Kept Outta "Compton": N.W.A's Arabian Prince Has No Regrets

[CORREA]

Kept Outta "Compton": N.W.A's Arabian Prince Has No Regrets

Arabian Prince says he's not angry, but he knows people who are. Although he was one of the founding members of the rap group N.W.A, he was left out of the hit movie Straight Outta Compton, and, as a result, people are seeking him out on Facebook to vent. "I've got hundreds of people complaining and they're more mad than I am," he says, "The people I went to see the movie with ... they're mad!"

During a phone call from his home in Marina del Rey, Calif., Arabian -- born Kim Nazel -- acknowledges that it doesn't "feel good" to be "erased" by the movie, but muses, "If people want to change history, they're going to do it. People have changed history since the Bible. We don't know what the real story of the Bible is."

As for the real story of N.W.A, Arabian says, "Maybe for 50% of the [movie] scenes, I was there in real life, on stage, or in the studio." He says a lot of N.W.A's early music production was done with his equipment.

Arabian met Andre Young, now the music mogul Dr. Dre, in the early 1980s, while both were DJs in the West Coast electro music scene. (Arabian describes electro -- the forerunner of today's electronic dance music -- as an up-tempo blend of Parliament Funkadelic, Prince and the German electronic-music band Kraftwerk.) Arabian grew up in Compton, Calif., surrounded by music: an only child with a pianist mother, a bass-playing stepfather, and a funk-loving uncle. His father was a talk-radio DJ at KACE-FM, and, as a teenager, Arabian would hang out in the control room and mix music.

That led him to DJing and producing records. One day, while "messing around in the studio," Arabian whipped up the electro classic "Supersonic," with the female rap group J.J. Fad, and released it independently. (Years later, the song was sampled in two platinum-selling records: Fergie's 2006 "Fergalicious," and Eminem's 2013 "Rap God." Arabian sued for his share of the royalties for "Fergalicious.")

But electro was starting to evolve "because of our life situations in the hood," says Arabian. "Early on it was all about the partying and the girls and the freaks in the club," but growth in gang activity made big DJ parties unsafe. Plus, young black people in cities like Compton felt increasingly targeted by the police. Arabian and Dre "had met Eazy-E [Eric Wright], who was the neighborhood pharmaceutical technician," says Arabian with a laugh. "He was already on the street." With the addition and influence of Ice Cube [O'Shea Jackson], MC Ren [Lorenzo Patterson] and DJ Yella [Antoine Carraby], the hardcore-rap N.W.A was born.

In 1987, N.W.A released its debut single, "Panic Zone." Arabian was a co-writer and vocalist. When Eazy-E and music manager Jerry Heller formed Ruthless Records that year, Arabian provided a gold-record hit by re-releasing "Supersonic" on the label. "People said that record was the record that allowed Eazy to open his first bank account," Arabian says. "I put Dre and Yella's names on it as co-producers just because we were a family, even though I did the record by myself."

What started out feeling like a family turned into a business under Heller -- one with opaque finances, according to Arabian: "Jerry took control and kind of had excuses for everything." In the movie, it's Ice Cube who first raises questions about money, accusing Heller of not paying the group properly and then quitting over the dispute. (Dre later leaves Ruthless for the same reason.) In real life, Arabian says, "I was the one that was yelling and screaming about royalties. I was a solo artist first so I knew what royalty statements were. I knew that when you sell this many records, every quarter you get a statement, you look at that statement, you see how much money came in and you share the money. That wasn't happening." He also says they weren't fully paid for touring.

As a result, Arabian quit N.W.A just prior to the 1988 release of its platinum-selling studio album -- and the movie's namesake -- Straight Outta Compton. Before he left, he recorded the electro track "Something 2 Dance 2" and posed for the album's now-iconic cover. (Going counter-clockwise, Arabian is the second person from the top, between Ice Cube and Yella.)

Arabian says people sometimes ask if he feels "stupid" to have left N.W.A right when it was "blowing up." He responds with questions of his own: "What does 'blowing up' mean? What does the fame side mean if I ain't getting paid?" When he speaks about the music industry at events such as the Red Bull Music Academy, he has this advice for aspiring artists: "The first thing I tell people is take care of your business. Make sure you copyright your stuff, make sure you get into one of the performance societies like ASCAP, do your research. When we were young there was no Internet ... now everything and anything is on the Web that you want to know."

Interestingly, he says he "still talks" to Heller. (He also stays in touch with Ren -- "a helluva emcee" who "didn't get his just due in the movie"-- and Yella.) "I didn't have a problem with [Heller] once I figured out what was going on ... but I'm not going to sit around and let you keep manipulating business in that way."

