Building A West Coast Empire
By: d to the j
“Straight Outta Compton “ was the battle cry of a group put on by the a man who built an empire that has touched almost every major act from the west coast, and has reached out and touched the agenda of young Black America in a way that little else has since the Rock ‘n Roll of the fifties, or the Soul of the sixties.
That group is Niggaz With Attitude
(N.W.A), and that man is Eric “Eazy-E’ Wright. His empire is Ruthless Records,
which gave direct birth to Dr Dre, Ice Cube, The D.O.C., Above The Law, JJ Fad,
and Mc Ren. And through a generation or two, birth to Snoop Doggy dogg, The
Dogg Pound, Warren G, and the Lady of Rage.
In 1988, Eazy-E released his solo album
Eazy Duz It, and opened fans up for a new and innovative style of hip hop,
named “street reporting, “by those who created it, and “Gangsta rap” by those
who observed it. While Eazy sold records and gained props, his solo project was
not the end or the true beginning.
It was Eazy’s NWA, featuring Dr Dre from
The Wreckin’ Crew, and Ice Cube from The CIA that followed Ice-T’s lead,
Breathing life into so called “Gangsta Rap,” where bitches, hoes, guns, and
“boys in the hood” began to dominate the content of an art form that had waxed
and waned, rejuvenated by “street reporting” from the west, and Public Enemy’s
revolution from the east.
Six years later, the original members of
NWA have splintered off into solo careers, leaving the original Nigga With
Attitude on the solo tip once again, but this time with a recording empire and
sentimental desires to reunite the group he believes the world is still waiting
for.
As we lamp in Eric Wright’s plush
Ruthless Records offices nestled in the west end of LA’s San Fernando Valley,
he is studying a recent issue of Billboard Magazine, placing stars next
to music that he claims as his own, or directly resulting from the empire that
he built. Stars are placed next to albums by Dr Dre, Snoop Doggy Dogg, and Ice
Cube, and our conversation turns to the west coast influence on all of rap
music, including music coming from the Mecca of hip hop, New York City. We are
entrenched in the irony of that influenced against the backdrop of NYC’s
attempts to reject and dismiss music from other places.
“I’m not really with that East coast vs.
West Coast stuff. I’m from the West Coast, but I’ll be down with East Coast
rappers. There’s a lot of shit coming out there that I like. If they got good
music, I give credit where credit is due.”
There was no clearer evidence of New
York’s resistance to a hip hop movement from another place than when Eazy-E,
along with Cube, Dre, Ren and Yella rolled into the eats with Jheri Curls,
sagging pants and musical stories of hardcore street life, including gang
activities, a hatred for the police, and of course, tales of the bitches and
the hoes.
Eazy still vividly remembers that
resistance when he and his group performed at The Apollo [in New York City],
and “some people were hip to it, but some people couldn’t take it. Ice Cube
said something about a bitch, and everybody went ‘oooh’, and started booing.
“Most performers get that anyway. LL Cool
J came out here a long time ago, and they booed him, but he blew up. [New York]
booed us, but they picked up on it later.”
And even while the audience was getting
acclimated to this new style. Eazy remembers very little resistance from east
coast rap artist.
“A lot of artists were down with it. The
first time we went on the road, we were with Heavy D. Salt-n-Pepa, and UTFO,
and everybody was cool. We toured with Public Enemy, and a lot of different
artist from the east coast. Everybody was cool, we hung out, and there was no
attitude.”
The only real conflict between artists
that E could recall was much later in the rise of the west coast with Tim Dog,
who tried to pump life into his own weak career by dissing Compton.
And east coast artist had no right to dis
or dismiss a group with a program that set a new trend in hip hop that became
as popular as the pro-Black movement. It seemed that Guns, bitches and hoes
became the order of the day for every new rap act without a revolutionary
message. Even in the Mecca of hip hop, where gangs had long since metamorphosed
into graffiti and hip hop crews, nines and glocks began to creep into the
content of rap lyrics, as street credibility became the standard of
measurement.
EPMD came out of the gate with odes to
the nine millimeters laid over Roger and Zapp samples that were the basis of
the new Gangsta Funk (G-funk) growing in California, and even their own
hometown crammed to understand the content while the groove commanded them to
dance. No one would freak out on such lyrical content today, as the west coast
influence on hip hop approaches saturation.
“Now they’re (New York) doing the
drive-bys, the jackin and all that,” he pointed out. “They picked up on all of
it.”
As a prime example, he uses Ill and Al
Skratch and their cut “Where My Homiez.” “They talk about ‘creepin’ through the
hood, up to no good.’ That’s some west coast shit.” And there’s more west coast
shit that’s not from the west coast. NWA’s street reporting even paved the way
for acts like the Geto Boys in Houston, Texas to come on. But while NWA’s
legacy is currently propped up in areas from Houston to Chicago, and even New
York, Eazy became one of the most maligned figures in his own back yard.
The splintering and eventual
disintegration of the NWA was a slow and painful process that Eric Wright
watched and absorbed while the attitudes of his former “Niggas” turned against
him.
