Why NWA aren’t performing at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony
Hologram Eazy-E was booked that weekend, perhaps
Internets,
This year, only one black group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and they’re not even performing. The organizers of this year’s induction ceremony need to see if they can’t get the surviving members of NWA to perform, if only because it would look bad if they didn’t.
The fact that the group hasn’t had time to rehearse is of minimal concern, because this is, after all, rap music. All they gotta do is pace back and forth across the stage, grabbing their nuts (nullus), shouting expletives into a microphone over a pre-recorded backing track, with umpteen people on stage who aren’t even in the group and maybe a few hoo-ers twerking.
I can’t imagine any of that would be difficult to find, even in a rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn, where the event is being held. If they need a line on some hoo-ers. plus umpteen black guys who don’t have anything to do with the group, they can bring Taxstone on as a consultant.
They’d also have to make sure the surviving members of the group show up, which could be more difficult. They can’t just bring a random black guy from the maintenance department on stage and say it’s Dr. Dre. The one black family who actually pays for HBO would notice, and it would be an even worse controversy than if NWA hadn’t performed in the first place.
The group reunited for some BET awards show last year, probably not for any reason other than to capitalize on the popularity of the film Straight Outta Compton, and Dr. Dre didn’t show up. This meant there wasn’t anyone there other Cube and MC Ren. Yella may or may not have been behind the turntables. It’s hard to tell from the video I pulled up on YouTube just now. The quality’s not very good.
In an interview yesterday with the New York Times, Ice Cube said he was pretty sure everyone would be there, at least as far as he knows. I took that to mean that he had no idea whether or not everyone would be there; he just figured they probably would be, because who wouldn’t show up to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Even some of the guys from the Temptations with serious coke problems I’m pretty sure showed up back in the ’80s, albeit maybe just because they thought there might be a check there, with which they could cop.
Elsewhere in the interview with the New York Times, Cube suggests that the group would have been willing to perform, but they wanted their performance to be “on a whole other level,” and they didn’t feel they received the support they would have needed in order to do so. He didn’t elaborate on what he meant by support.
Things this could possibly mean:
- Dr. Dre wanted to turn the whole thing into an ad for Apple Music, and that was beneath even the clowns who run the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
- Yella isn’t making as much money from his pr0n career, because of tube sites, and the organizers wouldn’t spring to fly him out to New York
- The venue where the event is being held wasn’t equipped with the lasers necessary for Hologram Eazy-E to make an appearance
- The group insisted on performing “Fuck tha Police,” and 2003 inductee Sting pulled some strings and prevented them from doing so
It couldn’t have been a matter of the organization not being willing to spring for some Yeezus Mountain, because like I said, how much does it take, really, to put on a good rap show?
If it really was a matter of the group’s content not being fit to be performed before such an esteemed group of attendees, then that raises the question of why they would even induct a group they can’t stand to listen to.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case, and it was disappointing to see such a media-trained, middle-aged Ice Cube, star of Are We There Yet?, weasel his way out of really discussing why they weren’t performing, talking about how grateful they were to be invited–as if you can not be invited to your own induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Even some of the sketchier DeBarge siblings would have to be invited, if they were ever inducted.
And that’s the thing. It’s getting to the point now where so many good groups haven’t been inducted that why should we even give a shit? Rap music was only any good for about a 10-year span from 1986 to 1996. Because artists become eligible 25 years after releasing their first record, half of the good rappers should already be in there, but so far there’s only like five of them.
The first Tribe album came out in 1990. If they’d been inducted this year, maybe Phife Dawg would have had the strength to hold on until at least after the ceremony. Therefore it’s fair to say that Jann Wenner killed Phife Dawg.
Take it easy on yourself,
Bol
Originally published at tinyletter.com.