"Even in the movie," Arabian says, "there's a scene where Cube is sitting there and the reporter asks, 'How does it feel to have all this money?' and Cube couldn't hardly answer! He's like, 'Uh, I buy curl activator and Raiders clothes' because that's probably all he could afford."

Arabian laughs and says, "We're supposed to be gangstas? We're supposed to be hardcore gangstas -- N.W.A -- and we're getting ripped off on our own money by our own people? Come on! I'm out."

After N.W.A, Arabian put out his first solo album, Brother Arab, in 1989. "It was alright. No super-duper blow-up hit, but I made my own money." Then he followed an interest in technology into a new career: "I taught myself how to do animation and programming and got into the whole gaming thing." Making contacts through graphics and technology conventions, he moved into special effects, working on movies including The Addams Family (1991), Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (1995), and Contact (1997). More recently, he started a virtual-reality company. He goes to 10 or 12 technology conventions a year to keep up to date. He also DJs in the U.S. and does European tours: "We still do the electro stuff. They've never stopped loving it in Europe, so I've been performing that forever."

Arabian, who turned 50 this year, keeps in shape by playing basketball seven days a week -- twice on Mondays. He plays golf as well. He's a video-game fan, though his expertise has spoiled him for "shoot-'em-up" games: "When you're really good it becomes boring because you have such good aim, and I'm just killing people!" He prefers role-playing games like Borderlands, and raves about South Park: The Stick of Truth.

The lesson to be drawn from his career, Arabian concludes, is that "you can't pigeonhole yourself." He cites Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin Group, as good role model. "I looked at him early on going from a just a little magazine, to a record store, to Virgin Records and then Virgin Mobile and then airplanes and trains and this cat now's got his own Virgin space thing [Virgin Galactic]."

When asked if he would be interested in a little space tourism himself, Arabian exclaims, "Hell yeah! I'd be the first one!" He adds, "There's so much more in the universe than here, than California, and the United States, and this world."

[TraceOneInfinite Flat Earther 96']

Damn.. this is pretty impressive actually... I mean for most dudes being a founding member of N.W.A would be their highlight, but this dude was no one trick pony, he sounds creative enough to have success in whatever venture interests him.

[Blood$]

he sounds creative enough to have success in whatever venture interests him.

LOL

[TidyKris]

he sounds creative enough to have success in whatever venture interests him.

LOL

Why "LOL"?

[Sccit]

because he's clearly lyin in regards to not havin any regrets about leavin NWA....i mean, jus be honest and say "at the time, i didnt know". it didnt work out because he was cryin about money......and if he never cried about money, he'd be much more successful today than he currently is. irony at its finest.

[TidyKris]

"he'd be much more successful today than he currently is. irony at its finest."

Why because he left a group that broke up nearly 25 years ago? Looks to me like he has done alright for himself over the years anyway.
Just because he wasnt in a rap group doesnt mean he wasnt successful

I cant really comment on if he is lying or not though because unfortunately my mind reading skills are not as advanced as some people on here.
From what i read it looks to me like he left for the same reason Cube did...just earlier

[Sccit]

"he'd be much more successful today than he currently is. irony at its finest."

Why because he left a group that broke up nearly 25 years ago? Looks to me like he has done alright for himself over the years anyway.
Just because he wasnt in a rap group doesnt mean he wasnt successful

I cant really comment on if he is lying or not though because unfortunately my mind reading skills are not as advanced as some people on here.
From what i read it looks to me like he left for the same reason Cube did...just earlier

because NWA blew up and became iconic figures, while arabian prince became an extra graphic assistant on the power ranger movie.....one is a more revered position than the other, i'll let u guess which one since u seem to be so bright.

not sayin he's miserable, but if he claims he didnt want more success wit his music career, then he flat out lyin. would take a moron to believe otherwise.  

this is a classic case of showing contentment on the exterior to mask that somethins been bothering you beneath the surface. and im not sayin he's suffering depression over it, but the way he just brushed it off like he hasn't even thought twice about it was as fabricated as could be.

[TidyKris]

"he'd be much more successful today than he currently is. irony at its finest."

Why because he left a group that broke up nearly 25 years ago? Looks to me like he has done alright for himself over the years anyway.
Just because he wasnt in a rap group doesnt mean he wasnt successful

I cant really comment on if he is lying or not though because unfortunately my mind reading skills are not as advanced as some people on here.
From what i read it looks to me like he left for the same reason Cube did...just earlier

because NWA blew up and became iconic figures, while arabian prince became an extra graphic assistant on the power ranger movie.....one is a more revered position than the other, i'll let u guess which one since u seem to be so bright.

not sayin he's miserable, but if he claims he didnt want more success wit his music career, then he flat out lyin. would take a moron to believe otherwise.  