The first to go was Ice Cube in a flurry
of controversy over ganked profits and mismanagement. As Cube turned himself
into a quasi-revolutionary still closer to the street mentality than PE, his
direct influence, he spun tales of his difficulties with Eazy into music for
his solo projects.
Next to make a break was Dr Dre, who got
his dis style in on The Chronic, his debut solo album with
assistance from Snoop Doggy Dogg, relating his break from Eazy in graphic words
and graphic images via videos.
While the digs from Cube and Dre were
deep and hurtful, they were enough to halt the music from Eazy, who released
projects from Ren and Above The Law through his Ruthless Records, while
unleashing a final NWA project (EFILE$ZAGGIN’) after Cube’s disses, and
an Eazy-E EP (It’s On Dr. Dre 187 Killa) to answer Dre’s The Chronic.
Through all the props and the knocks, Eazy remains pleased and inspired.
“It makes me feel pretty cool. Whether
the comments are good or bad, it’s all good. When they stop talking about you,
that’s when you should worry.”
It’s easy for Eric Wright to remain
pleased and inspired in the face of current stress and drama, when the original
days of his group are recalled, complete with public adversity in simply trying
to perform.
Back in the days of the first NWA album,
the group would perform for audiences as large as thirty thousand. By the time
they released their second project, the group barely toured as venues and
promoters decreased the booking of rap concerts in fear of gang violence which
actually rarely occurred.
“We used to fly into different states,
and they would have us on the news before the mass murders. We’d have to meet
with the city council, and the reverends and explain why we said things like
“fuck tha police.”
But the questioning of his group
decreased when their warnings manifested in the public beating of Rodney King
and an entire nation of colored youth empathetically joined in the “fuck tha
police” chants.
And the questioning of NWA ceased when
it’s rough and rugged content became the order of the day, when the slang found
it’s way into hip hop’s vernacular, and when the gear-sagging pants, oversized
shirts, and low profile footwear, usually topped off with some locs (dark
shades)-became a staple of hip hop fashion.
NWA’s influence spread far and wide, and
while Eazy could be bitter that NWA doesn’t always get credit, he acknowledges
that there’s too much room for everybody to grow to be upset.
“There’s enough money for everybody t
make. NWA opened doors for a lot of people, gave everybody a chance and they’re
still comin.”
Currently, Ruthless Records has mare than
thirty acts, and Eric is personally involved with each one, from the initial
development to the marketing of the project. Several of those projects feature
ventures into R&B, including the original Rose Royce (of the motion picture
soundtrack Car Wash).
And if those projects weren’t enough.
Eazy-E is releasing Straight Off The Streets Of Mothafuckin’ Compton,
vol. 1 & 2, a double album to compensate for the six year lapse since
his last full-length album. The project features fifty cuts that he’s been
culling from collaborations with Guns n Roses to tracks produced by Naughty By
Nature. It also features tracks that Eazy had been saving for a final NWA album
with Ren and Dre that were never released.
The Ruthless Records empire is still
growing, but there is no satisfaction for Eric Wright. He’s still looking to
expand into other areas.
Eazy has teamed up with Yella, Tony G,
Julio G and Greg “Mack Attack” Mack from legendary KDAY to create The Ruthless
Radio Show, which will be broadcast live in several markets, and syndicated
nationally.
Eric also has a one hour cable television
show call New Generations, which plays rap videos. The show was taken to cable
to test, and will only be taken to network television when he feels it’s ready.
This year, Eazy created Just for The Kids
Records, a label to be distributed by Ruthless, specifically for music made by
children.
But out of all of the projects on the
table, the one that is closest to Eazy’s heart is yet to manifest. Despite all
of the ugly words exchanged between different members at different times, he
remains hopeful that NWA will eventually come together for the reunion album
talked about almost since Dre made his exit. Eazy is convinced that the reunion
can happen, but only if the original members sit down without managers.
“I think the reunion is possible, if we
sit down and work everything out ourselves. Cube, Ren, and Yella are down with
it-it’s just Dre. Actually, I don’t think its Dre-it’s his manager, Shug
(Knight).”
“I talked to Dre before, but I think Shug
tries to interfere with it. I don’t think Dre knows everything, like my deal
with Interscope that gets me paid from his music.”
When Dr. Dre left Eazy and Ruthless
Records for Interscope, a separate deal was made between Ruthless and
Interscope that resulted in an advance for Eazy, and royalties from Dre’s first
six projects, including The Chronic, the Poetic Justice
soundtrack, and Dre’s collaboration with Ice Cube, Helter Skelter.
Following the Helter Skelter project, the
next logical step would be an NWA reunion album. Even though Eazy would receive
greater revenue from such a project if it were on Ruthless, the album would
bring great revenue to all involved. It would also bring full circle the
careers of some of hip-hop’s most important figures, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, and
Eazy-E, who have each made their individual mark on the history of hip hop.
Eric “Eazy-E” Wright knows that an NWA reunion would
be the greatest achievement in his empire, and one of his most desired personal
wishes, but it would also be a massive project that he thinks is within reach.
“”I think it would be one of the biggest
records of all time. It would be history. It might happen, and sooner than
anybody thinks.”