In a scene from the new film “Straight Outta Compton,” a biopic on the ’80s rap group N.W.A., the youngest member Ice Cube hands Eazy-E a notepad shortly after being stopped and harassed by the LAPD.
It was an experience Cube and the crew were accustomed to, growing up in South Central Los Angeles, where gang violence was an everyday occurrence. On the pad were lyrics to N.W.A.’s infamous rap song that spawned a vulgar catchphrase still used today.
Before the day of social media, the record was a firestorm throughout the country, never touching radio stations but trending in neighborhoods where kids shared the same feelings.
“Straight Outta Compton,” which opens Friday, tells of the origin of the five-man band, with the focus on Eric “Eazy-E” Wright, Andre “Dr. Dre” Young, and O’Shea “Ice Cube” Jackson — hip-hop’s first gangsta rap group.
“When we went in to ‘Straight Outta Compton’ (production), we said we were going to keep it real, and it’s going to ruffle some feathers, and it’s going to be controversial,” director F. Gary Gray (“Friday,” “The Italian Job”) said in a recent interview during the film’s press junket in Buckhead.
“But we should not back down, we should stand our ground just like (N.W.A.) did back in the ’80s. And we will make a classic.”
For the most part, the two-hour-plus flick executes a decent effort to hit on all of the questions hip-hop fans lived with for decades. Why did Ice Cube leave the group? How were the songs created? What was N.W.A.’s reaction to Cube’s “No Vaseline” dis record? Where does Death Row Records CEO Suge Knight fit in?
The film is produced by Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, who are both household names. Cube has starred in and produced films such as “Friday” and “Are We There Yet?” and Dr. Dre, who invested in a little headphone company called Beats by Dre, is worth nearly $1 billion.
Ice Cube had his hands full casting a film about a widely popular rap group with new actors, including his son O’Shea Jackson Jr.
Cube has been pretty successful at pulling in big box office numbers with his recruiting skills (for example, Chris Tucker and Mike Epps, who have both helped pull in over $100 million starring in the “Friday” franchise).
“I believe in new talent,” said Ice Cube. “My whole career I’ve been breaking in new people and showing the world that there’s talent all through our neighborhoods.”
It seems like an easy task when you have a son who looks like you. O’Shea Jackson Jr., whose mannerisms, voice and stage presence are identical to his father’s, is the film’s highlight.
This might be the first film where an actor plays his father married to the actor’s mother and has another young actor playing him as a child. I know it’s confusing, but not as confusing to Jackson Jr. himself.
“To say it was weird is an understatement,” said Jackson Jr. “That type of stuff just makes the film even more historical. But my biggest challenge was the prep for this movie, working two years for callbacks, working with acting coaches. And all of it came together on set.”
What the film skates over, however, is the group’s controversial references and views toward the women in their songs. The Internet was abuzz leading up to the release of the film, with blogs reminding moviegoers of the rap group’s controversial lyrics referring to women in the most inappropriate way. One Gawker writer revisited a 1990 incident where Dr. Dre allegedly attacked a hip-hop journalist in a nightclub. The film doesn’t address the incident.
What is in the film are the parties, the liquor and the drugs — normal activities for any rock band back in the ’80s. The difference? N.W.A. was deliberate in recording their actions in the most explicit way they could on wax. It doesn’t defend or justify their behavior, but what it did bring to light is that no one could stop them from their right to freedom of speech, no matter whom it offended, especially the police.
N.W.A. sparked a fuse they had no idea would explode as kids across the country shouted the chorus of their disdain toward police brutality.
The irony of the song? It’s 27 years old. And Ice Cube’s verse can still resonate with many people today because of the recent deaths of citizens at the hands of police officers.
“When I see this movie, I just see five kids who just had an idea,” said Jason Mitchell, who portrays the late Eazy-E. “They didn’t plan to shake the world. They didn’t plan to incite riots, and do all of this other stuff that they made history doing. It was all about them wanting an outlet and having an amazing talent to just say, you know, we’re just going to take this and try something.”
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