Investigating and Grappling with Straight Outta Compton

While there has been many songs in the evolution of music that have changed popular culture, the rap group NWA was the first to challenge white dominance in mainstream music. Although two decades removed from the civil rights movement, African American’s felt that the issues of racial oppression had not been solved.  Instead, these issues were being masked and rendered seemingly invisible because of a white dominated society.  In response to this reality, the rap group N.W.A in 1988 released the song straight out of Compton.  The lyrics in Straight out of Compton perfectly illustrates African American conceptions of reality through the shocking lyrical perceptions of Police brutality and economic inequality. In NWA’s attempt to explain the truth behind police brutality, they decide to portray cops as a collective establishment that is out to lock them in Jail.  Through a negative and explicit illustration of lyrics, NWA suggests that African Americans cannot avoid the law.  In a quote by NWA we see the connection between a system that is supposed to help you, but instead the rapper Easy E insinuates that the cop has other intentions.  “See, I don't give a fuck, that's the problem/I see a motherfuckin' cop, I don't dodge him/But I'm smart, lay low, creep a while/On a deeper level, these lyrics bring a sense of animosity due to an unfair judicial process.  As these rappers tell their stories through their music, it is no secret that a disproportionate amount of African Americans during this time period were being incarcerated. Looking at economic inequality the lyrics “Dangerous motherfucker raised in Hell” this underlines the economic oppression that was common amongst African Americans. Looking deeper into this idea, the large African American population that was below the middle class was due to deeper institutional racism.  This racism was more subtle and less overt and in the form of red lining, the practice of denying services or selectively raising prices.  In this way, white landowners could prevent African Americans from buying property in their county.  It also had the negative effect of keeping school systems poor due to population sizes due to this institutional racism.  It’s effect would keep education poor within African American neighborhoods.  This is the type of racism that is being insinuated in straight outta Compton’s lyrical message.  By reflecting this idea of “hell”, NWA is empowering African American’s to respond to this subtle but destructive institutional fascism.  This movement through music gave a voice to the subtlety’s of an unfair and corrupt system.  In this way, moving farther into the 20^th century, we see the transformation and evolution of a variety African American Activists separated from traditional forms to more complex forms such as musical artists.