Three of them became iconic figures...Ren & Yella sort of faded into the background which im sure Arabian would have too if he would have stuck around.
Im pretty sure half the people did not not even know who Yella was until the movie dropped...the same could prob be said for Ren

You cant really comment on if he is lying with the music thing...you can speculate but you cant say for sure. Its not like Ren & Yella had explosive career's after NWA
and im sure if Arabian wanted to stay in the music game he could have. He wasnt exactly unknown was he?

[CORREA]

"he'd be much more successful today than he currently is. irony at its finest."

Why because he left a group that broke up nearly 25 years ago? Looks to me like he has done alright for himself over the years anyway.
Just because he wasnt in a rap group doesnt mean he wasnt successful

I cant really comment on if he is lying or not though because unfortunately my mind reading skills are not as advanced as some people on here.
From what i read it looks to me like he left for the same reason Cube did...just earlier

because NWA blew up and became iconic figures, while arabian prince became an extra graphic assistant on the power ranger movie.....one is a more revered position than the other, i'll let u guess which one since u seem to be so bright.

not sayin he's miserable, but if he claims he didnt want more success wit his music career, then he flat out lyin. would take a moron to believe otherwise.  

Three of them became iconic figures...Ren & Yella sort of faded into the background which im sure Arabian would have too if he would have stuck around.
Im pretty sure half the people did not not even know who Yella was until the movie dropped...the same could prob be said for Ren

You cant really comment on if he is lying with the music thing...you can speculate but you cant say for sure. Its not like Ren & Yella had explosive career's after NWA
and im sure if Arabian wanted to stay in the music game he could have. He wasnt exactly unknown was he?

ice cube too if it wasn't for movies and of course e

[Sccit]

"he'd be much more successful today than he currently is. irony at its finest."

Why because he left a group that broke up nearly 25 years ago? Looks to me like he has done alright for himself over the years anyway.
Just because he wasnt in a rap group doesnt mean he wasnt successful

I cant really comment on if he is lying or not though because unfortunately my mind reading skills are not as advanced as some people on here.
From what i read it looks to me like he left for the same reason Cube did...just earlier

because NWA blew up and became iconic figures, while arabian prince became an extra graphic assistant on the power ranger movie.....one is a more revered position than the other, i'll let u guess which one since u seem to be so bright.

not sayin he's miserable, but if he claims he didnt want more success wit his music career, then he flat out lyin. would take a moron to believe otherwise. 

Three of them became iconic figures...Ren & Yella sort of faded into the background which im sure Arabian would have too if he would have stuck around.
Im pretty sure half the people did not not even know who Yella was until the movie dropped...the same could prob be said for Ren

You cant really comment on if he is lying with the music thing...you can speculate but you cant say for sure. Its not like Ren & Yella had explosive career's after NWA
and im sure if Arabian wanted to stay in the music game he could have. He wasnt exactly unknown was he?

mc ren still had a gold album and stuck around in hip-hop...yella chose to leave music on his own accord....arabian prince was clearly still interested in putting music out, but simply didnt have the fanbase. thats somethin he can thank his actions for. u mean to tell me u guna sit here and tell me wit a straight face that arabian prince doesnt wish his solo albums went gold and platinum? cmon now.

[TidyKris]

"he'd be much more successful today than he currently is. irony at its finest."

Why because he left a group that broke up nearly 25 years ago? Looks to me like he has done alright for himself over the years anyway.
Just because he wasnt in a rap group doesnt mean he wasnt successful

I cant really comment on if he is lying or not though because unfortunately my mind reading skills are not as advanced as some people on here.
From what i read it looks to me like he left for the same reason Cube did...just earlier

because NWA blew up and became iconic figures, while arabian prince became an extra graphic assistant on the power ranger movie.....one is a more revered position than the other, i'll let u guess which one since u seem to be so bright.

not sayin he's miserable, but if he claims he didnt want more success wit his music career, then he flat out lyin. would take a moron to believe otherwise.  

Three of them became iconic figures...Ren & Yella sort of faded into the background which im sure Arabian would have too if he would have stuck around.
Im pretty sure half the people did not not even know who Yella was until the movie dropped...the same could prob be said for Ren

You cant really comment on if he is lying with the music thing...you can speculate but you cant say for sure. Its not like Ren & Yella had explosive career's after NWA
and im sure if Arabian wanted to stay in the music game he could have. He wasnt exactly unknown was he?

mc ren still had a gold album and stuck around in hip-hop...yella chose to leave music on his own accord....arabian prince was clearly still interested in putting music out, but simply didnt have the fanbase. thats somethin he can thank his actions for. u mean to tell me u guna sit here and tell me wit a straight face that arabian prince doesnt wish his solo albums went gold and platinum? cmon now.

