Straight Outta Compton charts the rise of ground-breaking, 1980s South Los Angeles-based rap/hip hop group N.W.A whose style of gangsta rap brought the genre into the mainstream while creating a scene to rival their better-established East Coast rap counterparts at the time.
During the late 1980s, the streets of Compton in Los Angeles, California, were some of the most dangerous in the country. The plague of crack cocaine was escalating at a rate as alarming as the violent, gang-driven business that propelled its use. The Los Angeles Police Department and its specialised gang unit were leading the charge on the war on drugs with an unchecked mercilessness, resulting in a tense community; one also distrustful of authority.
Eric Wright, better known as Eazy-E, was a dope seller with a vision. Wanting to leave his street lifestyle behind – and having the resources and connections to make a change - he got together with local DJs Dr Dre (real name Andre Young) and DJ Yella (born Antoine Carraby) and two young rappers from the area - MC Ren (Lorenzo Paterson) and Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson). Coming together as the group N.W.A, it was time to use their frustration as fuel for their art and give their people the one thing they desperately needed - a voice; a voice which rang loud and clear for the several years the group dominated the scene.
After the group split, Ice Cube went on to develop a successful and lucrative career in his own right as a musician, actor, writer, producer and director, yet he always wanted to bring the story of the group that launched his career to the big screen.
In 2009, Ice Cube came across the screenplay that proved to be the springboard for what would eventually be the finished product. That original screenplay was born of material compiled by music documentarian S. Leigh Savidge and screenwriter Alan Wenkus. The final shooting script was by Andrea Berloff and Jonathan Herman.
The original screenplay was born of material compiled by music documentarian S. Leigh Savidge and screenwriter Alan Wenkus
The main surviving members of the original N.W.A also came on board in some capacity. Dr Dre and Eazy-E’s widow, Tomica Woods-Wright (he died in 1995) joined the team as producers, while MC Ren and DJ Yella served as production consultants. Their presence guaranteed that the story would be authentic, and with director F. Gary Gray on board, the film finally came to fruition.
Gray, who had previously worked on music videos for Ice Cube and Dr Dre, felt a personal affinity with the subject, having grown up in the same area as the protagonists. His aim was to give a true account of N.W.A’s inexorable rise to popularity, the fame and fortune, the controversies, the clashes with the authorities and the rifts and break-ups that followed.
He also wanted to emphasise the important influence this ground-breaking group on popular culture, an influence that still resonates today. Also, as Gray states in the film’s production notes, “Reading the script for the first time, it felt like a coming-of-age story, and that was unexpected. It felt like the beginning of history with these five brothers.
“I didn’t expect the emotion that made me want to delve deeper,” he adds. “N.W.A’s music is great, but I wanted to tap into the humanity. Everyone knows Dr. Dre, Ice Cube and Eazy-E; they’re icons, but they’re also people. In one of my first conversations with Ice Cube, I said: ‘If you give me access to O’Shea Jackson, Andre Young and Eric Wright, then I’m interested in telling this story.”
An intensive period of casting finally brought together the five young actors who would portray the five members of N.W.A – Corey Hawkins was cast as Dr Dre, Jason Mitchell as Eazy-E, Neil Brown Jr. as DJ Yella, Aldis Hodge as MC Ren and in the role of his father Ice Cube, O’Shea Jackson Jr. The film was finally released in the US on August 14.
Straight Outta Compton spent three consecutive weeks at the top of the US Box Office, having already earned €135 million in domestic sales on a budget of €24 million. Its success at the box office mirrors the critical acclaim it has so far received – it currently enjoying a 90% success rate on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, which describes it as “a biopic that’s built to last, thanks to F. Gary Gray’s confident direction and engaging performances from a solid cast”.
Straight Outta Compton is currently showing at cinemas.