Tag: Ice Cube

So I went to see the movie Straight Outta Compton this past weekend and it was EVERYTHING. It showed each artist’s background information as well as paying homage to the late rapper Eazy E.

Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, and the late rapper Easy Z were all members of the group N.W.A which stood for N.W.A. It starts out showing their different backgrounds and how they became a group. Eazy E was into the streets and was more of a business man. Ice Cube was in High School and was a dope writer or lyricist even just cooking up rhymes in his head and putting them on paper. Dre was cold on the turn tables wanting to follow his dreams of being  producer, despite his mother’s wishes.

All three guys were homies to each other and they all decided to put their talents together creating the group N.W.A. Cube was the writer, Dre was the producer and at the beginning stage, E was the “business man” putting the money up to be in the studio and benefiting from it in the long run, but they decided to put him in booth to see what his rapping skills were like; now it wasn’t all peaches and cream at first but with little grooming, he sounded like a pro.

Collectively they put together Ruthless Records, the name of the record company, but Eazy was in charge of it. Then their manager came along, looking out for what was supposed to be the group but instead was only looking out for Eazy. The movie shows what the men had to go through dealing with the Compton Police. They had so many issues with the authorities for no reason, and even getting harassed outside their studio one day when they were recording.

After having countless run-ins with the police for no reason, Dre, Eazy and Cube were inspired to write the song “Fuck The Police.” This was a big controversal issue back then but they didn’t a damn, they wanted to be heard and as Cube said they have “freedom of speech,” which was and is still true. They had white people destroying their cds and burning them but at least they were buying them, as Eazy said. It got to a point where they were banned from rapping the song at their own concert. Welp that didn’t stop them from doing so while they were in Detroit, Michigan. They were, of course, arrested but their motto was “bad publicity is better than no publicity. ”

Fast forward a little bit, after the money was coming in and the contracts were finalized for the rest of the group, minus Eazy since his contract was already signed. Cube was skeptical for a while on the contracts because it took so long for it to get finalized, so he didn’t sign it and went on a solo artist, producer of movies and even an actor.

After Cube left, N.W.A. went on to recording music. Suge Knight got interested in Dre and even to the point where he wanted Dre on his label, Death Row but Dre was still signed to Ruthless Record. Eventually he got off the label after Suge beat up Eazy in order for Eazy to release Dre. In the midst of that, the movie showed Eazy getting sick. Before he was hospitalized he saw Ice Cube and they talked about linking back up to do some music, with Dre too of course, Next thing you know, Eazy is in the hospital and was diagnosed with AIDS in February of 1995, he died a month later.

The movie showed all that and then some, so you can’t do anything but respect Ice Cube, Dre and Eazy E. Cube walked away from $75,000, which was a lot at the time, all because he didn’t agree with signing his contract on the spot, it all paid off. Dre walked away from Death Row because he didn’t like the lack of professionalism that going on AND he left his plaques with Death Row and started his own label, then there’s Eazy, who started the lady and was the brains behind N.W.A. and not to mention he brought Bone Thugz N Harmony into the rap game. You can’t do nothing but respect these, as well as the other two members, MC Ren and DJ Yella.

I would go see it again AND buy it when it comes out on DVD. This movie is worth more than buying it on a bootleg.