By John Stapleton
In the Dayz of Wayback…
I don’t remember where I was when I first heard N.W.A.’s
Straight Outta Compton album, but at some point in 1988,
it was everywhere I went—little kick backs at a friend’s
house, at the basketball courts, on everyone’s Walkman at
school. I was living in Pasadena, going to Eliot Jr. High, infamously known around the area as the Pink Prison. While
Pasadena is known for one of Southern California’s iconic
beauties, the Rose Bowl, the Pasadena I knew was filled with
taggers and gangbangers looking to make their mark. Gang
fights, riots, and an entire school tagged up with graffiti, was
just an everyday thing.
“They have the authority to kill a minority…”
For many, hip-hop music was an outlet and a reflection of
life. At any given moment, there could be a rap battle in the
halls of Eliot Jr. High with the homies in the background
providing the human beatbox. As chaotic life was, it is
fair to say, the music was an escape. When Straight Outta
Compton first hit the streets, it too was just an escape. I
don’t remember anyone actually thinking of themselves as
Eazy-E riding through the streets of Compton, or thinking
they could disrespect women like the lyrics suggested. We
knew there was a ton of exaggeration that was common in
rap, but at the same time, we knew it was on the real, that it
tapped into the growing anger off the streets…the growing
heartbreak, the growing awareness that life wasn’t fair for
everyone—and no one was doing anything about it.
16
On June 17, young 21 year-old Dylann Roof walked into the
Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. In the immediate aftermath of 9 people
killed, the usual conversation of gun control was absent—
instead, the Confederate Flag became the scapegoat for the
massacre. This would be another incident in a long list of
incidents that have either created or brought racial tensions to the surface. The death of Trayvon Martin, Michael
Brown, Freddie Gray, and most recently, Sandra Bland, have
all added to the jacked up narrative that has been going on
for centuries. Even a black president didn’t change anything, and if anything, Obama only added to the agitation
as whites feel persecuted and blacks are still left without
justice, wondering when is it all going to end…it was the
same narrative that was being rapped about back in 1988 by
Public Enemy and N.W.A.