NWA's Straight Outta Compton Expanded For 20th Anniversary Release

[Laconic]

http://www.ballerstatus.com/article/news/2007/10/3224/


Published: Tuesday - October 9, 2007
Words by Ronnie Gamble

NWA (Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, DJ Yella, and MC Ren)
NWA (Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, DJ Yella, and MC Ren)
Photo: Priority
Nearly 20 years since its original release, NWA's most successful album, Straight Outta Compton, will be released again, via an expanded 20th Anniversary Edition by Capitol/Priority Records.

The landmark album will be available in CD, vinyl and digital formats, and will include five bonus tracks -- a live version of "Compton's N The House," and covers of Straight Outta Compton tracks by Snoop Dogg and C-Murder, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Mack 10, and WC. It also features a new package essay by music writer and author, Soren Baker.

In the course of a little more than three years, group members -- Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, MC Ren and DJ Yella -- reached unprecedented gangsta superstardom with their no-holds-barred missives from Los Angeles' more notorious streets.

Starting the hip-hop subgenre that became known as "gangsta rap," NWA propelled their style of hip-hop to the top of the charts, fueled by their controversial lyrics and complex, funk-fueled beats. NWA (an acronym that stood for N----z With Attitude) spawned three of the most important figures in gangsta rap's evolution: the late great Eazy-E, Ice Cube and superproducer Dr. Dre.

Their first album, NWA And The Posse, was released in 1987, but it was 1988's Straight Outta Compton that marked the beginning of the "gangsta rap" era, and introduced the rest of the world to Compton.

"The listening experience," Cheo Coker wrote in The Vibe History of Hip-Hop, "was akin to being wired into a sensory camera, where you could smell the room, sense the bullets whizzing by your head, and feel your adrenaline pump as the police raced you around the block."

Along with Run-DMC's self-titled debut album and Public Enemy's It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, Straight Outta Compton stands, 20 years after its incendiary debut, as one of the pivotal recordings in the history of popular music.

The anniversary set is slated for release on December 4.

Bonus tracks are as follows:

"F--- Tha Police" - Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
"Gangsta Gangsta" - Snoop Dogg/C-Murder
"Dopeman" - Mack 10
"If It Ain't Ruff" - WC
"Compton's N The House (live)" - Dr. Dre/M.C. Ren

[Traumatized]

Well, all of the bonus tracks were on that 10th anniversary edition. Unnecessary.

[GangstaBoogy]

Well, all of the bonus tracks were on that 10th anniversary edition. Unnecessary.

Yeah and the suck. NWA songs aren't meant to be remade - they're meant to be appreciated in their original form.

[dclee]

Hmm, damn, yet another re-issue. SOC was already re-issued in 2003 with 4 bonus tracks, which were extended mixes of Express Yourself and Straight Outta Compton, A Bitch Iz A Bitch, and Bonus Beats, all of which were from an NWA 12".

[J$crILLa]

im done buyin these greatest hit cds.... same songs over and over