Straight Outta Compton
Straight Outta Compton is the
1989 (see
1989 in music) breakthrough album by N.W.A, released on Priority Records. The album was a surprise hit, as most music executives at the time viewed
hip hop as a passing fad, and did not expect a hardcore
gangsta rap album from the
West Coast rap scene (all previous chart success in hip hop had been from the
East Coast scene) to sell over 2.5 million copies with virtually no radio airplay and an
MTV band. The album has since been described as "a work of revolutionary genius, a painful scream from the bleak streets of black America and, more commonly, as reprehensible trash with no redeeming value"
[1].
Straight Outta Compton 's unprecedented mainstream success set the sound for hip hop in the early 1990s. Angry, vitriolic lyrics and an almost-cartoonish level of violence made this album controversial upon its first release. This is especially true of "Fuck Tha Police", which caused law enforcement groups to protest the album. The Federal Bureau of Investigation sent a letter to N.W.A., explaining that the FBI did not appreciate the song's message:
- Fuck tha police comin' straight from the underground
- a young nigga's got it bad 'cause I'm brown
- and not the other color so police think
- they have the authority to kill a minority
Ice Cube and
MC Ren wrote most of the songs, and
Dr. Dre and
DJ Yella did most of the
production.
Track listing
- "Straight Outta Compton" (Eazy E/Ice Cube/MC Ren)
- "Fuck Tha Police" (Ice Cube/Ren. M.C.)
- "Gangsta Gangsta" (Eazy E/Ice Cube/MC Ren)
- "If It Ain't Ruff" (MC Ren)
- "Parental Discretion Iz Advised" (Eazy E/Ice Cube/Ren)
- "8 Ball [Remix]" (Ice Cube)
- "Something Like That" performed by N.W.A
- "Express Yourself" (Ice Cube)
- "Compton's N the House" [Remix] performed by N.W.A
- "I Ain't Tha 1" (Ice Cube)
- "Dopeman [Remix]" (Ice Cube)
- "Quiet on Tha Set" performed by N.W.A
- "Something 2 Dance 2" performed by N.W.A
Personnel
- Eazy-E - Executive Producer
- Dr._Dre - Producer
- Bernie Grundman - Mastering
- Donovan Sound - Engineer
- Eric Wright - Executive Producer
- Yella - Producer
- Eric Poppleton - Photography
- Big Bass Brian - Mastering
- Helane Freeman - Artwork, Art Direction
External links