DISGRACELAND - N.W.A Pt. 1: Street Hustle, Reality Rap and Culture-Shifting Violence

Episode Date: September 26, 2019

N.W.A, the self proclaimed “most dangerous group in America,” were seen as violent, thuggish, profanity-spewing criminals, but they had nothing on those who were sworn to serve and protect them in South Central Los Angeles. The group’s hard hitting beats and reality rhymes launched a “gangsta rap” trend in music that still thrives today, and their album Straight Outta Compton predicted one of the most notoriously violent events in American history. To see the full list of contributors, see the show notes at ⁠www.disgracelandpod.com⁠. This episode was originally published on September 26, 2019. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about NWA are insane. Their founding member was a retired crack dealer. Their producer was a violent, surly genius. Their main lyricist's words set off a riot with tens of thousands of fans. NWA, the group, was born of the violent streets its members were raised on.

Compton, South Central Los Angeles, where they are forced to dodge straight bullets from rival gangs and shakedowns from abusive cops on the regular. This violent and horribly unjust daily life informed NWA's music, imbued it with a sense of reality that previously had not existed in pop music, and for many was too unbelievable to be true. They were labeled sensationalists, misogynist, profanity-spewing opportunists, anything but what they really were, protest musicians, who, by the way, were highly entertaining,

and who made great music. That music you heard at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Trash Man Funk BK2. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to Moni Moni by Billy Idol.

And why would I play you that specific slice of second-hand Chondell cheese could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on November 27, 1987. And that was the day NWA entered the studio to record their album straight out of Compton, an album of hard beats and lyrics so steeped in reality

that they would predict one of the most shockingly violent events in American history. On this episode, Trash Man Funk, Shondell Cheese, and the violent reality of NWA. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is disgraceland. The crimes they committed were violent, thuggish, numerous, and constant. Assault with a deadly weapon, inflicting great bodily harm,

Breaking and entering, brutality. They took no shit. We're known to snatch up unsuspecting victims on the street. Throw them up against the wall, empty their pockets, and think nothing of kneeing them in the testicles, forcing them to bend over in submission, and then kicking in their teeth. Beatdowns were common,

bare-knuckle brawls, boot kicks to the head. And when the beatings didn't work, they'd use their gats to make a point, pistol whippings, cold steel to the temple to intimidate. They were known to smarle menacingly through the windows of their cars while driving through the neighborhood slow, surveying their turf, and ensuring that anyone out of line was quickly swarmed and brought to heel. Straight gangster.

Except, I'm not talking about gangsters, or NWA, or any other so-called gangster rappers. I'm talking about... In 1985, violent crime in Los Angeles exploded to unprecedented levels due to the city's heavy trafficking of crack cocaine. Unemployment was on the rise and career-offer. opportunities for young black men in South Central Los Angeles were near obsolete in the mid-80s. The violent street gangs who controlled the drug trade in Compton, Englewood, and other neighborhoods and towns that comprised South Central Los Angeles, the Bloods and the Crips and their various

offsets, they offered real financial opportunity for neighborhood kids where there otherwise were not. The gang ranks swelled, and so did the murder rate. Bloods and Crips decked out from head to toe and red and blue, respectively, overwhelmed South Central L.A. Their presence, their violence was a daily reality for residents in South Central, particularly incomptive. Drive-by shootings, machine guns sprang from the windows of pimped-out 64 Impala's at the barred screen doors of drug dens, indistinguishable from any of the innocent families and neighborhood bungalows. Dead bodies lying in the streets, victims of the ongoing turf war between the bloods and the crips, or drug deals gone bad are just innocent bystanders,

often children caught up in friendly fire. There were 3,000 gang-related murders in the 80s in Los Angeles. If you grew up in L.A. during this time and were black and male, you were six times more likely to be murdered than your white counterpart. But it wasn't all bad. Compton was a real community, with hard-working men and women getting up every day, sending their kids to school and themselves off to work,

hoping, praying, everyone would make it home intact for dinner time, without hassle from either the gangs or from the kids. those who were sworn to serve and protect, the LAPD, who, under the leadership of police chief Darrell Gates, were at war. In their war zone, South Central, Compton, Gates militarized as police force, armored tanks, battering rams, helicopters, and in any means necessary mentality when it came to police work. Force, indiscriminate force was their weapon. Gates, in an official testimony before the United States Senate,

