This past weekend has been a success for Dr. Dre, Ice Cube and F. Gary Gray because Straight Outta Compton smashed anything else out in its debut, racking up over $56 million in ticket sales. The film has come out to very well reviews, portraying the rise and fall of N.W.A. throughout their tenure all in a 2-hour biopic.
Depending on where you went to go see the movie, there were probably different crowds in the theater, but one thing that may have rang common regardless of where you were was probably the love of rap music. We saw plenty of Oakland Raider hats and jerseys waiting in line to buy tickets and everyone seemed excited to watch the film.
If one thing stands out from Straight Outta Compton, it’s Eazy E‘s character, played by Jason Mitchell. Not only did he play one of the most thugged out roles in the entire film (next to Suge), but he experienced the most ups and downs out of everyone in the group. Cube and Dre did too, but their roles didn’t require as much vulnerability as Eazy did, especially when he found out he had HIV. There’s no doubting that a majority of people in the theater either got teary eyed or damn near when that scene came up on screen. From what people who actually knew Eric, apparently he got the role down to a T.
Watching the crew have fun on the road was also one of the highlights of the film. Them partying on the tour bus during their first tour, standing up the police in Detroit, the orgys in the hotel rooms; it seemed like wild days for the group. We can’t even imagine what it would be like to experience that sort of success in the beginning stages of rap, all while being hunted by the police, FBI and members of government. And at the end of the day, they still didn’t give a fuck.
That scene where Ice Cube took a bat to the Priority Records executive’s office was official too. Shit, we’d be mad as hell too if the guy started playing us like Jerry Heller.
All in all, it was a pretty good film and didn’t stray much from the facts (who really knows the ultimate truth besides the members anyway). Snoop Dogg‘s character was a little weird, though. And the fact 2pac was recording “Hail Mary” when Dre came in to play him “California Love” didn’t add up either, but it’s not something people are going to notice too much.
Besides the acting, the music that was used in the film was great. They interweaved what was hot at the time with the N.W.A. hits and didn’t stray away from the East Coast music either. They played a little bit of everything. We actually made a playlist of the songs that we could remember (which you can find below) in case you wanted to bump some of those tracks.
So for those that went to go watch the movie, what did you think of it? We saw some people on Twitter hating on it, but fuck what these wanna-be Twitter critics say. This shit was dope, especially for rap fans. All we want to do is listen to Cube, Eazy, N.W.A. and Dre music for the rest of the week. Let us know if you’re in the same boat.
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