For F. Gary Gray, you cant have an NWA film without talking about the social and racial issues during the groups popularity. BackstageOL’s Dave Morales spoke to the Straight Outta Compton director and asked what people should take away from the issues the film touched on.
“I hope people are inspired across the board. I hope they do better in all realms that we tend to visit in this movie. Rather it be music, business or friendship, family, but also law enforcement. You know, there’s room for change in the culture of law enforcement and we touch on it a little bit in this movie as well” said Gray.
NWA was formed in Compton, California, one of the more gang rattled parts of Cali in the 80’s and 90’s. Because of its African American population and high gang activity, people in the community were racially profiled and brutalized by police. These social and racial issue became the fuel for some of NWA’s greatest songs, such as F- the Police, Straight Outta Compton, and Express Yourself. This made the group one of the first hip-hop groups to speak about the treatment of law enforcement in their songs. This caused several groups of law enforcement to fear the group, even sending the group a cease and desist letter to stop performing their songs.
While the stories shown in the film are over 20 years old, the same topics and issues are raised to this day. With racial profiling and police brutality in the forefront in the US, hip hop artists still use their songs to address social injustices. Some of those artist include Jay-Z, Run the Jewels, and even Kendrick Lamar, a protege of former NWA member Dr. Dre.
F. Gary Gray also spoke about why the film is important saying, “It goes beyond the music. It transcends race, hip-hop..there’s themes that are universal. You have brotherhood, betrayal, you have rags to riches, you can be inspired by these guys. And I think stories like that last forever and that’s why I think its important.”
Straight Outta Compton is in theaters on August 14th, 2015.
Watch the full interview below:
