Niggaz With Attitude

the issues shown make apparent the culture of the black communities in ghettos. Boyz N the

The movie Boyz in the Hood premiered in theaters in 1991. It was written and directed by John Singleton. It was also nominated for best director, and best original screen play. This paper will explore the four aspects and causes of gang violence. For instance, how youth are affected in these four environments, single parent households, gun, and gang violence, lastly education. Boyz in the hood depicts gang culture and demonstrates it though the story line protagonist, Tre. This movie shows the life of the character Tre and what he observed while growing up in south central L.A. As seen in the movie, Reva, a single mother made every attempt to make sure that her son did not involve himself in such dangerous and highly contagious acts within the black community. She ultimately makes the decision to have him live with his father. The scene opens with a young Tre fighting at school. There his teacher believed so strongly in him that she worried about his future. To therefore Reva decides to send him to his dad. Another scene shows where doughboy, Ice Cube went to jail for stealing and years later when he was released he joined a gang.

In the late 1980’s N.W.A was formed in Compton, California. Members of the group included Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, and more. Many of these members still retain their fame today and continue to be social activists within there community and on a national level. The formation of the group was ultimately derived from circumstantial anger and outrage at Los Angeles law enforcement at that time.

In “Trapped” by Tupac he said ‘ If one more cop harasses me I just might go psycho, and when I gettem I’ll hittem with the bum rush.” Also in “I Fought the Law” by Green Day they said “ Robin’ people with my six gun, I fought the law and the law won.” The song “Gangsta Gangsta’ by N.W.A They said “ I’m the one that you’ll read about takin’ a life or two.” In these songs they admitted for doing a crime in the song they have done. All of these songs come together, because it is talking about how they hate the police or something about a crime. Also in these songs they get aways got away, except for one that tried to fight them. These rappers all mostly grew up in a tough part of their town and had something happened to them with the police. If they didn’t have something wrong with the police they wouldn’t be talking about them in a bad

John Singleton’s Boyz N the Hood is an American teen drama film released in 1991 that focuses on three black teens who live in the dangerous neighbourhood of Crenshaw, Los Angeles. The main characters Doughboy, his half-brother Ricky, and their friend Tre grow up together but meet drastically different fates as young adults. As Swanson (2011) points out, it is important to understand the tension within black communities in Los Angeles at the time of the film’s release; the Rodney King beating had taken place only months before and LA’s gang wars were reaching a peak. As a Los Angeles native, Singleton’s goal with the film was to alert people about the situation around them, as he said: “I couldn’t rhyme. I wasn’t a rapper. So I made this movie” (Swanson 2011). To reflect the environment as accurately as possible, the film was shot on the streets of South Los Angeles, so the crew was just as on edge as their characters would be; there were even threats of gun violence from local gang members.

had gained all throughout Los Angeles, California. During the 70’s-90’s, racism was still at huge. Nobody knew what was going on behind closed doors because we did not have social media back then. High tech phones/cameras and technology that advanced were not accessible at the time to actually view the rawness of what was going on in the field. Ethos is demonstrated by N.W.A. by their status. By status I mean that N.W.A. was a famous and well known rap group which featured only African Americans (Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, MC Ren, DJ Yella). The five were originally big known rappers/producers prior to them coming together to form the group. So people already knew about them from a musical/hip-hop perspective and throughout the Los Angeles community, which is where they all resided from. N.W.A. had already gained that trust/credibility (ethos) from the community because of how high their status was at the time (famous

N.W.A (an abbreviation of Niggaz Wit Attitudes)[1][2][3] was an American hip hop group from Compton, California, widely considered one of the seminal acts of the gangsta rap and west coast hip hop sub-genres, sometimes credited as the most important group in the history of rap music.[4] Active from 1986 to 1991, the rap group endured controversy due to the explicit lyrics that many considered to be disrespectful to women, and glorifying drugs and crime. The group was subsequently banned from many mainstream American radio stations. In spite of this, the group has sold over 10 million units in the United States alone.

From 1986 - 1991 N.W.A had some of the most controversial gangster rap lyrics of the times. The group was lyrically ruthless, they were raw and uncut with the messages they were delivering making sure to touch on racism and police brutality. In the movie Straight outta Compton the hip hop group N.W.A is portrayed as being one of the most influential and iconic hip hop rap groups of all times. The movie shows how the group changed hip hop forever by telling their day to day struggles growing up in Los Angeles. N.W.A’s music reflected the environment they were growing up in it glorified the lifestyle of drugs and crime and had explicit lyrics.

