Niggaz With Attitude

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.

In the year of 1988, a song called “Fuck Tha Police” was published and publicly released to the world by the famous rap group N.W.A. on August 9th. The song is an ultimate form of protest. Not only did it reveal racism and police brutality towards African Americans, but it was a real eye opener for the whole world to see how Caucasian people treated people of color back then. The song transcended into a slogan and is now a movement in pop culture all over the world today, you see it on posters, billboards, and even t-shirts. The song hits all three categories of ethos, logos, and pathos. It demonstrates credibility/trust, logic/reason/proof, and emotions/values.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

N.W.A’s first album ‘Straight Outta Compton’ influenced a number of films depicting inner-city violence, such as “Boyz N The Hood” and “Menace II Society.” N.W.A influenced an attitude change about rap music and its impact. ‘Straight Outta Compton’ changed what was considered extreme and explicit. N.W.A’s music affected people similarly to Nirvana’s “Nevermind” album that introduced grunge in 1991. Their music allowed for a certain freedom. Now rappers were free to speak their minds no matter how explicit their lyrics were. “At

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

The release of the the album “Straight Outta Compton” was the beginning of the new gansta rap with the release of the record F**k the police which spoke on the hardships people were receiving from law enforcement. The power of their rhymes sparked a social revolution and influenced people all around the world. Straight Outta Compton the movie goes on to depict the lives of the five group members and the trials and tribulations that they are faced with being in a group along with living in the community they did being African-American males. The movie shows the rise and fall of the group, ultimately showing the split of the group, the loss of a group member and the solo music and industry careers of fellow members. Socially Straight outta Compton shows its audience the inside of the change of the hip hop culture forever.

As seen in Straight Out of Compton directed by F. Gary Gray, police wanted to have an overbearing power and went as far as trying to take away freedom of speech. In the film, we are able to see the confrontations between N.W.A and the law enforcement agents. The most prominent was when the group was set to preform in Detroit. The group was not supposed to preform F**k the Police due to a previous arrangements with law enforcement, (if N.W.A preformed they would be arrested) however,

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.

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)