BEFORE: If there's a topic that I'm less likely to know about or weigh in on than civil rights, it's probably rap or hip-hop music. See, I'm so ignorant I don't even know the difference (umm, is there one?) - I'm way off the reservation today, but it's a double-feature today that allowed me to weigh in on protesting and civil rights issues with "Selma", and this film keeps the chain alive, and very conveniently also re-connects with where I was originally headed anyway, right after "Knives Out". So the film that was originally going to follow "Knives Out" will be here tomorrow, and I'll be back on track. OK, I've got another secret reason for veering off my original path, and it's because I peeked into the future and figured out which film was going to be big #3,600, and I wasn't thrilled with that choice, so adding two more films at the last minute allowed me to change that.
But look at it this way, in April I watched "Just Mercy" and "Den of Thieves" back-to-back, using O'Shea Jackson Jr. as a link. I briefly considered slipping this one in between those two, but then I wasn't crazy about which film would have landed on Mother's Day as a result. So I'm making up for that admission now, by including it here. It's still the year of the constant re-scheduling, after all.
Lakeith Stanfield carries over from "Selma" (that's four in a row for him, but this is the end of his run) and so does one other actor.
THE PLOT: The rap group NWA emerges from the mean streets of Compton in Los Angeles in the mid-1980's and revolutionizes hip-hop culture with their music and tales about life in the hood.
AFTER: I'm so white that the only reason I know the song "Straight Outta Compton" is because somebody once edited clips of NBC news anchor Brian Williams together to make it appear like he was rapping it, and that's probably still up on YouTube somewhere. Through the magic of editing, he also performed "Rapper's Delight" and "Baby Got Back", I think these were made back in 2013 and aired on Jimmy Fallon's show (while he was hosting "Late Night", before "The Tonight Show" even) and next week, he may have to apologize for those, too, in addition to his blackface impression of Chris Rock on "SNL". Hell, I'm so white that before today, I probably couldn't have named any members of N.W.A. except for Ice Cube - which doesn't make me racist, it's just not music that I've tended to listen to over the years. Anyway, I'm an East Coast guy, so I can probably name more members of the Wu-Tang Clan. (There's, umm, RZA, Ghostface Killah, Method Man, and Ol' Dirty Bastard, how'm I doing?)
But my choice to watch this today turned out to be somewhat significant, because it also pertains to the relationship between police officers and people of color. At the start of their career, the members of N.W.A. are seen harassed by cops for no reason, just for being black and dressing the way they do, and it's their white manager, Jerry Heller, who keeps them from being arrested. Later Dr. Dre is pursued by cops and arrested, though he MIGHT have been driving just a bit over the speed limit. More run-ins with the law include their performance of the song "F--- tha Police" in Detroit, after being explicitly ordered by a judge to NOT include that in their set. Yep, it's free speech issues again tonight, that weird legal issue over what constitutes obscene or dangerous material, and it's funny how the legal system paid so much attention to the lyrics of certain performers, of color, and less time worrying about certain white artists were singing. Say, Nine Inch Nails or Marilyn Manson.
And in the news in the background is Rodney King footage, at least twice, at the time of his beating by L.A. police and during the subsequent trial of the four officers who beat him. Kids, if you don't know who Rodney King was, just Google "1992 Los Angeles riots" for a history lesson. Even though there was a videotape recording of police using excessive force during a routine traffic stop, and King ended up with a broken leg, bruises all over his body, cuts on his face and a burn from a stun gun, the four officers were acquitted, leading to six days of riots in L.A. 63 people were killed, thousands injured, and the National Guard, Army and Marine corps were called in to re-establish control. Again, is this sounding familiar to anyone? Rodney King was that decade's George Floyd, only he lived (umm, until 2012). History could rhyme with itself once again, pending the outcome of the Minneapolis case.