actually said that those who merely saw, smoke pot should be quote unquote taken out and shot. Darrell Gates thought of his LAPD as a quote unquote professional organization. And to him and many of his cops, South Central residents were mostly all gangsters, pot smokers, crack dealers, it didn't matter. And the ones wearing gang colors, red, blue, whatever, they were all the same. Black was the only color that mattered. If you were young, black, and a resident of South Central Los Angeles in the 80s,

as far as the LAPD was concerned, you were trouble. At worst, a hardcore gangbanger, at best, an eventual shipbird destined for one of the gangs, prison and or in early grave. An LAPD acted accordingly. Young black men were harassed by cops constantly, whether they were gang-affiliated or not, pulled over for nothing, patted down, searched, smacked around, beat on, hauled in, humiliated. The NAACP and ACLU filed complaints, local signed petitions, state and federal representatives' gay speeches, community groups held meetings,

citizens voiced their anger in church basements over stale donuts and cold black coffee, and at the end of the day, nothing changed. The LAPD blew it all off and kept going about their business, and the gangbangers tolerated the police harassment and kept banging, and the bodies kept dropping. An entire community kept on keeping on living their lives and fear. It was war, and Darrell Gates and his cops are going to continue to police the only way they knew how through sheer, brutal, indiscriminate, racially biased force.

And there was little that anyone could do about it. But one gangbanger would find a weapon more powerful than any community group, more powerful than any petitioner, local politician, or the NAACP and ACLU combined. That weapon? A microphone. That gangster? Easy motherfucking E. But Easy E.

Also known by real name Eric Wright was no common gang. bang-banger. In another lay, born into different circumstances, Eric would have been a CEO or some other sort of high-level executive. He had a mind for business and took his business stealing cocaine wholesale seriously. Every morning while his competitors and customers slept off the effects of whatever wild party they had attended the night before, young early 20-something Eric, who didn't drink, would wake up early, sit at his parents' breakfast table and read the L.A. Times. Then, as was his routine, He'd head to the garage and organize his product, readying it for sale later that afternoon before peeling off the customary two grand in cash from one of the many stashes he kept in

and around the house, stuffing it into his sock and gliding out over the driveway to his mint condition 1973 Chevy Caprice, decked out and all black, a color chosen not entirely because of its badassery, but also because of its neutrality. The black Chicago White Sox hat covering his black Jerry Curl hair, the black sat in L.A. starter jacket, the black jeans, black Adidas, and black wraparound sunglasses all had the added benefit of not being either blue or red. The colors of the local crips, blue and rival bloods, red. Meaning Eric, clad head to toe in black wasn't in danger of pissing off either gang and accidentally winding up dead because of a poor fashion choice. But avoiding death on the streets

of Compton wasn't that easy for the drug dealer who would later name himself easy. He had four kids, from three different women by the time he was 23. Eric loved the ladies, but the responsibility many had to hustle. Many had to be out there slinging it every day. And the more co-ke he dealt wholesale or not, the more risk there was that he'd be arrested or killed in either a deal gone wrong or a robbery,

not to mention the fact that the local cops took every opportunity they could to fuck with him. So he did his best to lay low and deal as dope as carefully as possible. Unlike his first cousin, Horace Butler. Horace was Eric's mentor in the drug game and Horace lived large. He cut an impressive figure,

more fat boy than Bobby Brown. Horace was a big man who was in the game to make it big as fast as possible. He dealt weight and didn't care who he fucked with along the way. It was only a matter of time before he pissed off the wrong person, which he inevitably did and ended up

shot to death in his candy-painted GMC truck on the on-ramp to the 10. When he died, Eric was heartbroken, but he was also the benefit. of his cousin's large stash of cocaine and cash. He went to work quick, cutting it up and listing a trusted friend to deal for him and putting some of the money out on the street to start working for him. He applied his intelligence to the game of drug dealing, and within no time he was more

successful than his dead cousin ever could have dreamed of and sitting on nearly half a million dollars in profit. But he knew it was only a matter of time. Only a matter of time before it was his head with the bullet hole in it, bloodied and face down on the steering wheel of his 73 caprice on the side of the tent. He needed to get out of the game. But like most young men in Compton at the time, there were a few options beyond dealing drugs

