The D.O.C." Curry group, Fila Fresh Crew, up to a total of eleven choices, bringing the record to a sort of compilation: the record is party / electro-oriented and gets neither much success nor much attention towards NWA. The following year, the group renounced Arabian Prince and replaced him with MC Ren, changing their sound and introducing a musical choice very similar to the one that the New York hip-hop group Public Enemy were performing at the same time, changing its lyricism: while Chuck D's group focuses mainly on political and socio-conscious themes, the NWA decide to tackle more violent and closely related issues to the ghetto.
1988. Several female figures contributed in part to the group's success and collaborated closely with the group, including JJ Fad, Michel'e, Tairrie B and Yo-Yo, but were soon forgotten — and completely excluded from the 2015 biopic, for example — overshadowed by the release of "Straight Outta Compton", an album that dominated the hip-hop music scene of the period, without having the support of radio, press or television, and sparked controversy due to its violent lyrics, as much that the media begins to name the NWA as a gangster rap group.
The following months, the FBI asks the NWA to stop performing the song "F*** The Police" because it encourages violence against law enforcement, but the group doesn't give up: the FBI sends a letter to both the group and to the labels of Ruthless and Priority, which distributed the album. Meanwhile, group manager Jerry Heller, former manager of both Ice Cube's The CIA and Dre and Yella's World Class Wreckin' Cru, who has signed a deal with Eazy and secured the role of co-owner of Ruthless in the spring 1987, he's playing with the contracts of the individual members in the Ruthless: Ice Cube wrote most of the lyrics on their hit album and feels he hasn't been adequately paid for his contributions, and would be forced to sign a new contract without a legal representative, he refuses and leaves the group.
It's the beginning of the end: the most socio-conscious, the most political, the heaviest and clever part of the NWA is gone. Ice Cube comes out with his solo debut, "AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted" (1990) and the album soon becomes a huge success with audiences and critics. The NWA respond to Cube with the EP "100 Miles and Runnin'" (1990), in which they openly attack the MC, which in turn responds the following year with the lethal dissing "No Vaseline", present in its second album, "Death Certificate" (1991), once again hailed as a classic by both fans and professionals. It's a massacre for everyone: released at the end of October 1991, "No Vaseline" symbolically puts an end to the life of the group.
1992. After their latest album, NWA disbanded. Dr. Dre hires Suge Knight as manager, the money didn't even reach him and he realized it late: Dre also leaves NWA and founded Death Row Records with Suge Knight and The D.O.C. in early 1992, followed later also by Michel'e. The former NWA still has a contract with the group that cannot be violated: somehow, Knight manages to convince Eazy-E and Jerry Heller to let the producer out of the group. At Death Row, Dre begins collaborating with new artists, including Snoop Dogg, with whom he produces his debut solo album "The Chronic" (1992), which sells over five million copies and sets a new standard for West Coast records with its g-funk musicality and hardcore lyrics.
In the following years, a feud begins and goes on between Dr. Dre and Eazy-E, who trade shots on their respective solo albums: the producer realizes "F*** Wit Dre Day" (1992), Eazy responds with an entire EP led by the single banger "Real Muthaphuckkin G's" (1993). During the same period, MC Ren and DJ Yella also debuted with their solo records, but unlike the other members of the group, their efforts are ignored by audiences and critics. Eazy-E fails to make his way into the rap scene of the period and in 1995, realizing that Heller stole money from him too, fires him and tries to reconcile with Dre and Ice Cube, reforming NWA: however, before they can return to record together, while he's recording for his new album, Eazy-E has some breathing problems and is diagnosed in hospital with HIV / AIDS, dying a few weeks later in the hospital. In the years following Eazy-E's death, the remaining members of the group try to reconstitute the NWA, but only manage to release a few singles: "Efil4zaggin" remains their last official album.
1991. The NWA are considered the sexist and violent pioneers of a whole new hip-hop genre that the press quickly names gangster rap, they celebrate the violence and hedonism of the criminal life, glorifying drugs and crime and expressing themselves in harsh and raw language, often being criticized and sparking controversy because of their explicit and misogynistic lyrics. Most US radios ban them. All this is due to the release of "Niggaz4life", an album that, without the lyrics of Ice Cube, inevitably falls into an elementary, ridiculously ultra-misogynistic and ultra-violent lyricism, on top of an ultra-excellent funky soundscape created by Dre: the controversies that it creates in the soul of insiders, of the PMRC and of the politicians, it feeds the fame of the record that is assaulted by the audience composed of white teenagers living in the suburbs. In a couple of weeks, the album becomes the first hardcore rap record to hit the #1 on the Billboard 200.
