musooklub

N.W.A. - Straight Outta Compton

I believe I was assigned this album by Raman and I took that as a high compliment (or maybe that I'm just darker that he is).  Recently, I've dived head-first into Twenty One Pilots so, though those fools do rap, returning to original gangsta rap was quite a swing in another direction.

Speaking of dark, the opening track on the album is exactly that.  "Straight Outta Compton" would have to be one of the greatest debut songs in any musical act's history.  Though there are many solid ones on S.O.C., this eponymous one, as it were, stands out head-and-shoulders over the rest of them.

When I'm pissed off, it's still one of my go-tos.  In fact, most of the album is angry.  However, that's not why I got into N.W.A.  My life has been marked by large swaths of deep-dives into various genres of music:  1st & 2nd grades were only Michael Jackson; 3rd - 6th were Pop; 7th - 9th were Rap; 10th & 11th were Modern Rock; 12th was Classic Rock;  college was The Beatles and Grunge.

My good friend and fellow Make Chai Not War comic, Azhar Usman, said that he never related to white music and therefore was so blown away by Public Enemy that he can still rap a lot of the songs twenty years later.  It wasn't thus for me.  I grew up white and race wasn't much of an issue in Fairfield, Ohio.  The in for me was purely comedic.  My friend, Jeff, took me over to his neighbor's house, where Robby played "Indian Girl" by Slick Rick.  It took me years to make the connection to my being Indian, partly because Slick Rick was talking about Indians who use teepees, not Indians who don't use T.P.  (You'll get that if you've ever used a commode in India.)  And after hearing my first dirty ditty, I never looked back.  It was N.W.A. (Straight Outta Compton and, for me, even more so Niggaz4Life), Public Enemy, Geto Boys, and anything hard-core I could get my hands on, memorize, and rap with my friend, Jaime, in the back of the bus.

And so it was with N.W.A.  I thought the lyrics were hilarious.  I mean, no matter how irate Ice Cube sounded, "mix 'em and cook 'em in a pot like gumbo" just had an amusing ring to it.

Shockingly enough, "Express Yourself" is completely clean - you could play that at a kid's birthday party.  So, it's not like N.W.A. was stupid; before or since, I've never heard a song use "macabre."  And it's not like N.W.A. had to curse to express themselves.  But I'm oh-so-glad they did.

So, enjoy the very NSFW N.W.A. - and go see the film when you can.

Link:  https://www.dropbox.com/sh/lwqxdwuinwrul9j/AAATXBjE8hdtrAmnk9MoiNtpa?dl=0