Our art is a reflection of our reality. What do you see when you go outside your door? I know what I see… and it ain’t glamorous. Freedom of speech includes rap music right? We’re exercising our first amendment as far as I’m concerned.
“F*** Tha Police” is just a warning that’s it… you can’t treat people like that and expect them not to rise up. I’m a journalist just like you… reporting what’s going on in the hood. The only thing that’s different, is that I’m brutally honest.
Hip hop music is a part of black history that involved a huge controversial battle between the law and artists artist’s rights to freedom of speech referenced in the First Ammendment. The battle began when all star group of the late 80’s, N.W.A gave birth to the genre of gangsta rap and used it to express their true selves via the songs, “F*** Tha Police,” “Gangsta Gangsta,” “Dopeman,” “8 Ball,” and the title track itself, “Straight Outta Compton” from the group’s debut album, Straight Outta Compton.
Particularly, the one song that blew this group up through the powerful lyrics gave the people a brutally honest taste of what was really going on in the streets of Compton, South Central, and Watts. That song being “F*** Tha Police” created a dangerous spark between the law enforcement, the government, and minorities all over Los Angeles. How did Mainstream White America feel about N.W.A back then? How does Mainstream White America and even law enforcement feel about the group now?
I can only speak for myself, but through the riots and endless threats received from the L.A.P.D and the F.B.I, the group slowly but surely impacted not just music in a powerful way, but the use of all civil rights given to us as a people in America. Based on everything that N.W.A has been through for the better of our civil rights, it would leave me with a question for the law enforcement if I were alive back in the era of this group; “What is the point of our civil rights if we are illegally apprehended and shut down because of it?” Isn’t it ironic that this whole battle didn’t even begin with freedom of speech??? The L.A.P.D started all of it! The police were harassing minorities of color based on the way they looked, dressed, and sounded like. This built up more and more frustration all over L.A, which created the world’s most dangerous times. These times started flourishing more and more, and these times created the world’s most dangerous group.
When N.W.A was born, “F*** Tha Police” was the worst song that the group has ever made, but the “worst” song that the group has ever made, turned out to be one of N.W.A’s greatest hits, 20 something odd years later, the group is still causing a huge impact on people all over the world and not just in Compton anymore.
However, the police had enough trouble dealing with the crack/cocaine epidemic being in full effect along with the Crips and Bloods as well. Maybe this caused the police to act the way that they did in these neighborhoods toward the minorities? But what N.W.A did to reveal to ugly truth behind law enforcement involved the fact that they went against all odds to inform the people that not everybody slangs dope or gang bangs. Later on as the group broke up, major events of their time that are now in the history books reflected toward the world. [state why this is important] Rodney King was brutally beaten by the L.A.P.D in early March of 1991 which led to L.A riots once the officers were still not found guilty even when the whole incident was caught on tape!! That is when the world began to see N.W.A for who they really were. And that is when everyone said, “Oh so that’s why they wrote that song!” [were they successful in disrupting norms in society? laws? public opinion? If so, how do we know?]