«The reasoning of why you were saying 'n****' and all these things that could be considered vile was gone. The reason why you were angry or upset was gone.» (The D.O.C.)
The most dangerous group in the world returns in 1991 without the most dangerous MC in the world, Ice Cube. The strength of the group, deprived of its best element, had visibly diminished and this document is one of the most evident proofs. O’Shea Jackson was going really strong on his own, while the group led by Eazy-E began to flounder: the remaining NWA members work on the album day and night, every day, to try to match Cube's record. But the results don't come: Dre starts writing some lyrics for a couple of days, then The D.O.C. moves from Dallas to Los Angeles to work with the band on the new album and Dre sticks his pen to the nail and lets the work on the lyrics to be done by the Texas affiliate and MC Ren, while the boy will take care of the production.
The D.O.C. buys a house in Los Angeles near Dre's, Eazy-E's and Heller's ones, they all live in a whiter neighborhood than the one they grew up in Compton. Suge Knight, former LA Rams defensive side, is The D.O.C.'s bodyguard and is also the promoter of his concerts during this period: Knight explains to him that when Ruthless gave him the money to buy the house, in reality they were paying with his money for the rights to the lyrics he would write for the album, and then charging him again for more money for the payments he had made for the house.
The final breakup of the group comes while they're still working on the album: The D.O.C. talks to Dre, they're screwing everyone except Eazy-E, who's involved with Heller in dividing much of the money that comes to the group: at this point, Dre asks for the payment cards and at his request, the group begins to fall apart. The man is working most of all on this fucking album and rightly wants his share, Eazy doesn't agree. Knight, Dre and The D.O.C. decide to break away from Ruthless and start their own record company, founding one of the most important and well-known labels of the nineties; among others, inevitably, they will miss the promotional tour for this new album.
First of all, there's the album to be finished. Most of the lyrics are attributed to The D.O.C. and MC Ren, the only ones who can write anything. No need to lie: from a lyrical point of view, it's one of the most impressive records of the year, overwhelming, devastating, heavily violent and excessively misogynistic. The lyrics are a mixture of gangsta and ignorance, complete trash, it's mostly about f***ing and killing whatever comes in front of them and "being real", with a crazy joyful mood, carefree and unbridled, in a i-dont-give-a-f*** style, and with a tone consistently obscene and vulgar, functionally shocking: it's hailed by many as a gangsta masterpiece, and if you're a fan of the sub-genre, you're sure to enjoy the album, but this violent, immature and hateful writing no matter how good it may be, ultimately feels repetitive and boring.
In the studio, the boys practically never relax, because Eazy-E insists on going against Ice Cube all times in their tracks: the socio-political part of the group no longer exists, leaving the boys in the mire, in pure braggadocio violence and perverse meaningless obscene sexuality. Technically they're all mediocre, stands out MC Ren, whose hardcore rapping style is still excellent, confident, effortlessly smoothness: they're still pissed off, but the reason they're so angry is gone.
To a first part of a violent album, a second one steeped in unpleasant sexual cuts is added, every single line of every single performer can be contested in these songs: "One Less Bitch" deserves more than all an honorable mention, because here Dre makes a record in which doesn't appear to have not yet redeemed himself from his episodes of real-life violence against women, episodes that are excluded in the 2015 film about the group and that were brought to light by Michel'e in her documentary "Surviving Compton". The album is blessed with one of the best productions in Dr. Dre's career, for many stans, it's the best: the rhythms are explosive, confused, hard and very strong, the last step before the beginning of the g-funk era.
The production is immaculate, the funky samples untouchable and perfect, the scratches incredibly punctual, Dre also embraces the live instrumentation and even the skits are perfect here unlike all the other albums of the same period. The album is very raw, hard and pure from a certain point of view, somewhat obscure among the great classics of this period — people who don't get too close to the genre are often convinced that NWA only made one album, in 1988 — and very influential: it's highly offensive, constantly offensive and historically important, it practically becomes the cornerstone of pornocore, and is the most aggressive, vulgar and sexist hip-hop project ever 'til this moment, the heaviest one in terms of misogyny.
The D.O.C. to the lyrics, Yella I don't know what he does but he deserves his props, Dr. Dre is at his best here, Ren is at his best, Eazy-E is baddest than ever: this trio of rappers takes ignorance to another level never explored before, making "Efil4zaggin" ("Niggaz4life" read backwards) one of the most ignorant and gangsta records in hip-hop history. As already pointed out by some reviewers, with the same arguments, using the same arguments, you can call it both the best rap album ever and the worst rap album ever. And you'd be right anyway.
Rating: 8/10.
No comments:
Post a Comment