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Its dope as fuck to see Dre and Cube together. I just wish it inspired Dre to finally work with him on new music. We've been robbed of Dre/Cube collabos for 2 decades now! The thing is EVERYBODY loves Dre. You can see it. From Cube & Ren to Daz & Kurupt to Xzibit & Game. But Dre just doesn't seem interested in actually recording any music with any of them. He'll pose for pics with these niggas all day but thats about it.
Quote from: GangstaBoogy on August 03, 2015, 09:51:34 PMIts dope as fuck to see Dre and Cube together. I just wish it inspired Dre to finally work with him on new music. We've been robbed of Dre/Cube collabos for 2 decades now! The thing is EVERYBODY loves Dre. You can see it. From Cube & Ren to Daz & Kurupt to Xzibit & Game. But Dre just doesn't seem interested in actually recording any music with any of them. He'll pose for pics with these niggas all day but thats about it.You obviously haven't seen the tracklist for Compton A Soundtrack....
Quote from: PeaceEP on August 03, 2015, 10:53:08 PMQuote from: GangstaBoogy on August 03, 2015, 09:51:34 PMIts dope as fuck to see Dre and Cube together. I just wish it inspired Dre to finally work with him on new music. We've been robbed of Dre/Cube collabos for 2 decades now! The thing is EVERYBODY loves Dre. You can see it. From Cube & Ren to Daz & Kurupt to Xzibit & Game. But Dre just doesn't seem interested in actually recording any music with any of them. He'll pose for pics with these niggas all day but thats about it.You obviously haven't seen the tracklist for Compton A Soundtrack....Oh yeah there's 1 Ice Cube feature, I'm completely wrong right? This will be the first time we hear those 2 on the same song since Hello and Chin Check in 1999/2000.
Quote from: GangstaBoogy on August 03, 2015, 11:36:31 PMQuote from: PeaceEP on August 03, 2015, 10:53:08 PMQuote from: GangstaBoogy on August 03, 2015, 09:51:34 PMIts dope as fuck to see Dre and Cube together. I just wish it inspired Dre to finally work with him on new music. We've been robbed of Dre/Cube collabos for 2 decades now! The thing is EVERYBODY loves Dre. You can see it. From Cube & Ren to Daz & Kurupt to Xzibit & Game. But Dre just doesn't seem interested in actually recording any music with any of them. He'll pose for pics with these niggas all day but thats about it.You obviously haven't seen the tracklist for Compton A Soundtrack....Oh yeah there's 1 Ice Cube feature, I'm completely wrong right? This will be the first time we hear those 2 on the same song since Hello and Chin Check in 1999/2000.No ren, Yella, kurupt n daz as far as we know....
Quote from: PeaceEP on August 04, 2015, 01:34:16 AMQuote from: GangstaBoogy on August 03, 2015, 11:36:31 PMQuote from: PeaceEP on August 03, 2015, 10:53:08 PMQuote from: GangstaBoogy on August 03, 2015, 09:51:34 PMIts dope as fuck to see Dre and Cube together. I just wish it inspired Dre to finally work with him on new music. We've been robbed of Dre/Cube collabos for 2 decades now! The thing is EVERYBODY loves Dre. You can see it. From Cube & Ren to Daz & Kurupt to Xzibit & Game. But Dre just doesn't seem interested in actually recording any music with any of them. He'll pose for pics with these niggas all day but thats about it.You obviously haven't seen the tracklist for Compton A Soundtrack....Oh yeah there's 1 Ice Cube feature, I'm completely wrong right? This will be the first time we hear those 2 on the same song since Hello and Chin Check in 1999/2000.No ren, Yella, kurupt n daz as far as we know....cause nobody knows/gives a fuck bout them
Capone loves the energy and relevance of the N.W.A biopic STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON!!! Published at: Aug. 12, 2015, 10:49 a.m. CST by Capone Hey everyone. Capone, straight outta Chicago here. Sometimes a music biopic is simply one re-enactment after another, linked together by a collection of the act’s better known songs. Other times, it’s a time capsule that illustrates the undeniable connective tissue between the music and the era in which it was recorded and released. In the late 1980s, there was a great deal of gang activity in South Central Los Angeles, but there was no larger or more feared gang than the L.A. Police Department, who would harass the residents of areas like Compton for simply being black or looking like “gang bangers.” And while future N.W.A members Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins) and DJ Yella (Neil Brown Jr.) were music aficionados, listening to every note and instrument on their favorite R&B and funk records, young Ice Cube (played by Cube’s dead-ringer son O’Shea Jackson Jr.) was a poet-chronicler of life on the streets of South Central. Directed by F. Gary Gray (FRIDAY, THE NEGOTIATOR, THE ITALIAN JOB), STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON chronicles the rise and fall of arguably the most important hip-hop group in history, especially when you consider both their popularity and impact on even today’s rap landscape (and not necessarily their longevity). Rounded out eventually my MC Ren (Aldis Hodge) and their initial money man (and former drug dealer) Easy E (Jason Mitchell), N.W.A [Niggaz Wit Attitudes] came together almost by osmosis as a group of like-minded kids started to gel in a studio setting. The decision to put Easy-E behind the mic was almost by default, but with a little coaxing from producer Dre, he became a distinctive voice of the group and its de facto leader with the Ice Cube-penned “Boyz-n-the-Hood.” The film adds another