or go nowhere minimum wage jobs. Other than pussy, rap music was his only other interest. He was obsessed with the mixtapes he'd heard circulating throughout the neighborhood. The tapes originated from a booth of the local swap meet run by indie record store owner Steve Yano, and they blew Eric's mind. They were long playing, 60-minute makes. featuring Run DMC, Rob Bass, and DJ Easy Rock, King Tea and the Fat Boys,

and some of the breaks from the creator of the mixes, a kid who had turned out Eric Neuah from the neighborhood. Eric quickly bought up every one of these cassettes and begged Yano to introduce him to the kid who made them, a dude by the name of Andre Young, one of the other kids down at Skatland USA called Dr. Dre. Skatland USA was a local Compton hangout for teens and young people, a roller rink that would host MCs, DJs, and touring rap artists. It was a neutral space where once you were inside,

you were supposedly safe from the gang warfare happening right outside its doors. But there was only one way in and one way out. Once he walked out of Skateland's door as it was Blood Country. The gangbangers would line up

and beat down anyone who looked funny or looked at them funny upon their exit. Skateland was also where Dr. Drake had his first real shot at performing with his group, world-class wreck and crew, a hip-hop-infused electro-collective, drafting off of disco's last gasp of relevance. Ultimately, the group was going nowhere, and Dre was unhappy, though he appreciated collaborating with the group's other DJ, DJ Yela. Yela cracked him up.

It was the mid-80s. The radio was all about new edition and Top 40 was blanketed by Serapy Pop and R&B. But on the East Coast, rap was evolving into something much harder. Run DMC's Sucker MC's B-side from their 1983 It's Like That single was a shotgun blast whose kickback reverberated all the way from Queens to Compton. Dre was possessed by the beat. It was so fucking hard. But world-class wrecking crew's manager pushed Dre to produce what Dre called the soft shit in hopes of cracking the FM dial.

And they came close. One of their singles, Surgery, received local airplay and sold a respectable 50,000 copies. but Dre's heart wasn't in it. He wanted to make something bigger, something that sounded hard like Run DMC, but that also incorporated the hyper-real lyrics being spit out at the time by West Coast pimp-turned rapper Ice-T,

best demonstrated on one of his early B-sides, 6 in the morning. A track Ice says was heavily influenced by Philadelphia rapper School E.D. In his track, PSK, what does it mean? Ice T's 6 in the morning is now credited as the first gangster rap song. It's lyrics at the time, totally unique. If you were young and black and growing up on the violent gang controlled and LAPD patrolled streets of South Central Los Angeles,

these lyrics were your first and only opportunity to hear your world represented on the radio or anywhere else in pop culture. It was your only shot to see what so many other Americans get to experience every day and take for granted. Their world reflected back to them from mainstream culture. Six in the morning was released in 1986. The same year that the Cosby show, Family Ties, and Cheers were the top three rated television shows. Falcos, Rock Me Amadeus, Madonna's Papa Don't Preach, and Berlin's Take My Breath Away were the year's top-selling singles. And Top Gun, Crocodile Dundee and Platoon were the highest grossing films at the box office. There was not an ounce of street reality in any of these top-selling mainstream performances from 1986.

So for Dre, hearing his life, his reality, his and so many of his neighbor's story and lifestyle, spit back in him over the radio through the speakers of friends alpines rolling down Crenshaw, in the middle of the neighborhood that inspired the track. Six in the morning was powerful. Dre knew that this was where his future was.

Hardcore street lyrics like the ones from Ice Tea over hard beats like the ones from run DMC. And Dre had a secret weapon, a sound that would separate his musical fusion from everything else, a sound that anyone anywhere would be able to recognize as his own.

A sound that even he would be able to hear. or a mile away, when his song eventually blasted from passing car stereos. He and everyone else would know it was a Dr. Dre jam when they heard his signature sound with the Compton whistle. It was that high-pitched squealing synthesizer that Dre first heard on the Ohio players track Funky Worm. Dre went to work, implementing it in and around the beats he was fucking with in the back room at Skatland during off hours.

This sound would eventually grow to become the staple sound of the genre Dre would eventually help invent G-funk. Dre's new friend Eric was way down with what Dre was cooking up, and Dre convinced Eric he didn't need to invest in a record store. He needed to invest in a record label. They had what they needed, a signature sound, big-ass beats, and an original point of view. Their songs would rep their reality,

and they as rappers would rep their hometown, Compton, just like East Coast rappers repped Hollis Queens in the Bronx. They had $250,000 of Eric's drug money that they could invest into their new venture. But they also had a problem. Neither of them wrote lyrics. But Dre had a friend who did. O'Shea Jackson, only 16, was a natural-born lyricist with Drive.

