Straight Outta Compton (2015)

“Let me tell you what I see here: a lot of raw talent. Swagger. Bravado. People are scared of you guys. They think you're dangerous, but the world needs to hear it.”

            I remember growing up in the nineties hearing about all the rap feuds. I remember hearing about the East Coast vs. the West Coast. I remember VH1 running stories about Tupac and Biggie. I remember when Eminem released his song Forgot About Dre and that made in turn made me look into some of Dr. Dre’s songs. I also remember I downloaded a few Ice Cube songs and I still listen to them to this day especially You Can Do It. One of the songs I remember hearing when watching VH1 (I was a weird little kid I did not watch MTV I watched VH1) was N.W.A.’s Fuk Tha Police. That was a shock to my sugary sweet pop-music loving ears. But as I grew up I came to like music of all kinds including rap. I do not really care what the song is as long as it has a good beat and I can stand listening to it I like it. When I heard there was a biopic of N.W.A. called Straight Outta Compton I was interested to see what it was about.

            The movie starts off with how N.W.A. first came together and how they were friends growing up in Compton in the late 1980s. They got a record deal and released their first album Straight Outta Compton which was a huge success. Their lyrics, especially their song Fuk Tha Police, are very controversial.  The rest of the story follows Ice Cube, Eazy-E, and Dr. Dre through the beginning of their solo careers and some runs in the law and record companies.

            Trust me the story is not as boring as I made it sound.

            Straight Outta Compton was good. The acting was solid. I must confess that I was also interested in seeing the movie because I like the actor Aldis Hodge who played MC Run. I like him from the TV show Leverage where he played the awesome character Hardison. Unfortunately for me Hodge is not in the movie as much the others. Despite the lack of Aldis Hodge for me Straight Outta Compton was good and it somewhat fed my almost twenty-year curiosity about N.W.A. Even though Straight Outta Compton was good it is not a movie I would say go find and watch as soon as you can but it is worth seeing at least once.