The success the N.W.A group artists consists of avoiding being taking advantage of by managers who do it because artists know less about paperwork, transactions and which type of business to do at the right point of time. O’shea Ice Cube Jackson got into a financial dispute between him and the N.W.A manager, Jerry Heller. The dispute was settled in-court in 1990. After the fact, Cube continued a successful solo career. After that the N.W.A continued working on the same path, despite of the obstacles by being criticized by politicians, Ban of sales from few retailers because it was the purest form “Gangsta Rap” full of violence, misogyny, but also a lot of humor, and pathos. Politicians spent amounts of energy to stop it from being something, it was simply wild. The politicians might take the side that says this specific type of music influence young African Americans to do crimes and do what gangs do as described in the songs yet, the beauty of it is that it’s purely honest, and making Compton visible on the world

Berry says that there are good types of rap and bad types by showing that few rappers actually use sexually obscure lyrics and sexist towards women. Good rap would be considered songs by artist such as Queen Latifah, Salt N ' Pepa, Yo Yo, and MC Lyte are working to dismiss the men rapper 's images of women through their own performance style and lyrics. Violence is another factor because it is associated with black urban youths where rap music is always the common denominator for in the communities. Berry gives the idea that a major part of rap music is a reality in these neighborhoods by using NWA, a.k.a. Niggas with Attitude that consists of five rappers from L.A. who rap about gang banging, drive by shootings, and police confrontations. The lead singer of the group argued that their lyrics aim to show the "raw reality of life" instead of making it people’s reality. Williams argues that rap music does not represent the beliefs and ethics of black communities but only because people overlook the positive efforts made by rappers and focus on the negative aspects. Berry demonstrate how the supremacy of white and black power are prominent through focusing on how Parales beliefs that rap just shows the lack of education, and the frustration of the ghetto, and how hating rap can be linked to fearing young black men who are the stars of rap . Ice

With all this going on, a popular outlet for emotions regarding police brutality was music. A lot of hip hop artists wrote music to release their feelings on this subject. In the 1990s, one famous rap group, N.W.A, wrote a song that really expressed how a lot of African Americans felt at the time and may still feel now. (N.W.A) The song is called “F the Police.” The recent film Straight Out of Compton presents the story of NWA. One scene, in particular, shows how LA police

Picture this, you are teenager growing up in Los Angeles, on your way to school and you turn on the radio. “Yo thanks for tuning into to the hottest radio station in the streets of LA. Up next we got N.W.A. with their new single Appetite for Destruction.” That was common for nearly every person who lived in LA and enjoyed hip-hop music. During the early 90s and late 80s, West coast hip-hop was dominated by the gruesome realities of gangster rap and g-funk. Rap at the time was intense, authentic, and unbearable. Ultimately, this wave of “fuck you” sprouted from the injustices that plagued many impoverished communities. Individuals were angered from the oppressive acts that hindered any attempt to reach success, and gangster music within LA served as the platform to express the frustration under such terrible circumstances. Although the sound was revolutionary and taking over the entire nation, still Los Angeles needed a fresh of breath of air to display the artistic talent that came out of Los Angeles. New York could play with both sides of the hip-hop spectrum of light-heartedness to aggressiveness, but unfortunately for LA, they only had one sound. In New York, they had artists from Kid N Play to Public Enemy. If Los Angeles were ever going to snatch the throne from New York, they needed to do so quickly before the dawn of Golden Age ended.

One of the biggest influences in the Hip Hop community during the 1980s and to this day is N.W.A. A song of theirs titled Fuck tha Police from the album Straight Outta Compton caused controversy because of the seemingly harsh lack of respect for law enforcement officers. Which, is primarily a consequence of the police department's heavy use of racial profiling. N.W.A. also known as Niggaz With Attitude is a Hip Hop group originating in Compton, California formed around 1986. The original members include Eazy-E, M.C. Ren, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, and Yella. They are one of the first groups to emphasize the importance of Gangsta Rap which is a subgenre of West Coast Hip Hop.

Hip-hop wasn’t a new form of music in 1989, in fact it started in 1982 with Run DMC, but nobody was ready for this form. The police and politicians didn’t like what N.W.A was saying in their lyrics, but all of the things they were rapping about were things that were going on around them on a daily basis. They were seeing people being shot, drug deals going down, and women being called b*tch*s. "I remember when Straight Outta Compton came out, where I lived we could all relate to what they were rapping about because it was our lifestyle."(Wilson. Interview). So basically art was imitating life. But as the decade took a turn into the ‘90’s, so did things for N.W.A. (Tha Biography of Tha E) Ice Cube left to pursue a solo career (Ice Cube- Westside Times) and after him Dr. Dre left to start Death Row Records with Marion "Suge" Knight in 1992. (The Untouchable Death Row Records)

Since gangsta rap was first introduced by the group N.W.A., this type of rap music has sold more albums than any other form of rap. Gangsta rap in some ways glorifies violence, drugs, and easy money. N.W.A. wrote a song about killing cops that created a firestorm of controversy. As a result of several such controversies, the Parental Advisory Explicit Lyrics labeling system was enacted in 1985 (Lommel 68). This system required the music industry to label songs that have explicit language and limit the sale of these albums to adults.