He was from Inglewood, next neighborhood over from Compton. But every morning he bust out to a high school in the burbs with white kids who rolled the school in BMW convertibles, eventual Brett East and Ellis characters who O'Shea could not relate to at all, but whose easy way of life stirred in him envy and resentment. Their galling entitlement made it clear to O'Shea that there's another potentially better easier way of life if he played the game right, hustled, fostered his talent, and didn't get caught up in the gangs or catch a deadly beating from the cops. O'Shea hated the gangbangers. He knew they were evil and running down his community, but he hated the cops more. The twin influences of the gangbangers

in South Central Police tactics would combine to give O'Shea his lyrical point of view. And like all great writers, he wrote what he knew. The streets outside his door in Englewood and a neighbor in Compton, where his friend Dre lived and was fucking with that hustler, Eric, the one who gave up the game and was now calling himself E-C-E. Dre, the doctor, mad scientist that he was, was now conducting a full-on experiment. He knew that if he got himself, O'Shea, and Eric in a room, together they could unlock a new evolution in rap.

Without fail, O'Shea was inspired by Eric's larger-than-life, well, life, and wrote lyrics about him. But the group Dre picked to perform the track was a bust in the studio, and they couldn't relate to the hardcore lyrics. They were put off by the gangster language and bailed. It was down to Dre and DJ Yella who'd made the scene, Eric and O'Shea. Then it happened.

Dre somehow convinced Eric to jump on the mic. After all, O'Shea wrote the song about him. It took some coaxing, but ultimately he did it, and with careful patient producing, Dre was able to ease his friend Eric Wright, fully into the character of EZE. Everything was there, the authentic gangster drug-dealing backstory.

The man in black hip-hop fashion, the take-no-shit attitude, why wouldn't it work? And Dre was right. The fully-produced track was electric, and once pressed and distributed throughout L.A., through the strength of its hard beat, the attitude and the vocal performance, and the authenticity and reality it repped in its lyrics, the track, Boys in the Hood, became an instant hit. K-Day, the Redondo Beach outfit that was one of the top, not to mention one of the only rap-friendly radio stations in America,

was flooded with requests. Within months, the newly minted EZE went from selling pressings out of his car to a former distribution deal. Fuck that soft shit. The hard stuff was where it was at. All you had to do was go out on your front ear and listen to the cars rolling by to hear the influence of the track. It was everywhere in South Central at the end of 1987.

You couldn't help but hear it, as long as you were listening outside during the day. At night, the lyrics stopped and the story that the lyrics told began for real. a big beat built from gunshots, ghetto bird choppers, batter rams, and police sirens. Real-life sound, soundtracking life for the citizens of South Central. We'll be right back after this word, word, word. At first, the chant from the audience was familiar to Eric. We want easy over and over again, and he loved it. Why wouldn't he?

It was validation for all the hard work and the risk he took, investing a quarter million of his hard-earned street dollars into himself. his record label and ultimately the success of his group. He had worked out his own version of the American Dream for himself. But the adoring chorus gave way to a different chant. It was also a song title, which showed that the crowd loved the music they were putting out. But this one was less satisfying, more jarring.

It reminded him of something more menacing, confrontational. It reminded him of the cops back in Compton. The ones that pulled him over a couple months back, Heanked him from his vintage VW bug, the one with the freaks come out at night lettering, airbrushed across the back, and slammed his face, cheekside down, hard under the hood of the car. Who then pulled him upright, spun him around to face him,

and pressed the barrel of his standard-issued Glock 22 straight into Easy's temple. They wanted the drugs, and they knew he was a dealer. But what they didn't know was that he'd cleaned up his acts and taken his talents to the music industry. So the LAPD would walk away empty-handed, but not without making a point. Compton was their turf, not Easeys. Local drug dealer or rapper or whatever the fuck they owned the night.