layer of depth with the introduction of the group’s manager Jerry Heller (Paul Giamatti), who cuts a deal with Easy-E to start up Ruthless Records, effectively making the other members of N.W.A employees, a decision that shockingly comes back to bite them all. Heller could have been written or played like a shifty businessman, which he may well have been, but it also seems very clear that he elevated the group’s profile and played a key role in making their debut album, Straight Outta Compton, a massive hit. In one especially pivotal moment, the group are harassed by police right outside the recording studio, and Heller is the only white man on the street defending their right to be there and not be brutalized by cops. The way the film paints the moment, Ice Cube goes back in the building and writes “Fuck tha Police,” the song that placed them under the watchful eye of the FBI, a fact the group though was great publicity. Do I believe that’s how Ice Cube ended up writing that song? Not really. Does it make for great cinema? It certainly does. STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON captures N.W.A in its prime, performing to sold out houses, partying like the world is ending tomorrow, and having run ins with local law enforcement in many cities who order them not to play “Fuck tha Police,” including cops in Detroit who incited a riot when the song started up, just to shut the show down. But the good times only last so long. When the rest of N.W.A gets their contracts to sign, Ice Cube (being the primary songwriter of hits) is unhappy with the arrangement and leaves the group to pursue a solo career that begins almost immediately with the release of the acclaimed AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted, produced by The Bomb Squad (who were behind the boards for many of Public Enemy’s most important recordings). The history of back-and-forth diss tracks between N.W.A and Ice Cube is not ignored, but more socially relevant issues take center stage, most significantly the Rodney King beating and subsequent trial and riot, which had such a massive impact on the members of the group as creators of “reality rap.” It was nice to see a scene where N.W.A members are listening to Cube’s culturally on-point first album and loving it, which is all the more surprising the group saw fit to go after Cube like he betrayed them somehow. Naturally, where there is big game, there are poachers, and the film does not spare former bodyguard turned record mogul Suge Knight (the appropriately terrifying R. Marcos Taylor), who goes hard after Dr. Dre as both a producer and hit artist, to come over to his label, Death Row Records. We get glimpses of Death Row dignitaries such as Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur in the studio, but we also see some of the subtle negotiating tactics that Knight is best known for used to attempt to secure Dre’s contract from Ruthless. For most of its nearly 2.5-hour running time, STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON is filled with wonderful details that reminded me of my own personal discovery of hardcore hip hop at about this time. But it also provides a great deal of context and insight into the inner workings of the group that the general public wasn’t privy to. As I mentioned earlier, the film refuses to demonize Heller, and every time we think he’s no good for the group, he does something that makes us realize that even while he may have been squirreling away money he didn’t earn, he also really cared about his buddy Easy-E, saving his bacon on more than one occasion. Maybe he was protecting his investment, but the film doesn’t seem to want us to think that was his only motivating factor. The men share a fascinating dynamic that Giamatti enhances beautifully. STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON reveals just how close N.W.A almost came to reforming before Eazy-E was diagnosed with AIDS and died shortly thereafter, and the film makes it clear that one of his greatest contributions to history—music or otherwise—was to underscore that HIV could be transmitted among straight people as well. The movie is about the sometimes painful process of harnessing raw talent, and while COMPTON touches on Ice Cube’s film career (beginning with BOYZ N THE HOOD) and Dr. Dre’s ridiculously successful The Chronic album, it’s really about the age-old themes of egos and money denying the group and fans a chance to hear N.W.A make who knows how many more records with the original lineup. This is a story that soars in many places, but there’s a tinge of pain and grief about what might have been, and a loss that will make certain we never know. It’s an epic story told skillfully by director Gray and screenwriters Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff, who gloss over a few of the problem areas (the portrayal of women is about as respectful as a rap music video). Your chances of enjoying the film are likely enhanced if you were a fan of the music, but I don’t think it’s entirely essential. The film moves along with a sustainable energy, dipping out only slightly from time to time. Even more important, the racial tension that serves as the film’s backbone and backdrop seems as significant now as it did 25 years ago, and it begs the question, why are there so few high-profile hip-hop artists today with this much in-your-face rage? STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON is not just a great film; it’s an important one and it tells the story of an essential cornerstone of recent history.
