I'm so ready to blast gats and disrespect the PO-leece!
Straight Outta Compton blew my mind when it came out. I still listen to it a couple times a year.
I think it's cool that Ice Cube's son will be playing him in the film.
raw talent, swagger, & bravado?!?
count me in!!!1!
That looks sweet!
In my top 50 albums for sure. Will definitely see this.
Side note, if you guys have not seen the Nas documentary I encourage you to. Really done well.
Cody
I know absolutely NOTHING about this subculture, other than the negative stereotypes, so perhaps I should check this out. I did enjoy playing GTA: San Andreas.
Oh, I did hear Nas on Santana's Guitar Heaven album. Didn't sound like singing or rapping to me, just someone a few sheets to the wind reciting lyrics in normal speech. Thought the name sounded Middle-Eastern at the time.
Mate of mine was hugely into NWA when I was a teen so it ended up being just about the only rap music I like (and worryingly know most of the lyrics to). Two white kids in a 1.3 Austin Metro driving round in Yorkshire to NWA.... Yeah, classy. Will likely go see this also :)
Same mate also got me into ZZ Top. What a diverse taste in music he had!
PJ and Duncan were my favourite rap group back in the early nineties.
I was HOOD.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/82/Let%27sGetReadytoRhumble.jpg/220px-Let%27sGetReadytoRhumble.jpg)
Looks to be a good movie. Not a huge NWA fan (I think I know two songs, and for all the wrong reasons), but the trailer's definitely got a hook in it.
It was funny, I was watching it and I thought "Hmm, the guys from NWA have done all right for themselves (Dre, Ice Cube), Public Enemy, not so much."
Quote from: GermanCdn on February 11, 2015, 04:24:04 PM
Looks to be a good movie. Not a huge NWA fan (I think I know two songs, and for all the wrong reasons), but the trailer's definitely got a hook in it.
It was funny, I was watching it and I thought "Hmm, the guys from NWA have done all right for themselves (Dre, Ice Cube), Public Enemy, not so much."
I'm a huge Public Enemy fan. I thought NWA had some catchy songs but they were devoid of content beyond the hit 'F the Police'. Flav is joke now but he kinda always was. Chuck D may not be rich buy he commands a lot of respect as he should.
I thought the casting looked uncanny... makes sense its his son!
I think the movie looks great, Ill definitely be watching it. Love the record, too.
Well, uh call me uneducated and out of touch but what does this movie want to teach us?
Compton is a hell hole as far as I know.. I live close by....
Help me understand what is the reason to watch this ?
Quote from: sonarchotic on February 12, 2015, 02:17:42 AM
I'm a huge Public Enemy fan. I thought NWA had some catchy songs but they were devoid of content beyond the hit 'F the Police'. Flav is joke now but he kinda always was. Chuck D may not be rich buy he commands a lot of respect as he should.
I respect Public Enemy for a lot of reasons. I just find their music hard to listen to. NWA was a lot more listenable for me.
Chuck D wanted to raise political issues worldwide. NWA was far more local and focused on showing the rest of America just how much of a warzone their home was. Different agendas, but both did a lot to increase awareness.
Quote from: blearyeyes on February 12, 2015, 03:37:47 AM
Well, uh call me uneducated and out of touch but what does this movie want to teach us?
Compton is a hell hole as far as I know.. I live close by....
Help me understand what is the reason to watch this ?
I don't think it's a teaching movie, per se. It's more of a bio-pic about how NWA formed and rose to fame. I'm sure it will highlight some interesting historical facts along the way, but it's not a documentary with a social agenda, as far as I can tell.
Quote from: blearyeyes on February 12, 2015, 03:37:47 AM
Well, uh call me uneducated and out of touch but what does this movie want to teach us?
Compton is a hell hole as far as I know.. I live close by....
Help me understand what is the reason to watch this ?
Because NWA was important for cultural and artistic reasons that went well beyond their home.
I can't even figure out what your comment about Compton has to do with the movie, except that it's the neighborhood they came from and in the name of their breakthrough album.
For anyone wondering why these guys are so artistically important: From a songwriter's perspective, NWA made it cool to put "awful" things into popular music, in the same way that Bob Dylan made it cool to put very intensely personal and political statements into popular music. Even if you don't
like gangsta rap, NWA was a major reason the conversation moved forward, and that's important. They weren't the only ones doing it, but they were early in the game, they had one of the most talented producers in popular music, and they caught the most grief from people who believed that singing about their neighborhood amounted to yelling fire in a movie theater.
