Ice Cube Calls N.W.A. Biopic ‘Straight Outta Compton’ a ‘Real Superhero’ Movieīy the end of 1989, Cube had split from N.W.A over Eazy-E and manager Jerry Heller’s hoarding of the group’s earnings, setting off a conflict that climaxed with his famously obscene 1991 diss track “No Vaseline.” That year he also launched his acting career with Boyz N the Hood today he’s a leading Hollywood star ( 22 Jump Street) and producer ( Friday, Ride Along, in which he also starred). Asked about Sam DuBose, who was fatally shot July 19 by a University of Cincinnati officer now charged with murder, Cube says, “This kind of stuff seems like it don’t happen to white guys.” (The Los Angeles riots are an important motif in the movie’s second half.) “They talk about bullying in society, but police are the worst bullies that we have to deal with,” he says. It wouldn’t have worked.” Cube tells Billboard that he believes police brutality remains “the same” today as it did in the late ’80s and early ’90s. And as Dre explains, “If N.W.A had done it softer, it wouldn’t have gotten the attention. Dre, MC Ren and DJ Yella of N.W.A with Kendrick Lamar photographed on Jat Milk Studios in Los Angeles. And Compton, a gang stronghold just south of Watts, held no place in the American imagination.Īlso: Kendrick Lamar Pays Tribute to N.W.A and Eazy-E: They ‘Gave Voice to the Voiceless’ No one had yet seen how Los Angeles could contribute to the simmering rap culture. That heyday kicked off in 1988 - the same year Lamar turned 1 - with the release of the movie’s namesake album. (Cube is played by his son, O’Shea Jackson Jr., 24.) The result is a hard-hitting narrative replete with the conviction and turmoil that typified N.W.A in its heyday. Gary Gray, all orchestrated with close oversight by Cube and Dre. Universal ultimately green-lit the project with a budget of $29 million a screenwriter, Jonathan Herman and a director, F. 14 emerges from 13 years in development purgatory. The movie is Straight Outta Compton, which on Aug. Would rather wait for it to come to the neighborhood and see it with everyone else. “Didn’t want to go to a preview and see it in a privileged setting. Kendrick Lamar and N.W.A: The Billboard Cover Shoot “Ain’t nobody we’d rather have do this interview,” says Cube, 46.

Eazy e album cover photos