Niggaz With Attitude. The name says everything. Shamelessly self-promoting and utterly megalomaniacal, N.W.A forged an image of ghetto life that would come to define the entire hip hop scene in LA. They exploited America's most deep-seated fears of (and fascination with)...
[more]Niggaz With Attitude. The name says everything. Shamelessly self-promoting and utterly megalomaniacal, N.W.A forged an image of ghetto life that would come to define the entire hip hop scene in LA. They exploited America's most deep-seated fears of (and fascination with) race and violence. They said everything you weren't supposed to say. They thrived on shock value. Yes, everything N.W.A did was aimed at making an impact, at unsettling America's hard-packed soil. Exactly what kind of impact didn't much matter. They mainly wanted to make something happen.
And they did. Soon after their first album came out, N.W.A was tagged "America's most dangerous band." Rapping about everything from women-beating to cop-killing to drug-peddling, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, MC Ren, and DJ Yella sent the public into a state of happy shock. Their ethos was violent and rude. They banked on horror. It wasn't long before white kids in the Midwest were wearing Oakland Raiders hats and unlaced Nikes. And when real violence erupted, N.W.A didn't shirk from claiming themselves as the cause.
At a moment when Black Power was enjoying a renaissance, N.W.A wasn't the least bit interested in getting back to their African heritage, and only sometimes interested in taking power back from the Man. As Dr. Dre said, "Everybody trying to do this black power shit, so I was like, let's give 'em an alternative, 'niggerniggerniggernigger fuck this fuck that bitchbitchbitchbitch suck my dick,' all types of shit, you know what I'm saying?" Clearly, N.W.A wasn't trying to educate the masses or offer themselves up as role models. As Ice Cube said, "To a kid looking up to me, life ain't nothing but bitches and money."
They lived in a world beyond good and evil. And if any album proved it, it was the 1988 "Straight Outta Compton." The album's release demonstrated that the group's mood had darkened, their style had soured, their edge had become lethally sharp. These words were weapons. If the police had paid scant attention to what was going on in rap music previous to this release, N.W.A's infamous "Fuck Tha Police" got their attention. The song promised violence against any authority that got in the way.
With energy at such a high level, it was unlikely things could last. Tensions started to mount over issues of money -- Ice Cube thought he was getting the short end and left the group in 1989. N.W.A persevered and even produced their most remarkable -- and most remarkably violent -- album in 1991, "Efil4zaggin." With songs about gang-banging a preacher's 14-year-old daughter and murdering a hooker, this was nihilism, plain and simple. It was the apotheosis of N.W.A's own image -- and the beginning of its end.
Tensions over money began to tear away at the group again, and this time they couldn't hold it together. N.W.A came to its final end in 1991. The group had choked on its own vitriol, the violent words simply bordering on empty self-parody. Nonetheless, they pioneered a new vein of hip-hop for the 1990s: gangsta rap.
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