''So this kid goes, 'You write a rap and I'll write one and we'll see which one is best.' So I started thinking of stuff. And his was little pieces of all the other records that were out at the time. Mine was original.''
-- Law No. 39: Stir Up Waters to Catch Fish
N.W.A's breakthrough record, Straight Outta Compton, came out in 1989. And if you look at its cover today, you'll see a huddled group of young African-American men in baseball caps staring down the camera like a collective dare. One of them, Eazy-E, points a gun at whoever the unlucky bastard was who took the photo.
Each member looks pissed off -- none more so than Ice Cube. And his voice is also the first one you hear rapping on the record, barking his arrival with the following lines: ''Straight outta Compton/Crazy muthaf -- -er named Ice Cube/From the gang called Niggaz With Attitude/When I'm called on/I gotta sawed-off/Squeeze the trigger and bodies are hauled off...''
Cube sprays profanities and threats like a fusillade of bullets. They were to become the opening shots of the West Coast hip-hop revolution known as gangsta rap. ''We just wanted to be neighborhood stars,'' says Cube. ''Our neighborhood stars were usually people with names and reputations -- a guy who'd been gang-banging the longest or the guy who had a lot of money or dope. We could have been that if we wanted to, but we had a more positive avenue to vent. It's not like you gotta kill somebody or shoot somebody to rap about it.''
-- Law No. 2: Never Put Too Much Trust in Friends, Learn How to Use Enemies
After Straight Outta Compton sold more than 2 million copies, Cube left the group over money issues. The split sparked a bitter feud, which played out on both camps' subsequent records -- which had the side effect of moving more units. Cube says his decision to leave N.W.A also marked the moment he woke up as a businessman.
''It wasn't hard to leave once you figure out you're getting screwed,'' he says. ''You wake up real fast when you start putting those numbers together. And when I confronted them with it, they didn't budge. I mean, what's the use of putting gold and platinum albums up at your mother's house if you're still living in her living room?'' (N.W.A's former manager could not be reached for comment.)
-- Law No. 25: Re-Create Yourself
Nowadays, the idea of rappers crossing over into acting seems routine: Ice-T, Marky Mark, Eminem. But when Cube signed on to play the street-tough Doughboy in John Singleton's 1991 South Central slice of life Boyz N the Hood, it was a fresh idea. ''I didn't think about a movie career at all,'' says Cube. ''Not one bit. I just thought that it was something I wasn't qualified to do. But I knew who Doughboy was. I grew up with a thousand Doughboys. A piece of me was Doughboy.... It's kind of like we hit a home run. John got nominated for an Oscar, and we went to the Cannes film festival. I mean, what do the French know about Crips and Bloods? But they gave us a standing ovation.''
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