5/18/2023 0 Comments Straight outta compton movie![]() ![]() Neither was Ice Cube’s delivery on “Fuck The Police,” a song that is as relevant today as it was in the 1990’s. That narrative is raw, unapologetic, and angry, and not just to police officers, but to women he sees as “hoes.” It is not meant to appease anyone. ![]() Through all of this, Ice Cube crafts a narrative in his notebook. Later, a police officer manhandles Ice Cube outside of his parent’s home just for walking while Black, calling him a nigger and laughing. Seconds later, the bus is held up by members of a gang who warn the teens to stay in school, while pressing a gun to one teenager’s face. In an earlier scene, a teenage Ice Cube sits on a school bus writing rhymes as he peers out of the window at white teens laughing in a convertible. Newcomer Jason Mitchell gives a powerful, affecting performance as Eazy-E, whose career, relationship with Heller, and eventual demise from AIDS becomes the central narrative of the film. After several tries, he delivers the verse that would solidify his hardcore image: “Cruising down the street in my six-four/jockin’ the bitches/ slappin’ the hoes.” The scene shows that the hard, macho image that the group promoted was, in fact, a creation. In the recording booth, Eazy-E struggles to deliver the lines, rushing through the words while the other group members laugh uncontrollably. Ice Cube, the main writer of the group along with MC Ren, pens rhymes that he hands off to Eazy-E, who wasn’t initially a rapper and came from a background of selling drugs. One clever scene shows how this rage was crafted. Dre’s $3 billion deal with Apple and contemplate the transfer of that power, initially built on rage. Heller promises to “open doors” for the group that only a white man can, but in the end credits of the film, we see Dr. As much as the film is about the group’s channeling of Black male rage and defiance, it’s also about how this very rage became a packaged commodity for American consumption and entertainment over time. The film continues beyond the end of the group, following each member onto their respective careers, and shows how an anti-establishment, alternative collective became an institution, entering the mainstream on their own terms. The film traces the rappers’ lives from their explosive debut album Straight Outta Compton, with its bold protest song “Fuck The Police”- which gets the attention of manager Jerry Heller (Paul Giamatti), mainstream news outlets, and the FBI-to their inevitable disbanding at the hands of Heller. Dre (Corey Hawkins), and to a lesser extent MC Ren (Aldis Hodge) and DJ Yella (Neil Brown Jr). Straight Outta Compton follows the quick rise and fall of NWA during the 1980s and 1990s, focusing on members Ice Cube (who’s played by his son, O’Shea Jackson Jr), Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell), Dr. Through the evocative lens of cinematographer Matthew Libatique, Gray illustrates the vibrancy and pain of this moment and, for the most part, does not leave out the contradictions. In doing so, he fully invests in that moment-in the sheen and texture of their jheri curls, in racist police officers with shiny badges abusing them, in a hotel sex party they engage in, and in scenes of a massive battering ram cruising down a Compton street to crush a tiny drug house that Eazy-E just barely escapes. Gary Gray seeks to capture a specific moment in American culture for five Black men. But after seeing the film, I can’t focus the review on that. Initially, I thought my review of the film would focus on the erasure of women from the history of hip-hop and the misogyny in Straight Outta Compton that some film critics have noted. And yet the culture is ours.Īll the stifling of our voices as young black people in that place at that time while a war was going on against us. To be a woman who loves hip hop at times is to be in love with your abuser. In a recent series of tweets, filmmaker Ava DuVernay-who hails from Compton and was actively involved in the hip-hop and cultural scene during the time period of the film-wrote: Gary Gray tells the complicated and politically charged story of rap group NWA (Niggas With Attitudes) forming in Compton in the mid-1980s. Now, early ‘90s hip-hop is the soundtrack to the most popular film in America: Straight Outta Compton bested every other film at the box office this weekend, raking in $60 million in ticket sales. We were women and girls listening to popular hip-hop. My babysitter listened to the CD religiously, turning up the volume so loud it made the car vibrate at late-night sideshows in Oakland, and during the daytime, when we’d ride down to Dimond Park playing “Bitches Ain’t Shit,” feeling bold and above any “bitch” in the song. Dre’s groundbreaking album The Chronic blasted across airwaves and began its long-lasting impact on pop culture. I was a young girl in the Bay Area when Dr.
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