I would go so far as to say that they're at least partly responsible for the acceptance of hip hop into mainstream American music: a bunch of kids suddenly heard the stuff because they were told not to listen to it (kinda like rock music in the 50s and 60s, eh?), which made them sell a lot of records and get into a lot more ears, then other people start writing less heavy subjects using a lot of the same aggressive beats and vocals which produces hits and a lot of money to make more stuff like that, and sooner or later even the production techniques start making their way into almost every form of music.
This is without even discussing the political effects, which are way more complicated. An hour and a half movie probably can't contain a subject this broad.
I'm looking forward to it. I can recite pretty much every word off of Eazy-E's "Eazy Duz It" album.
I remember hearing Straight Outta Compton for the first time back in the day...I was like "they said what??!" It was pretty interesting because at that time there really was no swearing in rap. You had artists like Grandmaster Flash and MC Hammer...then these guys came along and just turned the genre on its head.
NWA directly spawned the lasting careers of Eazy E, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube. Without them we wouldn't even know who Snoop Dogg, Eminem, 50 Cent are.
The influence of NWA goes way beyond just gangsta rap. It is evident in music by Sublime, Sugar Ray, Dynamite Hack, Beck, and tons more. It will be interesting to see how the movie does the group justice.
I'd be curious to see this too. Back when I first became aware of them (high school, late '80s) it was like all my skater friends were way into them overnight. It worked for us in the same way punk did, i.e. the music embodied an oppositional stance to the dominant culture.
And, oh yeah, it caused my friends to hijack my beat-up car and do a water balloon drive-by on me...we were so OG... ;D
Regardless of whether or not you like the NWA, it's difficult to argue that they had a significant influence on the content and the style of music that followed. I always thought of Public Enemy as more political than NWA, but nobody matched the sheer raw force of anger and frustration than NWA.
To Jon's point, I think that they absolutely are partly responsible for the acceptance and growth of hip hop into Mainstream. SOC hit right as I started high school and you could see it roll through the suburbs. I remember it freaking out the parents much more than any of the rap music they had heard before that. Of course, the kids loved it even more when their parents hated it.
These days, I hear it through slightly different ears than I did then. After seeing the trailer, I listened to the album through for the first time in a long time. I think now I pay more attention to the subtleties of it (from politics to production values). I will admit that the misogyny is a bit more tiresome to me these days.
Because of this thread, I went out and bought NWA's greatest hits from the iTunes bargain bin. I now feel like that guy from Office Space who rolls up his windows when he's listening to gangsta rap.
I also enjoy some of the latter life irony with the rapper turned actors from the 90s (Ice Cube, Ice T), who made their stance on the police early in their careers, and then spent their entire acting careers playing cops on TV/movies (hey, we all grow up, right). They shoulda taken a cue from my main man Vanilla Ice, who kept true to his roots, and decided he wanted to build barns with the Amish :P.
Anyway, I'll rent the movie when it's on PPV, I don't think I'll convince Bon to go see it in a theatre, unless I give in and agree to go see 50 Shades, which is never, ever, ever going to happen.
Quote from: pickdropper on February 12, 2015, 04:43:44 PM
These days, I hear it through slightly different ears than I did then. After seeing the trailer, I listened to the album through for the first time in a long time. I think now I pay more attention to the subtleties of it (from politics to production values). I will admit that the misogyny is a bit more tiresome to me these days.
They did indeed like their bitches...
I suspect as much when they were penniless as they did when they were wealthy. I very much doubt they'd change their tune on that...
sorry... ;D
Well put. Never paid much attention to rap/hip hop artists per se so I didn't know the movie's name was an album title. I remember all the whoop dee do when they released though. Funny how the anti-parent thing works. I get the interest now. Thanks.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Based on comments about when all of you first heard this music, I figure a lot of us must be even closer in age than I realized.
Well I'm young in my own mind....
Quote from: juansolo on February 12, 2015, 05:32:32 PM
Quote from: pickdropper on February 12, 2015, 04:43:44 PM
These days, I hear it through slightly different ears than I did then. After seeing the trailer, I listened to the album through for the first time in a long time. I think now I pay more attention to the subtleties of it (from politics to production values). I will admit that the misogyny is a bit more tiresome to me these days.