They own the streets, not him. And for E, he was humiliating. And if he was being honest, scary as fuck. O'Shea was next to Easy on stage. He was now going by the name Ice Cube. He heard the same chant as E, but he had his own memory winding up his heart rate as the crowd yelled back a phrase that he had written. He flashed back to the cops outside of the studio

as the members of NWA had secluded themselves in to record their group's masterpiece, an effort that took only eight weeks and cost only $10,000 to make. Those cops meant business, just like Kube did. Maybe they recognized something of him that they saw in themselves, an unwillingness to take any shit at all, which is why they braced him on the sidewalk, and when he asked why they were questioning him, they threw him to the pavement,

stepped on the back of his neck, and demanded to know why he was to be. just hanging out in the corner doing nothing. And they weren't buying the truth. The Cube was taking a break from the hard work of making a record. Not until the band's manager, Jerry Heller, a white man, came outside to squash the beef. Even then, the cops refused to accept that Cube was an actual musician. After all, rap wasn't music, it was a fat. Whatever it was, it would save Ice Cube from the rage roiling inside of him

due to a lifetime of similar incidents just like this one. Dr. Dre hated the chant. It annoyed him. He just wanted to make music but the chant, something about the pointed anger of it, so direct, aimed straight at the cops from back home. The same cops who did next to nothing to protect his dead brother or to find his killer, the ones who left him to bleed out and die on the streets of Compton. Dre didn't want the grief, where then him stirred, and that's all the chant did. Yell it didn't mind, and neither did MC Wren. The two other group members, they had their own baggage to sort through, and the chant did to them what it did to the others, forced them to remember where they came from. how fucked up life on the streets of Compton was.

Pure violence. Deadly gang members and deadly cops. A violent vice that squeezed you into submission. The cops scared them more than the bloods and the crypts, though. But at least to the gangbangers, NWA were now celebrities and not to be fucked with, within reason. There were NWA, Compton's greatest export since Dennis Johnson, who at the time was busy helping the Boston Celtics gain entry into yet another Eastern Conference finals, but I digress. NWA was EZE's brainchild,

a supergroup that included all of the men currently standing on stage next to E plus lyricist the DOC. They were now NWA, and they were a supergroup with attitude. The idea of a posse this deep was EZ's. And their first real album, straight out of Compton, was Drace Sonic Vision, reality raps over hard beats, come to life an album form over 60 minutes, and it was as hard to ignore as fresh spray from an AK-47. It's opening Salvo.

You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge. Quickly smacks you in the face and then pommels you with a sledgehammer beat that somehow also grooves. While Q, Easy, and Ren kickoff verse after verse, after verse with the lines straight out of Compton, detailing a life spent dodging violent cops in the streets of their home hood. There's no mistaking where these dudes were from, and that wasn't an accident. Dre and E wanted to rep their hometown, just like East Coast rappers rep theirs. Except Compton wasn't exactly the same as Hollis Queens or the Bronx.

Compton was a war zone. So to properly do it justice, NWA relied on their own experiences in the street reality that they faced on a daily basis to inform their lyrics. That meant violence, drugs, crooked cops, and backward misogynist attitudes toward women, aka bitches and hoes with no sugar coating. They spit it out all over beats that hit you hard

and peppered everything with humor they learned from the blue comedy records of Rudy Ray Moore. and Red Fox at their parents' vibe on. To an adolescent music fan in 1988, it all added up to something as infectious, if not more so, than Arrowsmith or Guns and Roses or any other mainstream rock

blanketing airways at the time. The violence and profanity depicted in the lyrics made it almost impossible for radio to get behind the album, and MTV outright banned their first videos, but it didn't matter. The record was too good.

The lyrics too real. Through the power of strong distribution, for Easy's new record label Ruthless Records, and even stronger word of mouth. News of this new type of wild rap or reality rap or what the press was fast-calling gangster rap spread quick, not only through urban neighborhoods and schools, but through Lillywhite suburban neighborhoods

and small towns all across America. And of course, the gangbangers loved it too. It was their world come to life on record. But what made NWA so revolutionary is that they embraced the persona of the character. gangsters. They weren't objectifying the gang violence they saw in their neighborhoods. They were personifying.

They were the bad guys. Long before Tony Soprano or Walter White, five kids from Compton made it okay to root for the bad guys. They were the protagonist, the antagonists, the LAPD. Over on the East Coast, public enemy may have been bringing the noise

by commenting on the social injustice they saw, but NWA was cutting through the noise by playing the part of the villain, wearing the black hat, Shooting down the cops in their wraps, dealing weight in their wraps, beating down rivals in the wraps, a first-person fucking of the system. NWA had had enough. Enough with the drive-bys and the senseless murders. Enough with the police harassment.

