First there was a movie about the life of the Notorious B.I.G., then a film based on the RUN DMC story was announced, and the planned Tupac Shakur film biography is weighed down in a legal battle, but hip-hop biopics are not going away anytime soon.
The latest to be announced? New Line is planning a film around the story of seminal L.A. gangster rap outfit N.W.A. (Niggaz With Attitude), an incendiary and controversial quintet that spawned the careers of hip-hop greats Ice Cube, Eazy-E and Dr. Dre* (yes, Cube is no longer great and Eazy was a punk).
Titled, what else, “Straight Outta Compton,” the film will chart the rise and fall of the group that were banned on MTV, radio and basically every other existing outlet, but still went on to sell millions of records regardless. Though Public Enemy were one of the first hip-hop groups to break through with a revolutionary, agitating and politicized tone, NWA’s West Coast brand of gangster rap was much more anarchic and nihilistic, an attitude perhaps exemplified in the exasperated frustration of the the 1992 L.A. riots. The group quickly splintered after their success with 1998’s Straight Outta Compton. Ice Cube left the group in 1990 after falling out with the group over money issues and they disbanded in 1991. Eazy E died of AIDS-related causes in 1995. The film’s producers include Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, and Tomica Wright (Eazy-E’s widow), and they’re actively seeking an Curtis Hanson-like director; he helmed one of the best hip-hop films in “8 Mile.” [EW]
NWA – “100 Miles And Runnin'”
A rare moment of celebration: NWA – “Express Yourself”
Proto-Dre West Coast G-funk: NWA – “Always Into Something”