An Interview with F. Gary Gray, Director of ‘Straight Outta Compton'August 11, 2015By Ashley ClarkF. Gary Gray was only 23 when he directed the fantastically literal video for Ice Cube's "It Was a Good Day" in 1993. Its sun-kissed, deadpan style transferred beautifully to his debut feature Friday (1995), which Cube cowrote and starred in as the straight(er) foil to Chris Tucker's more animated pot dealer. Friday quickly achieved cult-classic status, and Gray spent the next two decades racking up an impressive body of action cinema, from bank-heist thriller Set It Off (1996) to the surprisingly fun remake of The Italian Job (2003), and the brutal vigilante flick Law Abiding Citizen (2009).Gray's latest project is Straight Outta Compton, a biopic of N.W.A, the controversial LA rap outfit comprising Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Eazy-E, MC Ren, and DJ Yella. It traces the group's origins in the late 80s, their early successes—which became turbulent and fraught with drama thanks to the financial duplicity of manager Jerry Heller—and concludes with the premature death of Eazy-E in 1995.The movie is mostly a delight. It's a sweeping, incident-packed drama that traffics in humor, emotional force, and sociopolitical insight, even if its charms sadly don't extend to portraying women—save for Dre's mother and Eazy-E's wife—as anything other than barely-clothed eye candy.The film's bona fides are clear. It was produced in part by Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, and Eazy-E's widow Tomica Woods-Wright; and features Cube's son O'Shea Jackson Jr. as his father. Gray's affinity with his subjects is evident, as well—he also shot the videos for Cube and Dre's "Natural Born Killas" (1994) and Dre's "Keep Their Heads Ringin".I recently spoke to the LA-based Gray over the phone to get the inside track on the film.This must be a genuine passion project for you. Could you talk about how excited you must be to seeing it come out now?F. Gary Gray: I've known Cube since the beginning of my career as a director, and it's all come full circle. For me, to be able to tell the story of N.W.A. and their lives—their rise, their fall, and then their rise again—it's the film of a lifetime for me. I grew up in Los Angeles in that era, so a lot of things that they rapped about I witnessed and experienced firsthand. A lot of the elements of the story intersect in ways that have never intersected for me in other films I've directed.I was struck by the film's scale. When I saw the running time (150 minutes) I was like, "Wow, OK." We've seen running times like this for films like Goodfellas and Boogie Nights, but this is the first rap biopic in that vein. That's significant.You know, I never thought about it like that. But since you put it that way, I guess it is the first. [That scale] is so important. You could make three movies out of the N.W.A. story. The runtime is something I don't really think too much about because everything in the movie, I believe, is intriguing and compelling. You learn a lot, you laugh, you cry. We've gotten a lot of great feedback from people from all walks of life. They say, "I want more, I wanted more."You can't just google "N.W.A." and get these details. You can't experience the brotherhood that you experience in the movie by going on to Wikipedia. –F. Gary GrayThe length is totally justified. It was great to see something that had sufficient space for the story to unfold in.There may be a director's cut that's even longer [laughs]. We'll see, but I'm very happy with epic nature of the film. It's an epic story. It goes far beyond the group and the music created. It's relevant creatively and artistically. It's just a... [pauses] major story. I'm sorry I'm just choked up because it's just so many things for me on a lot of levels. But it's a major story.What you're doing is quite radical. The film reverses the stock media narrative of the guys being thugs and agitators. It's complicated because they were serious men, whose work was informed by serious events, but they also had an aggressive persona that they deliberately projected. Your film takes us beyond that persona and into their lives.Absolutely. There's a humanity to the story that you wouldn't normally associate with this genre of music. That was important to me. I want you to get to know the guys behind the tracks, behind the lyrics and beats, and get a sense of them as human beings. That's what makes this special, because you can't just google "N.W.A." and get these details. You can't experience the brotherhood that you experience in the movie by going on to Wikipedia. It's very easy to dismiss these guys as edgy street rappers who talk about controversial things. But when you experience the brotherhood and the family ties that bind them and the motivation behind the music, you