Jesus Zamarripa Essays - Hip Hop, Music, Gangsta Rappers, Dr. Dre

Jesus Zamarripa Ms. Wedemeyer ENG. 101.922 First Year Composition 26 June 2018 N.W.A Fuck The Police N.W.A was a rap group in the late 80's and early 90's. One of their hit songs was Fuck Tha Police, which was released in 1988 and till this day it's consider one of the most controversial songs of our times. The group was able to communicate their message to tell how people from Compton were mistreated and harassed by the police. The song became the anthem for activist fighting police brutality. The lyrics don't hold back the troubles that the urban community had with the L.A. police department. Its significant of the song came from the distrust and the hostile environment in this period of time. The members of the group were Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren, and Easy-E. All which came from the same background and had the same experience these social issues with the police. The songs narrative is a mock court case which depicts "N.W.A vs The Police". In beginning the song starts With MC Ren saying "Right about now the court is in full effect" and Dr. Dre acts as the judge, asking Ice cube to tell his side of the story. In a line of the song Ice Cube depicts the police as simply different thugs giving the right to hold the authority, the line says "a punk motherfucker with a badge". Another line from Ice cube that shows the harassment from cops is "Fuck with me cause I'm a teenager with a little bit of gold and a pager searching my car, looking for the product. Thinking every nigga is selling narcotics". Those are examples of how people outside the community didn't know that cops weren't law abiding citizens. It shows how the police didn't understand the urban c ommunity and misused their power to try and control the streets. The song triggered some political controversy starting with the censorship of music and the first amendment rights. The lyrics are so offensive that the FBI had to issue a letter to the record company distributing the album saying that advocating violence against cops was wrong, blaming the song for people committing attacks on the police. The lyrics that made this letter happen are "Beat a police out of shape" and "Ice Cube will swarm on any motherfucker in a blue uniform, police are afraid of me" While many public figures spoke against the letter, N.W.A stayed quiet. One year later Ice cube made a comment saying "There is a lot of resentment of police because if you are black you get picked on. The song is a way to get out aggression". The song was written by Ice cube and produced by Dr. Dre. They used different samples to make the beat of the song. Some came from the instrumental break from Marva Whitney's "Its My Thing". Another one was from James Brown's "Funky Drummer". This different samples and the use of a DJ sets the tempo of the song, every time the song narrates the part when they are in court the tempo slows down. The historical context of the song came from decades that involved race related controversies starting in the 1960's with the involvement of cops shooting unarmed blacks and the aggressive approach from law enforcement. The song only raised tension between the police and the black community because of the aggressive content and the popularity of the song with the people. Throughout many of the groups concerts there was no security because the police would refuse to work for the group, until the concert in Detroit. The police department had asked for the song Fuck Tha Police not to be played, the group decided to take a stand for freedom of speech and started to play the song. This is when the group was chased out of the arena and then thrown in the police van. There's different sides of the what happened that night from newspapers and other media outlets but one thing they couldn't hide was the fact that the police in Detroit didn't seem to like the rap group that was speak ing against them. The song created a movement that till