Random Thought…
N.W.A. minus Ice Cube made better shit that N.W.A. with Ice Cube.
I’m not just being contrarian here. I actually believe that shit.
The first 5 songs on ‘Straight Outta Compton’ might be the best stretch of songs in the history of hip-hop, but the rest of that shit wasn’t quite as good. ‘Niggaz4Life’ was consistently epic from top to bottom, even if they were missing Cube’s virtuosity. Without Cube, N.W.A. dropped all the faux-positivity that they occasionally dabbled (shit like ‘Express Yourself’) in while he was in the group and went for the gusto on the next album. Straight anti-social nignorance with no breaks in attitude - a solid and uniform vision if you will. In addition, Dre’s production skills had improved A TON. One may reasonably claim that Cube’s absence and the resulting lack of positive content robbed N.W.A. of some depth, but that argument doesn’t change the fact that the group was much more comfortable playing grotesque caricatures of their original selves. That shit came naturally to them. Listening to ‘Express Yourself’ is still a little awkward for me till today. Not so for ‘To Kill A Hooker’ or ‘Findum, Fuckem, Flee’.
But upon further review, that last sentence probably just means that I have a problem that I should consider seeing a shrink about…
Notes
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boombapbeatnik said:
No. Just… no.
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mobbdeen posted this
