In this week’s cover of Billboard Kendrick Lamar interviews N.W.A about coming ‘Straight Outta Compton’ and changing the world.
‘N.W.A did a lot more than entertain. They told the truth,’ says Lamar. And as Dre explains, ‘If N.W.A had done it softer, it wouldn’t have gotten the attention. It wouldn’t have worked.’
Cube tells Billboard that he believes police brutality remains ‘the same’ today as it did in the late ’80s and early ’90s. (The Los Angeles riots are an important motif in the movie’s second half.) ‘They talk about bullying in society, but police are the worst bullies that we have to deal with,’ he says. Asked about Sam DuBose, who was fatally shot July 19 by a University of Cincinnati officer now charged with murder, Cube says, ‘This kind of stuff seems like it don’t happen to white guys.’
On when Dre new N.W.A were a big deal:
Dr. Dre: “When I saw Axl Rose wearing an N.W.A cap in one of his videos!”
DJ Yella on how there was no West before they came around:
DJ Yella: “The truth is that there wasn’t much competition. There was the East and the West, but there was really no West before us. We came in so different, so real, that we were immediately heard.”
They made ‘Straight Outta Compton in six weeks:
Dr. Dre: “Imagine this: We made Straight Outta Compton in six weeks, and that’s without working weekends. Twenty-five years later, and here’s a big-ass Hollywood movie carrying the same name. It’s unbelievable.”
On the hardest part of the music industry:
Ice Cube: “Business is the most f-ed-up part. It’s always awkward. It’s fun to make records, fun to be in the studio with your homies, fun to get up onstage. But the business part sucks. It’s always some shit you ready to get rid of so you can go back to being creative.”
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