NWA are in many ways the most notorious group in the history of rap. When they emerged in the late 1980’s the five person crew celebrated violence and gratification of the criminal life. The group was unapologetically violent and their attack on the political system seemed serious, serious enough for the FBI to get involved with NWA. Before NWA formed, Eazy-E was a drug dealing rapper who started a record company called Ruthless Records. It wasn’t until Dr. Dre and Ice Cube began writing songs that the company began to have success. DJ Yella and MC Ren are two member that are less talked about in mainstream media, but all add their respected skills of Hip Hop to the carnation of the group known as NWA.
NWA came out with “Straight Outta Compton,” and became an underground hit with no radio support, press support, or support from MTV. This album was the main cause NWA becoming notorious for their hardcore lyrics, and a song in the album called “F**k the Police” made FBI send a warning letter to the group. Making the group self proclaim themselves, the most dangerous rap group in America. In 1989, when the music video for “Straight Outta Compton” dropped, it was a great explanation of the group’s dynamic. Ice Cube and MC Ren were spitting their provoking lyrics, unafraid of the outcome of sharing the truth. Dr. Dre was the producer and unspoken leader of the group, while Eazy-E wads the wild carefree antagonizer. Ice Cube says, “when talking about what really led into the style that we ended up doing, which is now called hardcore gangster rap. Back then we was calling it ‘reality rap’; ‘gangster rap’ is the name that the media coined. We was just talking about shit that we was going through” (Howard 2018)