They were uncompromising in every aspect right down to their name, deciding they would be called N.W.A – Niggaz With Attitude. "We were taking a word that had been derogatory to black people for years and deciding to use it instead of allowing ourselves to be abused by it," says Ice Cube. "When we started out doing music, it was an underground thing. We never thought it would be on the radio or on the TV. We thought that we were just making music for our homies. We thought we'd be 'hood stars; that a guy on our block would play it and tell his friend and he'd dig it and word would get around that way. That was as far as we ever saw our careers going."

"We actually never referred to ourselves as 'gangsta rap'", recalls Ice Cube. "That was a term invented by the media for what we were doing. We actually called it 'reality rap' because it reflected what we were going through. We felt backed into a corner, and that nobody cared about our situation and that our only weapon was our music."

their debut studio album, 'Straight Outta Compton', completing the album in just six weeks at a total cost of just $8,000. The album's lyrics were steeped in brutal realism and set over a cacophony of samples, sirens, scratches, beats and loops.

Upon its release in August 1988, the album was met with a barrage of controversy due to its explicit lyrics, condemned by everyone from the US President to the FBI (who accused them of inciting violence against police officers). Tracks such as 'Gangsta Gangsta' and 'Fuck Tha Police' were widely discussed in the media, and the group was forced to refute allegations that it "glamourised gang violence and profanity", maintaining that the themes of their lyrics were descriptions rather than endorsements.

Although their antics were pretty much standard for a group of guys with easy access to money, alcohol and women, they were targeted by the police on numerous occasions, seemingly in revenge for the public mauling they'd received in 'Fuck Tha Police'. "The police harassed us a lot, especially on tour," Cube recalls. "They'd constantly pull us over, read the city ordinances, obscenity laws of what we could and couldn't say and tell us if we didn't comply we were going to jail. There were incidents all over the country."

The album pushed themes of violence and misogyny even further and, once again, proved that their controversy was currency, shooting straight to No 1 on the Billboard chart. While N.W.A received no airplay due to their explicit lyrics, their media profile had never been higher. But the LA riots, sparked by the acquittal of four policemen who were filmed beating Rodney King in 1992, led many to re-evaluate N.W.A's message.

The film has come along at a time when the black experience in the US is once again under the spotlight. "It's always been the way with poor people, with black people", says Cube of the death of Sandra Bland, a black woman found dead in a Texas police cell earlier this year, shortly after her arrest for a traffic violation. "It hasn't changed. We're talking about something that has been constant – we're just catching more and more stuff on video nowadays. 'Fuck Tha Police' was relevant then, and it's relevant now. We were tired of what was going on and we wanted to do something about it. We changed pop culture in a lot of ways. It allowed artists to be themselves. If you wanted to be raw, a little risqué, you could be. We proved that you don't have to pretend to be squeaky-clean to get on TV."

This album even influenced more controversial topics outside of the music industry. If this album didn’t shed light on the acts of police brutality and racial profiling that members of the group endured, several movements and events in later years wouldn’t have happened. The biggest of those being the 1992 L.A. riots. The riots were sparked as a reaction of four policemen that were found innocent after beating Rodney King, a local taxi driver from the area, and the killing of Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old who was shot by a convenience store worker. If four years earlier, N.W.A hadn’t released their views on events like this, there might not have been such an explosive reaction of anger and a yearning for justice.

OVER THE LAST week, N.W.A’s fierce indictment of racial injustice, “Fuck tha Police,” has become the anthem of a revolution, as thousands all over the world have taken to the streets in outrage over the wrongful killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. Protesters have scrawled the song title on the homemade signs they wave and spray-painted it to walls. 

Although N.W.A first raised eyebrows when MTV banned the video for “Straight Outta Compton,” it was “Fuck tha Police” that gave the group its legacy. In about six minutes, MCs Ice Cube, Ren, and Eazy-E serve as prosecutors against the overzealous LAPD, accusing cops of pulling them over in their cars and raiding their homes, over a hard-hitting beat while the track’s producer, Dr. Dre, presides as judge. “Fuck the police comin’ straight from the underground,” Ice Cube raps. “A young nigga got it bad ’cause I’m brown and not the other color, so police think they have the authority to kill a minority.” In Ren’s verse, he raps, “Taking out a police would make my day, but a nigga like Ren don’t give a fuck to say… fuck the police.” Both Ren and Cube were only 19 years old when they recorded the track, which has taken on new life in recent years.

“It seemed like all throughout junior high school, high school, [police] would just fuck with you for no reason,” Ren says. “It was like, if you black, you young, you in the hood, you in the ghettos of America, you just get fucked with. What you hear on the record is all the frustration, all the times getting harassed, getting pulled over for no reason at all, getting disrespected, having them try to disrespect your parents all because of your skin color. All of that builds up and you make a record. But we never thought the record would be around today with people still playing the record and into it. But shit, to me, it’s a perfect protest song.”