But anyway, N.W.A. got its start when drug dealer Eazy-E got together with rapper Ice Cube and disc jockey Dr. Dre in 1986 to form Ruthless Records. Connecting with manager Jerry Heller got them a record deal with Priority Records, and their 1988 album, also called "Straight Outta Compton", led to the infamous 1989 tour and the run-in with the Detroit police and the FBI. Ice Cube went solo the next year when he refused to sign his contract without proper legal representation, which was probably a smart move in the long run. Any time a white record guy is telling a black performer or songwriter, "Hey, this is just how business is done..." that should set off a red flag. After watching so many documentaries about the music business in the 1960's, I can confirm that this pretty much was how the entire music business ran for decades (sometimes record companies stole money from white artists too, pretty much the whole industry was full of weasels) but still, that didn't make it right.
The other members of N.W.A. might have caught on sooner, if they hadn't been involved with their diss battles back-and-forth with Ice Cube. Or if any of them had hired a real accountant to look at the books. I've had some experience with distribution contracts and royalties in the film industry, and that's almost nearly as corrupt. Try getting financial updates from the aggregator who got your movie on to Netflix, it's the same problem in a different medium. In order to get your media out there, you usually have to go through certain "channels", and every party involved in those channels takes their cut, and then when it's finally time to pay you, oh, look, they just happen to have expenses that the contract says they can be reimbursed for, and those expenses just happen to total more than the royalties you're owed, so you get nada.
Dr. Dre was the next member of N.W.A. to leave the group and Heller's management, to form Death Row Records with Marion "Suge" Knight. And as you probably heard, everything went fine after that, there were no more problems ever in that business relationship. Just kidding. Suge has his goons rough up Eazy-E in order to get him to release Dr. Dre from his contracts. That's an innovative way to start your company, I guess. Dre eventually splits from Suge Knight to form Aftermath Entertainment, and later Beats Electronics, which he sells to Apple.
Before too long, Eazy-E uncovers rampant corporate malfeasance when the accounting numbers JUST don't seem to add up, and there's talk of an N.W.A. reunion once everyone is available again, only it never happens for a completely different reason. Still, if this is your kind of music then you can't deny the influence that N.W.A. had on the recording artists that followed, which the film is kind enough to show us during the credits.
In other news, I finally know where the popular saying "Bye, Felicia" comes from. OK, so I'm a bit behind the curve, that's how I choose to live my life.
Also starring O'Shea Jackson Jr. (last seen in "Den of Thieves"), Jason Mitchell (last seen in "Kong: Skull Island"), Corey Hawkins (last seen in "BlacKkKlansman"), Aldis Hodge (last seen in "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back"), Neil Brown Jr. (last seen in "Battle Los Angeles"), Paul Giamatti (last seen in "Private Life"), Marlon Yates Jr., Alexandra Shipp (last seen in "X-Men: Dark Phoenix"), Carra Patterson, Corey Reynolds (also last seen in "Selma"), Tate Ellington, Angela Elayne Gibbs, Bruce Beatty, Lisa Renee Pitts, R. Marcos Taylor (last seen in "Baby Driver"), Sheldon A. Smith, Elena Goode, Keith Powers, Inny Clemons (last seen in "Men in Black: International"), Mark Sherman, Camryn Howard, Cleavon McClendon, Rogelio Douglas Jr., Steve Turner, Tryon Woodley, LaDell Preston, Jordan Can, J. Kristopher, Stephanie Campbell, Marcc Rose, F. Gary Gray (last seen in "Law Abiding Citizen"), Michael Taylor, Brandon Lafourche, Dean Cameron (last seen in "Kicking and Screaming"), John Prosky, with archive footage of Ice Cube (last seen in "Fist Fight"), Dr. Dre (last seen in "Quincy"), Eazy-E, DJ Yella, Chris Tucker (last seen in "Silver Linings Playbook"), Snoop Dogg (also last seen in "Quincy"), Tupac Shakur (ditto), Eminem (last seen in "The Interview"), Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson (also last seen in "Den of Thieves"), Tom Brokaw (last seen in "Richard Jewell"), Peter Jennings (last seen in "RBG"), Rodney King, Matt Lauer (last seen in "Fahrenheit 11/9"), and archive audio of Oliver North (last seen in "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold"), Dan Rather (last seen in "Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine"), Ronald Reagan (last seen in "Bombshell"), Bob Schieffer (last seen in "Morning Glory").
RATING: 5 out of 10 smashed gold records
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