Straight Outta Compton was the lead single off NWA’s debut album of the same name. The track features a beat by Dr. Dre (co-produced by groupmember DJ Yella), and verses performed by Ice Cube, MC Ren, and Eazy-E. It was released in 1988.
Context
By his second solo album, Ice Cube adopted a violently racist, afrocentric-to-the-point-of-black-separatist politicalism, merging the dissatisfaction and desire for change of conscious rap with gangsta rap attitute/perspective. Straight Outta Compton’ lacks that determined lyrical focus (and the Bomb Squad production that so elevated AmeriKKKa).
Fortunately, what Straight Outta Compton lacks in lyrical strength, it makes up for in sanity. Cube doesn’t hate everyone yet, he just hates the police. And the systematic oppression that was so pervasively affecting his life and the lives of his peers. It’s easy to see his humanness here: a 19-year-old kid, lashing back against the world that held him down. The title track, however, is all lash and no system-of-oppression. The lyrics are insubstantial; violent braggadocio (which, remember, was kinda new at the time).
Song
The track opens up with Dr. Dre, the track’s producer, saying, “You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge.” The word “strength” is super important here: Dr. Dre suggests that you haven’t heard this before, perhaps you’ve seen other aspects of street knowledge, or perhaps you’ve seen the strength of other types of knowledge, but this is your first experience with the strength of the street.
This is significant because the album (which begins with Straigth Outta Compton) was arguably the very first gangster rap record. It marked the death of positive afrocentricism and humor in hip hop’s mainstream, and gave the genre the violent/offensive public image it still struggles with today. This is probably worth being mad about, but I’ll save that for another day.
Ice Cube calls the song a “murder rap,” and he’s being honest. Lyrically, he says 5 things about guns. So does Ren. Eazy-E only says two things about guns in his verse, so clearly he is less hard/gangsta. Seriously, though, since Ren and Cube wrote all three verses, and since their verses are so gun-centric, Eazy-E’s verse seems indicative of the internal group politics that ended up tearing NWA apart.
Conclusion
I think Ice Cube is a racist asshole. Despite the fact that he was reacting earnestly to real problems, it’s hard to see past songs like Black Korea which would would come to leave their mark indelibly on Cube’s legacy. As distasteful as I find the content of Ice Cube’s solo work, I think he needed that content in order to come into his own as a performer. Straight Outta Compton feels like a warm-up in comparison.
I don’t really care about Eazy-E as a rapper; he spent all his time embezzling while Ren and Cube wrote most of his bars anyway. His career with Ruthless could have been interesting, was too marred by financial disputes to get there. I honestly think the most important thing Eazy-E ever did was drive Dr. Dre to start Death Row.