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Music

Judging by This Latest Trailer, The NWA Biopic Is Gonna Blow Everyone's Brains Out

It will finally tell one of hip-hop's most important and deserving stories.
Ryan Bassil
London, GB

Despite being one of the most well-known rap groups to walk the planet, the NWA story has rarely been told. Hip-hop heads know the tale, but to casual music fans, the illustrious group are best known for soundtracking massacres in the fictional world of San Andreas, releasing a song called "Fuck the Police," and birthing Ice Cube and Dr. Dre into their future careers. They're a household name; yet not for the reasons the group deserves. Their cultural importance has been overlooked, scrubbed from history after the group was banned from national radio stations and placed under FBI Investigation for inciting state-wide violence. Things haven't been made any better by the group's respective forays into the billion dollar headphone industry and films that wouldn't even be screened on TBS at Christmas (here's looking at you, Ice Cube).

But now they're joining the biopic members club already frequented by Biggie Smalls and Aaliyah. The first trailer dropped a couple months ago and, save for some appaling acting from the real life Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, it made me want to upend my desk and throw a chair across the room. Today's trailer shows the other side to the film. There are still the signifiers of a film that'll make you want to ram-raid the local Tesco and get away with it, but it's introspective and challenging too. We see Ice Cube becoming a victim of police brutality, Eazy E recording Boyz N the Hood and asking for money, and the group battling against the racial prejudices they faced throughout their journey.