The Dicks, a now mostly forgotten punk band, had put out a song called “Hate the Police” in 1980. was hardly the first group of young men trying to figure out the alchemy described by Joe Strummer - “turning rebellion into money” - to voice such sentiments.
This was the Age of Crack, when cities such as New York and Los Angeles were miniature failed states that would be unrecognizable to those who know those cities only in the form they’ve had for the past 15 years or so. N.W.A.’s most celebrated and most infamous track from Straight Outta Compton was “F*** tha Police,” which is about as subtle as you’d expect. N.W.A.’s debut release, Straight Outta Compton It is probably best to let the movies be the movies and let the history books be the history books: I believe that Oliver Stone’s Nixon is probably the best film yet made about American politics - just so long as you don’t watch it thinking it has anything to do with the life of the fellow who served as the 37th president of the United States.
We still haven’t quite figured out how to order our understanding of history and fiction when the two overlap. That’s a sign of the times, too: In 1991, Time was worried about the inclusion of fictional violence, and in 2015 Time is worried about the exclusion of real violence. Dre’s “1991 assault on female journalist Dee Barnes - dismissed by Eazy-E because the ‘bitch had it comin’ - doesn’t make the final cut” in the film. In 1991, the magazine argued that N.W.A.’s commercial success was “raising questions about why ghetto rage and the brutal abuse of women appeal to mainstream listeners,” and today, Time complains that Dr. In 1988, Time reported that most Americans blamed violent and depraved pop-music lyrics for social disorders in 1991, a Time music critic described N.W.A.’s follow-up album as “grotesque.” Only a few years later, Straight Outta Compton was on Time’s list of all-time great albums.
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