Gangsta rap group N.W.A. (an abbreviation of Niggaz Wit Attitudes) ignited a cultural war in the mid-1980s on the streets of Compton, California. Their explicit lyrics — banned from many mainstream radio stations — were considered to be disrespectful to women, and glorifying drugs and crime. Twenty-five years later, the five man group including Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, will be the subject of the biopic, Straight Outta Compton (titled after their debut studio album of the same title). It will be directed by F. Gary Gray who produced The Italian Job and won Best Video of the Year for Directing the TLC video “Waterfalls.” Straight Outta Compton will be released August 2015.
A casting call for the film made headlines this month as it promoted negative stereotyping of African American women, i.e., associating low income women with dark skin and being overweight. But what’s really surprising about the film “behind the scenes” is to learn that a white woman is writing the screenplay. Andrea Berloff is a relative unknown in the movie biz and according to her Twitter account she prefers rock n’ roll to hip hop: “Woke up thinking about how much I love Tommy by The Who,” Berloff recently tweeted.
