When N.W.A dropped their incendiary debut album, Straight Outta Compton, in 1988, the FBI fueled its notoriety with a letter condemning songs such as “Fuck tha Police” for inciting violence. The album, with lyrics reflecting the brutal conditions facing black Americans under the boot of Ronald Reagan’s war on drugs, eventually sold more than two million copies.
N.W.A found their message of protest lost on most white listeners, and today the relationship between hip-hop, corporate record labels, and white America continues to obscure the music’s subversive function. Of course, big labels influence the types of hip-hop that become popular, but the success of the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Run the Jewels, and Chance the Rapper suggests that voices of resistance can still break through.
“I had white friends for whom golden age music was their entree into black life, and this really benefited them,” he says. “Now, kids are getting a one-sided image of black America without any of the sociopolitical elements that explain where these rappers came from.”
