Image by Todd MacMillan.
Last month, O’Shea Jackson Jr., the star of the critically acclaimed 2015 film Straight Outta Compton, spoke to the 30 students enrolled in the English 160 course, Lose Yourself: The Transformative Power of Music at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). The class, taught by Dr. Margena A. Christian, was writing an argumentative essay on N.W.A. and how the group and its members altered the course of free speech with their controversial song, “Fuck Tha Police.” O’Shea arranged to Skype the excited students (many of whom had never interviewed anyone, much less the lead actor of a box-office smash) so that they could ask him about his personal thoughts on the movie, the music, and the repercussions that all of N.W.A.’s actions had on free and uncensored speech in popular music.
In many ways, viewers initial reactions to the N.W.A. biopic were comparable to those of listeners back in the late 1980s and early ‘90s, when the Compton, California hip-hop group first rose to prominence. The movie focuses on the rise and fall of the five-member act, detailing their struggle to use catchy, candid, and contentious verses to penetrate America’s evolving discussions on police brutality and the frequently utilized tactic of racial profiling, among many other issues that have plagued black America throughout the last half-century.
Jackson during interview, via Skype.
“It was just music for the neighborhood, the people they grew up with. It snowballed because you found out other neighborhoods in America were going through the same thing,” O’Shea said about the group’s enormous effect that far surpassed their initial local popularity. The cognizant young actor – N.W.A. member, rapper and actor Ice Cube’s son – passionately engaged the star-struck pupils’ questions. He had plenty to say about the hugely successful group’s influence, in addition to how celebrities then and now exploit shocking language to dominate the mainstream media in order to propagate their own agendas.
N.W.A.’s smash hit “Fuck Tha Police” was a protest song that explained the ways in which black American males experienced everyday interactions with law enforcement officials. The group grew up under the thumb of the notorious LAPD, which has had more than its fair share of racially motivated instances of police brutality. “My father has said [the song] is 400 years too late,” O’Shea remarked, noting that the experiences outlined in it were not news to minority communities. The actor credited the emotionally powerful song with having sparked a serious movement to reform police departments in order to mitigate the prevalence of discrimination in the criminal justice system, even though, he warned, there is still a long road ahead. “Protect and serve who?” O’Shea asked, cheekily challenging law enforcement’s motto, adding that, “As a black man… I don’t feel the safety that I should feel from a police officer’s presence.”
As the interview was coming to an end, English major Bernie Williams mentioned to the politically savvy film star that Republican presidential candidate, Donald J. Trump would be holding a rally at the UIC Pavillion the following day, asking what he thought would be the most progressive way for students to protest the frontrunner’s hateful message and rhetoric. Grimacing at the prospect of a potential President Trump, O’Shea said, “When you hear… as a person of color, ‘Make America Great Again,’ that makes me think about the years America was considered great – I don’t think it was that great for me! How about we make America great? I don’t know that we’ve gotten there yet.”
For the group’s largely white audience, the song was an eye opener, spotlighting the tangible, measurable ways in which racial anxieties still deeply plagued the U.S. in 1988, over two decades after the passing of the landmark Civil Rights Act, which had eradicated the legality of segregation, but not the reality of it. With a cocky, “Hell yeah!”, O’Shea acknowledged that Straight Outta Compton accomplished for the group what two attempts in previous years had not, which was gaining induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The movie brought back to the forefront of the American psyche what had been pushed to the back in the years since the group’s 1991 split, reminding viewers that N.W.A.’s influence was as great, if not greater, than that of several other groups already honored by the museum.
When asked what relevance the song, the movie, and the messages of both had today, the actor cited the myriad of recent cases where police officers have killed unarmed black men, indicating that the heightened anxiety because of police misconduct is what made N.W.A.’s story an important one to tell to audiences at this point in American history, which is considered by some to be the second Civil Rights movement. “When art imitates life is when it’s most powerful, and we just want people to take our movie, be inspired, and figure out ways to help us all change our situation.”
Sarah J. Wotaszak 