Enough with the lack of opportunity. But they didn't play the victim card. They took a truly defiant stance, redefined the theater of war and fought back through music, and made their way through their own fucked-up reality by any means necessary. A motto coined by Malcolm X. Darrell Gates and stolen back by NWA. American teenagers ate it up. They sold millions of copies of straight out of Compton,

and EZE was laughing to himself at the absurdity of it all. But not everybody thought it was funny. The LAPD were pissed, as were their police brethren throughout the country. And tonight, here in Detroit, at the Joe Lewis Arena in front of upwards of 20,000 people, it all seemed to be coming to a head. While EasyE, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Yella, and MC Wren sat on stage, letting the chant of Fuck the Police rain down on them in front of 20,000 strong. They could feel the tension.

They could see it in the eyes of the cops and the crowd there ostensibly to protect the band, though it felt like they were there more to intimidate and to oppress. NWA was warned before the show not to play their song, Fuck the Police. The song had sparked a nationwide debate over NWA's claims of police brutality and of what life was really like in the streets they grew up on. Were gangster rappers really repping the reality of their surroundings or were they just cashing in on the profanity and violence? Police forces around the country took the song in its direct title as an affront.

Many of them refusing to provide security for the group while they were on tour. The lyrics were too controversial. The lyrics go on to detail Ice Cube's first-person account of Crooked LAPD and the justified beating on in quote-unquote slaughter of the police. The lyrics were a live wire, and on this night in particular, the tension in the room made it feel like the song if the group decided to play it might incite a riot. The crowd would not stop chanting the title over and over.

It was deafening and inspiring. It was time for the group to kick into one of their other songs, gangsta, gangsta. Easy was ready. Cube was hoping for something more, and Dre was milling about, hovering over his tables on stage. Yella, as always, was dutifully awaiting to, direction from Dre and Wren was wondering what the fuck was with the delay. And the crowd kept chanting.

Cops were now nervously making their way through the audience to the front of the stage. Some of them uniformed, most of them undercover, there on the scene in the crowd to prevent whatever the fuck was about to happen from happening. Dre's eyes caught Cubes across the stage. He motioned him closer. And when he got into earshot, Dre asked, You ready? Cube said nothing.

Just gave him an improving scowl and a defiant nod. Dre shouted, come in on the two. Then, fuck the police. The crowd lost itself, screaming every word back in a cube's face. Cops looked visibly scared. They were outnumbered by the tens of thousands. The song was killing and worth every ounce of bullshit it brought on because it was real. You could tell from the response, it was undeniable.

Kids loved it because it tapped into something totally authentic, totally unique. It was a look into an American reality that was on. underreported in the media. It was a crisis, this reality of gangs and abusive cops, a cycle of violence that made it near impossible to find your way through to the American dream, and it was pissed the fuck off, just like nearly everyone in the audience,

which is why the crowd began to riot. The sound of gunshots are what was laid to learn to be firecrackers set the riot off. Yella heard them first on stage and quickly fled. Fuck this. No protest song was worth dying for. The rest of the group followed suit, Trying to escape backstage while the crowd tore shit up in the house.

But the members of NWA were quickly corralled by the local cops and hauled in for inciting a riot. But in the end, it all worked out. The Detroit cops were not like the cops back home. They were more interested in autographs for their kids than they were pressing charges. It seemed like they had arrested them just to prove they could, and the group was quickly let go. Cube even joked to the cops.

Maybe we can produce a song for you guys called Fuck NW. Fuck the Police is the greatest protest song in the history of music, period. No other song got to the point quicker and or had a greater impact. You can come to my podcast studio and stand on my desk and yell at me about Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan and Sam Cook and Joe Strummer in hell, even Public Enemy, but name one song by any of those artists that generated a formal response of a thinly veiled threat. from the United States government, the FBI. You can't.

The letter the FBI wrote to Ruthless Records reads in part, A song recorded by NWA encourages violence against and disrespect for law enforcement. Advocating violence and assault is wrong. 77 law enforcement officers were feloniously slain in the line of duty in 1988. Law enforcement officers dedicate their lives to the protection of our citizens, and recordings such as this one from NWA are degrading to these. brave, dedicated officers. I wanted you to be aware of the FBI's position relative to this song and its message. I believe my views reflect the opinion of the entire law enforcement community.

