N.W.A. History and What Our Future Can Look Like
The group N.W.A was formed in 1987 with original group members: Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, Ice cube and Arabian Prince. Later on, there were two new group members added : DJ Yella and MC Ren. The group N.W.A. helped develop the new genre of gangsta rap. What is known as the new genre of Gangsta rap is known as” reality rap” to Ice Cube. Why people identified this new rap genre as gangsta rap is because they rapped about violence and hate. Although they saw it as gangsta rap, Ice Cube saw it as “ reality rap” because for many people what they rapped about was reality. Many people actually lived through these lyrics, the lyrics were pretty much describing their day to day life. The two songs which lead their debut album were “ Straight Outta Compton” and “Fuck tha Police” These two songs gave explicit descriptions regarding how life was growing up in Compton and having to live in violence at all times. They also described their found hatred of hating the police. Before this album was being recorded, police violence skyrocketed and was unfortunately all directed to people of color. White men and women didn’t have to fear being beat up by the police, on the other hand black men and women weren’t so fortunate. Members of N.W.A experienced being racially profiled and being mistreated by the police, which of course left them angry. After experiencing and witnessing discrimination from the police, they shifted their anger and used it as inspiration to help create at the time, their soon to come album “ Straight Outta Compton.”
In the late 80’s we know that some of the youth was actually negatively impacted by some of the explicit language in N.W.A’s album Straight Outta Compton. They saw this lifestyle that was rapped about as an opportunity to rebel against their parents. While people decided to be negatively influenced by the lyrics, The black youth appreciated that their stories- their reality was being told in this album, it brought light to their lifestyle that was overlooked by the media. Teens in the late 80’s were being influenced by rap music and this is still happening today. Black teens in America are still actually negatively impacted on the lyrics in rap music. To the rapper they are simply story telling, but this is actually in sprinting the young teen to live this life that is being rapped about. They see that the rapper lived this life and managed to make it out of the hood, so they believe they can do the same. The fact that the youth is so influenced by rap music is what still makes rap a very controversial genre. People don’t understand why it’s necessary to rap out girls, drugs, and gangs, but the rapper is simply rapping about their own life. In the early 1990’s the civil rights movement happened and people protested about the racial injustice happening towards the African-American community. The African American community organizes this protest to help end racial discrimination. African Americans were discriminated against everyday because of their skin color. They were seen differently by many, but that’s isn’t the worst of it. They were also mistreated by the police, alike to today. Relating back to what Ice Cube said, it is basically “reality rap” to them, they don’t see the negative influence being released on their first album in 1988 called “ Straight outta Compton.” This album was the first album to actually .
When referring to rap music within the African-American community we have seen a drastic change of environment from what seems to be a place where people can truly convey their innermost deepest emotions towards any event, whether that be celebrating a gift of a new life to a political stance. The change of environment relates to how the African-American people are affected, whether this be emotionally or mentally. As we can see from song lyrics of N.W.A., Fuck Tha Police, “Fuck the police comin’ straight from the underground, A Young nigga got it bad ’cause I’m brown, And not the other color so police think, They have the authority to kill a minority, Fuck that shit, ’cause I ain’t the one For a punk motherfucker with a badge and a gun, To be beatin’ on, and thrown in jail, We can go toe-to-toe in the middle of a cell”. When the African-American community heard this song they understood because most of them have experienced some sort of excessive force or police brutality within their lives, so they know that they were not the only ones. When N.W.A. Performed that song live in Detroit, within 30 seconds the police just started shooting guns in the air clearing people trying to arrest the group members for disrespecting the authority. This sparked outrage from the people that attended the concert which then they started to throw many beer bottles, rocks, anything they can get their hands on, to hit the authority. This created a perspective on how the African-American community is perceived as from authority and other ethnicities. They were seen as nothing but trouble and mainly antagonized from many institutions whether that be from public school systems, the police or the news. News media has covered multiple stories regarding African-American suspects as criminals without being proven guilty in a court of law, which shows no remorse for the suspects. They were already being targeted because they fit a description of a potential suspect. Most of them lose faith in the justice system because of how their encounters were in the past. NWA were seen as a cultural threat because of the negative influence they had on the police, who are supposed to protect and serve, when the police are supposed to maintain stability of the situation and prevent anyone’s physical and mental harms from being in danger.
In the present this has inspired so many, new upcoming artists to fight against these social injustices that minorities have faced. An artist named Childish Gambino made a hit song called, “This Is America”. This song is about the violent contradictions that come with being black in America. It relates to guns and violence in America. It shows how the media uses these actions, then consumes them as part of entertainment. The music video relates to many events regarding to The church shooting in Charleston in 2015 which involves a white supremacist killing nine African-American people to African-American people running away from the police and then getting beat up in the music video. NWA being the first minority group to speak out against police violence within the minority community created a platform for future artists trying to convey their message on how society sees them whether that be in a positive or a negative way. Most of the time when an artist refers to minorities in their song it usually has a negative connotation because it shows the problems that being this certain ethnicity has in an American society. In a society of free-speech we should be able to express our deepest emotions through any way or form, especially through art. The way NWA expressed their problems through rap and I feel that it is the best way to do so because rap is such a fast paced way of explaining a message through an audience. We desperately needed someone to be the face of standing up and fight against being oppressed by people who think they are of a higher status then them just because of the pigment of their skin. In 2020, racial injustice was once again brought to light, once we lost George Floyd to police brutality. Losing George Floyd brought many other cases of police brutality to light and this began huge protests and riots. People want to see change today just like they did in the 1990’s. The way African Americans are viewed by authority is very disturbing. The fact that a whole decade later from the 1990’s protest we’re still protesting the same thing is disturbing. Authority raises the belief of power and many officers abuse the power and their racism takes over and they use police brutality against African- Americans just because the color of their skin, it’s disturbing. With The new artist coming up with such songs Childish Gambino and N.W.A. performed we can address these problems and hopefully other ethnicities won’t see the African-American community as a burden. They won’t see them as criminals or as just another person from the ghetto. They will see them as another human being that thinks they are no higher than their neighbors.
Once Straight Outta Compton was released, the album received an incredible amount of backlash. People were not liking the violent and vulgar lyrics. Many did not appreciate the language used in the album, but positively this album actually put Compton, California on the map. They rapped about the truth of what was going on in Compton,California. People were now educated on the hardships the black youth were facing. Most people decided to ignore the lyrics, but on the other hand black youth actually decided they wanted to be a part of this, and unfortunately a lot of them actually immersed themselves into this lifestyle of gang violence and everything else that was rapped about in the album.
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