They did indeed like their bitches...
I suspect as much when they were penniless as they did when they were wealthy. I very much doubt they'd change their tune on that...
sorry... ;D
I bet they still like hanging out with women, but I l'd be willing to bet they spend less time referring to them as bitches. :-)
I'd be really curious to hear how their perspectives have changed as they've become incredibly famous and wealthy. I think it would be tough keeping an edge as you got older and more comfortable. I think Dr. Dre is likely a billionaire after Apple's acquisition of Beats.
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Oh they'll have all grown up. Most musicians do eventually ;) I remember going to an early NIN gig and it was all anger and adrenaline. Awesome. Later ones are very polished and still entertaining, but there's no edge to them (but then he evolved with it so it works on a different level these days). I expect the same for the likes of Metallica and what have you. You just can't keep that sort of fire going indefinitely and if you try and revisit it, it rarely works as you have a different, more mature, life view. Getting that hunger back when you've essentially achieved what you set out to is gonna be hard...
Quote from: juansolo on February 12, 2015, 07:32:44 PM
Oh they'll have all grown up. Most musicians do eventually ;) I remember going to an early NIN gig and it was all anger and adrenaline. Awesome. Later ones are very polished and still entertaining, but there's no edge to them (but then he evolved with it so it works on a different level these days). I expect the same for the likes of Metallica and what have you. You just can't keep that sort of fire going indefinitely and if you try and revisit it, it rarely works as you have a different, more mature, life view. Getting that hunger back when you've essentially achieved what you set out to is gonna be hard...
Exactly. Well put.
Quote from: pickdropper on February 12, 2015, 07:01:32 PM
I bet they still like hanging out with women, but I l'd be willing to bet they spend less time referring to them as bitches. :-)
Quote from: pickdropper on February 12, 2015, 04:43:44 PM
I will admit that the misogyny is a bit more tiresome to me these days.
I suspect that a lot of that was encouraged for the shock value. I'm not saying they were all card-carrying members of NOW, but a lot of the more inflammatory lyrics seem to be there just for the sake of shock. The distrust of police and the anger about the condition of their neighborhood is real, but I think a lot of the rest of the stuff was just window dressing that the producer encouraged. Either way, it worked. ;D
Quote from: midwayfair on February 12, 2015, 07:58:00 PM
Quote from: pickdropper on February 12, 2015, 07:01:32 PM
I bet they still like hanging out with women, but I l'd be willing to bet they spend less time referring to them as bitches. :-)
Fixed for ya Jon.
Cody
Quote from: culturejam on February 12, 2015, 10:11:35 PM
Quote from: pickdropper on February 12, 2015, 04:43:44 PM
I will admit that the misogyny is a bit more tiresome to me these days.
I suspect that a lot of that was encouraged for the shock value. I'm not saying they were all card-carrying members of NOW, but a lot of the more inflammatory lyrics seem to be there just for the sake of shock. The distrust of police and the anger about the condition of their neighborhood is real, but I think a lot of the rest of the stuff was just window dressing that the producer encouraged. Either way, it worked. ;D
You know, that's entirely possible. And, just for the record, I'm not super uptight about the content of the album; I recognize that much of it is shock value. It's merely that some aspects of it stand out more for me now that they did when I was younger.
And yeah, the shock value definitely worked. Changed the genre.
Quote from: selfdestroyer on February 12, 2015, 10:29:39 PM
Quote from: midwayfair on February 12, 2015, 07:58:00 PM
Quote from: pickdropper on February 12, 2015, 07:01:32 PM
I bet they still like hanging out with women, but I l'd be willing to bet they spend less time referring to them as bitches. :-)
Fixed for ya Jon.
Cody
I think I'll have to check that out later when I am at home. :-)
I didn't think I was looking forward to it but after browsing this thread I feel like I need to at least get a copy of Straight Outta Compton.
(http://i928.photobucket.com/albums/ad124/v4hor/ice-tea-with-ice-cubes-t-shirt-9283_zpsvisd1x7f.jpg)
Epic picture.. lol
And here I thought Jon had come to post this:
Thanks guys. Now I'm at my desk at a very conservative job, complete with suit and tie, answering emails and what not...listening to an Eazy E mix on the headphones. I haven't listened to this stuff since I was kid. Holy moly does it bring back memories.