![]() NWA’s first album blew all that to smithereens. In the summer of 1989, hip-hop was East Coast, right-on and increasingly respectable. The following spring De La Soul unfurled their trippy masterpiece, Three Feet High and Rising, a lyrical firework display of child-like wonder. In the autumn of 1988, Public Enemy released their magnificent It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, a flaming torch of righteous indignation. The late 1980s rap world they entered was dominated by acts from America’s eastern seaboard, and by groups brilliantly espousing assorted brands of virtuousness and positivity. The inevitable questions about those three capital letters meant that the message got through loud and clear. Even as cocksure a bunch as Eazy and his cohorts Dr Dre, Ice Cube, DJ Yella and MC Ren must have known they’d never get away with Niggaz Wit Attitude (the quintet’s full moniker), so they settled on the initials. A quarter of a century later – with a new biopic about their phosphorescent impact on popular culture about to be released, and an imminent induction into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame – NWA are completing an unlikely transition from controversy and harassment to acceptance and acclaim.įormed from the bits and pieces of other Los Angeles groups, and financed by the drugs profits of one of their members (Eric “Eazy-E” Wright), NWA were, in retrospect, always going to be trouble. They united liberal left and reactionary right in disgust at their works, and were considered worthy of the unfriendly, and very public, attentions of America’s security services. ![]() At the (very brief) height of their powers, the rap crew NWA were labelled “the most dangerous group in the world”.
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