Signed, Milne Altrich, Assistant Director of Office of Public Affairs, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice. The FBI response was the apex of criticism in heat NWA caught from the song. Critics throughout the country railed against the group. Their criticism of the cops, it was stated over and over again was a fabrication and exaggeration and way over the line. Nothing more than sensationalism contrived to sell records. But Ice Cube and the rest of the group held firm in the face of their critics. They knew what their reality was. They knew that Darrell Gates and the LAPD, at least the cops policing the neighborhoods they came up on were corrupt and violent. And that NWA or not, the world would soon know their shocking reality.

George Holliday, for one, was shocked. Shocked at what he'd seen firsthand and caught on videotape. Shocked that the police would do that. And also shocked that CNN was not interested. So he got himself a meeting quickly with an enterprising reporter at KTLA, the local Los Angeles television station. When he arrived, the newsroom was a buzz. Magic Johnson's Lakers were on a run and heading toward what was expected

to be an epic NBA final showdown against the freak Michael Jordan. Holiday and the reporter entered a bare conference room. Holiday found himself nervous, chatty, and recounting, unprompted the events that led him to the KTLA newsroom that day. It was a helicopter that got my attention. It was too low. I live by the highway, so I hear them, but never that low. And then there were the sirens and the cruisers. I looked up my window and realized they were all outside my door right across the street,

so I grabbed my camcorder brand new, not even out of the box. I just hit the little button and pointed. I was out on my balcony, so I had a straight shot. CNN doesn't want it. says they can't run, it says it's too much. I thought you guys might be able to use it. The reporter said nothing, just fidgeted with the wires

behind the television in the VCR. But when he was done, he slid the VHS tape that had Holliday so worked up out from the manila envelope and popped it into the VCR. And that sound, plastic hitting plastic. Then the cartridge sliding back into the console, the VHS tape and its grip,

the creak of the tapeheads and spinning gears, the anticipatory sound of it all had George Holliday's heart in his throat. The reporter was calm, sitting back in his chair, notebook in his lap, pen between his lips, staring at the TV. The sounds of the KTLA newsroom, keyboards clacking away, telephones ringing, pagers buzzing, angry editors shouting, began to fall away as the sound of the home video, Holiday Capture began to fully transfer from the VHS tape to the tiny television speakers. Helicopters, sirens, muffled shouting, And then the image came to life of the TV screen to accompany the sound.

Holiday watched the reporter lean in, transfixed. It's dark out. Nighttime. A white Hyundai on the side of the road. Three of its four doors open. A man, a black man, presumably its owner lying on the ground. Above them, four white Los Angeles police officers. Above them, a helicopter shining down its powerful floodlight on the scene, in effect providing big-budget action.

film quality lighting for George Holliday and his camera perched a few yards away on his deck, videotaping the beating that would set his city on fire. A beating that shocked Americans, but a beating that did not shock NWA. It was a beating they'd warned us about over and over again on straight out of Compton. The sound of their account on record was shocking, sure, but it was nowhere near as shocking as the sound of the real thing. The sound of a defenseless black man, A man whose name America would soon come to know as Rodney King, being struck 56 times with batons by a gang of white thugs. Young, angry, violent, heavily armed L.A. cops.

Defenceless. On the ground. Riving in pain. Struck 56 times. Good evening, the evidence is new. It's dramatic and it's devastating to those Los Angeles police officers involved in the March 3rd beating of that white motorist. One of the two officers who wielded the tons that evening relayed a message after the arrest to another call, saying, quote, sounds almost as exciting as our last call. It was right out of guerrillas in the mist. This is a professional organization. What do you think we are?

The Trump said they suspected King was high on drugs and resisting arrests. King said they never let up. Disgrace. It's a professional organization. What do you think we are? I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com.

If you're listening as a Disgraceland All-Axist member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to Disgraceland. disgracelandpod.com slash membership. Members can listen to every episode of disgrace land ad free. Plus, you'll get one brand new

exclusive episode every month. Weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelampod.com slash membership for details. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram,

TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook at Disgracelandpod, and on YouTube at YouTube.com slash at disgracelampod. plant pod, rockerola.