You know what’s scary – that moment when people stop laughing with things and start laughing at them. It happens about that time when people become boring – what – 26? 27? The idea, as I understand it, is that laughing along with NWA is OK until you want to be a proper human, and at that point you’re meant to start listening exclusively to Scouting for Girls or Mumford and Sons, and decide that ‘Straight Outta Compton’ was just one disgusting sample-casserole.
Take ‘A bitch is a bitch’. What has it come to – how bad has it gotten – when we hear raps like ‘Now, the title bitch don’t apply to all women, but all women have a little bitch in em’ and don’t s******? I love ‘Straight Outta Compton’ precisely because it’s absurd, and the type of person who thinks otherwise, the type of person I can’t stand, would do well to remember that his mum still buys his trousers. Lyrics about bitches don’t mean that it’s not proper. Take ‘Something 2 Dance 2’. The mistake is writing it off because it’s all just strange words at a strange pace over strange music. That’s what’s so ***ing great about it. It’s brilliant because it’s silly. You didn’t actually think they included the digit and not the word because it makes them hardcore, did you? Dr. Dre comes good as usual here, and the beat is made up of convulsive electro-spasms which sound a bit like something from a Prince beat. It works as a brilliant and absurd contrast to the operatic bursts of “DAANCE TO!” taken from a Sly and the Family Stone track.
OK, I know, an aggressive defence doesn’t make for a good read, but the drones of the rap-hating miserablist are so loud that I think I did well to stick to a couple of paragraphs. It’s a cause worth devoting 2 (oh, alright then, two) paragraphs to, but I’m done now.
‘Straight Outta Compton’ is crammed with head-bangers. ‘Express Yourself’ is a feel-good Dre solo cut which is funky as hell and particularly stands out. ‘Fack the Police’ is a rough, scrappy thing which should remind us what’s so great about sampling – it’s got all the energy of a cop chase, with James Brown thrown on top of Marva Whitney thrown on top of Roy Ayers. Now, before I come out and say this I want to make one thing clear – I know all too well that ‘Oh! The production!’ is your go-to comment for people who are over-enthusiastic and under-listened, but Christ, the production really is good.
The rhymes don’t let the album down – far from it. Ice Cube’s opening verse on the title track is mammoth. He barks his way through ““When I’m called off! I got a sawed-off! Squeeze the trigger and bodies are hauled off!” This is Cube at his most loveable. Oh, he’s still untameable, still Compton’s own death dwarf, still the bristly boroughsian malefactor, but this is one of my favourite things about gangster rap and ‘Straight Outta Compton’ does it perfectly – you end up siding with the bad guys.
It’s nice to see Ice Cube putting his back into it, especially now we live in a time where Drake announces a hip hop album and we wind up on the receiving end of lines like ‘It’s boring – paint drying.’ In 1987 the lyrics were so out-there the FBI actually penned a letter to Ruthless Records and explained just how much they disapproved, but NWA exist almost as superheroes – as enchanting and absurd embodiments of our gristlier bits. You heard me. A letter from the FBI just makes ‘Straight Outta Compton’ even better, doesn’t it.
This record completely changed things. It was a tattooed, trigger-pulling alternative to the more languid vibrations oozing out from under De La Soul’s door in New York at around the same time. ‘Straight Outta Compton’ was so confrontational, everything about it, the shouting, the sirens, the crashes, the drums, that one day some dudes heard it and decided to start battle rap. When lots of new things are springing off a thing, that thing tends to be pretty cool. But never mind all of that. When are these kids going to start acting mature? I find it all deeply disturbing. NWA? More like NWAP. Screw the passion and screw the rebellion. We want some gelatinous folk sludge, and we want it now.