No i said nothing about him not wishing his albums didnt sell more then they did...but i have read this 3 times now and he doesnt say that either
so i dont know where your getting that from.

An all he says about regretting leaving NWA was basically if he stayed then what was the point in being famous if he wasnt getting paid.
That was something they all ended up saying by the time NWA finshed a few years later.

As he says....over the years he eventually found something else he loved and went down that route just like Yella did with porn movies.

I dont know where you get the conclusion that he still wanted to make music but couldnt from...i keep trying to find that part but i cant see it.
It just sounds like speculation to me

[Sccit]

"he'd be much more successful today than he currently is. irony at its finest."

Why because he left a group that broke up nearly 25 years ago? Looks to me like he has done alright for himself over the years anyway.
Just because he wasnt in a rap group doesnt mean he wasnt successful

I cant really comment on if he is lying or not though because unfortunately my mind reading skills are not as advanced as some people on here.
From what i read it looks to me like he left for the same reason Cube did...just earlier

because NWA blew up and became iconic figures, while arabian prince became an extra graphic assistant on the power ranger movie.....one is a more revered position than the other, i'll let u guess which one since u seem to be so bright.

not sayin he's miserable, but if he claims he didnt want more success wit his music career, then he flat out lyin. would take a moron to believe otherwise.  

Three of them became iconic figures...Ren & Yella sort of faded into the background which im sure Arabian would have too if he would have stuck around.
Im pretty sure half the people did not not even know who Yella was until the movie dropped...the same could prob be said for Ren

You cant really comment on if he is lying with the music thing...you can speculate but you cant say for sure. Its not like Ren & Yella had explosive career's after NWA
and im sure if Arabian wanted to stay in the music game he could have. He wasnt exactly unknown was he?

mc ren still had a gold album and stuck around in hip-hop...yella chose to leave music on his own accord....arabian prince was clearly still interested in putting music out, but simply didnt have the fanbase. thats somethin he can thank his actions for. u mean to tell me u guna sit here and tell me wit a straight face that arabian prince doesnt wish his solo albums went gold and platinum? cmon now.

No i said nothing about him not wishing his albums didnt sell more then they did...but i have read this 3 times now and he doesnt say that either
so i dont know where your getting that from.

An all he says about regretting leaving NWA was basically if he stayed then what was the point in being famous if he wasnt getting paid.
That was something they all ended up saying by the time NWA finshed a few years later.

As he says....over the years he eventually found something else he loved and went down that route just like Yella did with porn movies.

I dont know where you get the conclusion that he still wanted to make music but couldnt from...i keep trying to find that part but i cant see it.
It just sounds like speculation to me

Common sense should tell u that if he stayed wit NWA when straight outa compton blew, his music career woulda been a lot more successful and his solo albums woulda sold a lot more. It's all about patience. And he kept making music once he left NWA, that's fact, not speculation.... It just wasn't gettin any attention. Shit ain't rocket science bruh.

[Sami]

That isn't necessarily true.

Even so a lot of people try the music business and decide they don't like it that much.

Bill Withers (the mega-hit soul singer) decided to quit at the height of his fame and worked for the Post Office, and he was happy.

[Sccit]

That isn't necessarily true.

Even so a lot of people try the music business and decide they don't like it that much.

Bill Withers (the mega-hit soul singer) decided to quit at the height of his fame and worked for the Post Office, and he was happy.

Yea like yella.... But arabian prince didn't quit because he lost his passion for music, he quit because he felt he wasn't gettin paid properly, which in essence, proved to be a dumb move on his part.

[TraceOneInfinite Flat Earther 96']

because NWA blew up and became iconic figures, while arabian prince became an extra graphic assistant on the power ranger movie.....one is a more revered position than the other, i'll let u guess which one since u seem to be so bright.

LMAO.... I'm kind of on the other side of the argument but that was funny  

ice cube too if it wasn't for movies and of course e

Ice Cube was a heavyweight in the rap game for all of the 90's.  I mean this dude had Source covers and shit like that on his own.  He was even a giant in the East/West beef, "Bow Down" fucking dominated when it dropped.  His early solo albums were a big deal and he has a magnum opus like "Today Was A Good Day" that is considered one of the greatest hip-hop songs of all time.  To say Ice Cube would've ended up like MC Ren if not for the movies is way false.