N.W.A. Gets It's Due On Film With Straight Outta Compton

Talk about strange bedfellows.

Twenty-seven years ago, a song by the seminal rap band NWA proclaimed “F--- tha Police” to the horror of white conservatives and the FBI. But just last month, one of the leading GOP presidential candidates asked his staff to “clear two hours on my schedule” so he can see “Straight Outta Compton,” the forthcoming Hollywood movie about the group, on Aug. 14.

“Anyone know a good theatre in Manchester or Des Moines to catch #StraightOuttaCompton?” tweeted Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, somewhat implausibly. “Trailer looks amazing.”

The candidate declined to elaborate for the News about his appreciation for a group famous for rapping about sawed-off shotguns, killing cops and getting “p----y,” but N.W.A. is nonetheless embracing the support.

“I wish these politicians would listen to more rap music,” the group’s emcee Ice Cube told The News. “They need to pass it around on Capitol Hill. Maybe they’d understand what’s going on and why.”

It’s a story worth retelling, especially in light of police killings and brutality in Ferguson, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Staten Island and elsewhere. “Compton,” directed by F. Gary Gray and co-produced by Cube, spends a lot of time showing police harassment of African-Americans — the root of N.W.A.’s formation in 1986, the initials standing for the defiant name N----z Wit Attitudes. In songs like “F--- tha Police,” “Gangsta-Gangsta” and the title track, “Straight Outta Compton” established N.W.A. at the forefront of a bold new form of hip hop that some called gangsta rap, though the band said it was merely “reality” rap.

“Most of our songs were just talking about what we had seen in the ghetto,” says group member DJ Yella. “We weren’t thinking, ‘Oh, this is going to be large and we’ll have gold records.’ We were thinking it would be local and we’d make a couple of bucks.”

In the movie, five spitting-image actors portray the group, which included Yella and MC Ren along with Cube, a pre-billionaire Dr. Dre and Eazy-E (who died of AIDS in 1995).

Cube’s son, O’Shea Jackson Jr., plays his dad — a leap, since the 24-year-old was raised in a world far removed from the bullets and gangs that were his father’s day-to-day life. “He never had the police lay their hands on him,” Cube says. “Now he had the chance to get an understanding of what it took to get straight outta Compton.”

It took determination, talent and outrage. Plus, ironically, a little help from the FBI. Following the release of “F--- tha Police,” N.W.A’s seminal 1988 hit, the Bureau sent a letter accusing the group of “encouraging violence against law enforcement” and warning N.W.A.’s record company “to be aware of the FBI’s position relative to this song.” The group’s PR team ran to the media and fanned the controversy for all it was worth.

“The FBI had no right to send us that letter,” Yella says, “But I’m glad they did. That made it blow up.”

Overnight, N.W.A. became the edgiest group in the world, able to excite even suburban white kids who knew nothing of ghetto life. “People in the suburbs thought they’d like to try out the ghetto for a while,” Yella says, with a laugh.

“We were just being honest,” adds Cube. “Kids are lied to all the time. We wasn’t lying.”

Still, the movie leaves out some less savory truths about the group. There’s no mention of an ugly 1991 incident in which Dre punched radio host Dee Barnes and threw her down a flight of stairs. He was angry over her airing of an interview with Cube after he bitterly split with the group. “There was no way to get in every single incident,” Cube says in defense of the omission. “And there were so many.”

Still, the essential story of the group makes clear why, nearly 30 years later, the group’s original protest against police harassment remains so relevant.

“We have a movie about the past, but it’s speaking so much about the present,” Cube says. “We got to stop pretending like we’re just now finding this out. We were speaking out about it before there were camera phones in everyone’s hand. That’s why the song resonated in the first place. It was speaking the truth.”

Dr. Dre 'Medicine Man' *Snippet* Straight Out Of Compton Soundtrack:

Can somebody please tell me Wtf is this sh!t …….

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