can't help but have a different relationship with N.W.A.It's also very light in places—I think that element might surprise people. There was a lot of laughter in the screening I attended. How important was it for you to include humor?Well, I grew up in an environment where there were dangerous times, but there were a lot of funny moments too, you know? My first movie was Friday, and it was a very funny movie about weed-dealing. So you will always get that, I believe, in my movies—some sort of humor, it helps the drama. This is a bunch of kids who came together, who spoke their mind about things that they were passionate about, about things that affected their lives. Even from their perspective, when you listen to their albums, a lot of their shit is funny. The movie takes the same track and you get a sense of the rawness, the authenticity, the humor, [and] pain. These are all the things you experience when you listen to Straight Outta Compton.I wanted to make it feel raw, real, and authentic as opposed to comedic. –F. Gary GrayThe film pulls no punches in depicting police aggression and violence. In particular you use the backdrop of the police beating of Rodney King in 1991, the acquittal of the officers, and the subsequent uprisings in LA. It's sadly very topical today. I watched the film on the same day I heard about the Sam DuBose case in Cincinnati, and it was just a few days after the madness with Sandra Bland and that cop in Texas. In this way your film doesn't feel like a period piece at all...We didn't know that this would coincide with all the headlines regarding police brutality. I've been involved with this movie for four years, and those weren't the headlines back then. When we finally finished the movie and these headlines started to creep up... You feel sad about it. You wish you could say, "Hey listen, remember back in time where these things used to happen and they no longer happen?"It's unfortunate that the more things change, the more they stay the same. I've been saying this lately, and I'm optimistic that these headlines will put pressure on the people who make changes—our lawmakers, our leaders. Law enforcement that has a tendency to go that way, or workers within a culture that forgives these types of things, I think they will feel the pressure. Because now every time that kind of thing happens, it's not going to be slipped under the rug in the way that it was in the past.Tone-wise, you play it pretty straight—it's very respectful of the guys, and despite the humor, it's dramatic and even quite stately. Straight Outta Compton could be the first of a potential second cycle of films about this era, because there were spoofs like CB4 (1993) and Fear of a Black Hat (1994), which parodied gangsta rap and made it all look pretty silly. How do you feel about those films?I don't remember them, but I remember when they came out. I remember that they were parodies, which puts you on alert to a certain extent. If you make a movie like this, there are so many ways to get it wrong. It's very easy for people not to take this story seriously and view it as a parody of the 80s, and of the group. I wanted to make it feel raw, real, and authentic as opposed to comedic.I'm glad I had Dre, Cube, and Yella, and Ren around to help with the details. Eazy's widow, Tomica, also helped with the details. The group involved—the technicians, my team—we pulled this movie together and you feel the weight and the importance of the story and the group.The costumes are amazing, too. Can you talk a little about them?Our costume designer, Kelli Jones, worked on Sons of Anarchy, so she's used to working in these subcultures with rough guys. She had to individualize each character and convey their progression as they started to make money. When you have five guys that live in Los Angeles who weren't any slaves to fashion... to find ways to individualize them and help tell the story with their costumes was really a challenge. She stepped up in a major way—I think she deserves an Oscar nomination for this.It seems there's something happening in the culture now with West Coast rap. I noticed it in Dope, which is set in Inglewood, and the main character writes his thesis on the lyrics to Cube's "It Was a Good Day," the video that you directed. Do you see your film as part of a West Coast revival?You know, I really don't think in those terms. I heard Dope was dope... [But] I've been so immersed in the N.W.A. world that I haven't had a chance to see that movie. I just focus on what's going to make this story great. I know that sounds really cliché, but for me it's the universal story. I think that whether you live in LA, you live in New York, or if you live in Sweden, you can identify with some of the universal things that we touch on.
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