Throughout the 80s, especially in big cities such as Compton, the crime rate for minorities skyrocketed. Even after the civil rights act of 1964, African Americans still fought for their rights. Many believed all black men and women were “criminals” and stayed in trouble the majority of the time. As a big part of black culture, N.W.A spoke for minorities who could not. Bryan J. McCann, the author of the scholarly article, “Contesting the Mark of Criminality: Race, Place, and the Prerogative of Violence in N.W.A’s Straight Outta Compton”, puts his best opinions on the album and group themselves. “I argue that the album and its reception by the law enforcement community of the late 80s functioned as a confrontation over the meaning of race… in addition to revealing contingent meanings of criminality in popular and political culture.”
A black male is beaten by police
When it came to the crime rates, Compton as a whole was corrupt; incarcerated young minorities and drug trade/use. Ronald Reagan at the time was big on crime policies throughout the U.S. “Journalist Chuck Phillips (1993) called gangsta rap ‘the most dramatic confluence of violent art and violent reality the modern pop world has ever witnessed.”