Straight Outta Compton Is The Perfect Intersection Of Life And ART!

0
400

By R. Paul Dhillon

Finally saw Straight Outta Compton after a few empty trips to the multiplex due to sold out shows everywhere. And what a great ride it is, the perfect music biopic of all time, clicking on all cylinders and what an adrenaline rush.

Director F Gary Gray is right on the money in telling the tale of the seminal rap group NWA (Niggaz with Attitude), who more than popularized gangster rap. NWA are true artists who brought the voice of an oppressed and racially abused generation of young blacks to the forefront of American society, warts and all.

Fuc* the Police has become an anthem for all those who have been tortured by an authoritarian state which has gone way overboard with its racial profiling and gross misuse of authority, which continues to target them with extreme violence till today.

The film works on so many levels – the socio-political, the artists as powerful tools of conveying public angst, empowerment through art and politics of the music business. But NWA’s rise and fall is also tailor-made for cinema with its colourful, bigger than life characters, the dramatic, gangster/thug-life filled Compton setting and sheer music legends that the group’s members, primarily music producer Dr. Dre, lyricist/rapper Ice Cube and real-life gangster-drug dealer Eric “Easy E” Wright, who financed himself into the music business but had a tragic ending, dying from HIV-AIDs.

And no Hollywood villain could be bigger and deadly than the real-life Death Row Records thug Suge Knight, who the film hints was most likely responsible for Easy E’s untimely death from the AIDs (Easy E.’s family has said on record that they think Knight administered the HIV virus to Easy E. during a severe beating Knight and his thugs administered on the rapper over a contract dispute for artists under Easy E.’s Ruthtless Record label). Knight certainly lived up to his gangster rep by crashing the Straight Outta Compton film set and running over and killing one man. Knight is now in jail and bail is set at $25 million.

There is little doubt that Dr. Dre, who sold his Beats music to Apple for $3.2 billion, and Ice Cube are the genius behind NWA and they both shine alongside Easy E., who becomes the Godfather of the group. I personally found Ice Cube’s story the most compelling because he was the soul of the band, writing all of the iconic tracks from Dopeman to Fuc*The Police and then going on to a solid solo career after Easy E. and his manger tried to fuck him over with a contract. He excelled not only in music but also in films, becoming a huge movie star.

Dr. Dre is the ultimate music genius who rolled with the punches, moving from Ruthless Records to Knight’s Death Row and was eventually able to somehow get out of Knight’s grip in one piece to form his ultimate Rap empire with Aftermath Records. He’s responsible for discovering and giving rise to everyone from Tupac to Snoop Dog to 50 Cent and the great white hope of rap – Eminem!

Go see this great film as it is the perfect intersection of life and ART!