STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON (2015, R/UNRATED, 147/167 minutes, UNIVERSAL/LEGENDARY PICTURES)
I would like to be able to say that “gangsta rap” made me who I am today.
Unfortunately, no amount of gangsta rap can turn someone into a white, slightly over-weight, single dad with mental issues and a room at his mommy’s house. No, I blame all that on a lack of gangsta rap, quite honestly (and, well... GENETICS).
You see, when N.W.A.’s “Straight Outta Compton” dropped in record stores nationwide in August of 1988, I was preparing for my second year of college. I was listening to Prince, The Beastie Boys, and The Rolling Stones on my Walkman. The closest I got to controversial music that year was trying to memorize the lyrics to 2 Live Crew’s “Do Wah Diddy Diddy”. Thank the Sweet Baby Hey-Zeus for MTV.
Although, even with MTV, I was rather ensconced on the East Coast side of life. At that time, rap music seemed almost more of a novelty than an art. Seriously; “The Fat Boys”? You expect me to take a trio of fat guys seriously?!? Not to re-mention 2 Live Crew, which was essentially dirty porno music with a singular purpose: to shock. That singular purpose for a product can be attributed to most anything in life. Like Frito Lay’s Bean Dip. It’s just a can of beans, a single layer dip with one sole reason for being: to make Frito’s Scoops even tastier.
Such was rap music (for me, at least) at the time. And then comes a group of bad mother effers talking about police brutality and the brutality of the streets, and all I want to do is ride my ten speed bike to work and to the mall and not have to worry about drive-by shootings or gangsta’s or why all of the rappers keep calling each other the fricking N-word.
Obviously, instead of being straight out of Compton, I was, way back in 1988, straight outta Palm Harbor. Ruthlessly pleasant Palm Harbor. The exact polar opposite of Compton, CA.
So, no, N.W.A.’s first studio album did not have much effect on me. I almost wish it had. Ultimately, the album is not just an exercise in free speech so much as it is an exercise in freedom. Freedom to be yourself, freedom to express what influence the current cultural environment can have on a young man and his family and friends. It has a sh*t-ton of curse words in it, but if you take a moment to actually read some of the lyrics, you’ll see how eloquently much of it is written. These men were poets, they were artists, and theirs was a voice unheard by much of the world.
Hopefully the release of STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON, the biopic of the life and death of absolutely the most influential rap group to ever exist, will cause a resurgence in album sales. The film is not great (the flaws are minor, although director F. Gary Gray spends too much time on Eric “Easy E” Wright, which causes some missteps in the flow of the story), but it is damn good. And it is important to watch every single special feature included; it is the only way to get the full impact of what these artists created. That, and you get to see the pressure the actors playing the parts put themselves through in order to actually be able to perform as the group.
Buy it on Blu-ray. The music kind of demands it. As does the performance of Paul Giamatti as a skeezy manager. And then there is one O’Shea Jackson Jr, who happens to capture his father’s (Ice Cube) presence, mannerisms, and lyrical ability with spooky and uncanny accuracy.
So while I may be perpetrating a stereotype by saying that I will be purchasing the soundtrack to this film, I would like it to be known that I will also be RE-purchasing that most seminal of albums “Straight Outta Compton” as well. Due to the influence of my own cultural environment, I may have never been able to appreciate the honesty of N.W.A.’s lyrics, but I can at least respect how they approached their art, and turned rap music into actual music and not just a singular novelty.
Besides, I can use it as my life soundtrack right now. ‘Cause pimpin’ ain’t easy, kids; pimpin’ ain’t easy.
Grade: B
Special Features: A
Blu-ray Necessary: Most definitely
-- T.S. Kummelman
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