Andrea Berloff, who wrote WORLD TRADE CENTER, is currently writing the screenplay for STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON, the N.W.A. biopic currently set up at New Line. While it may seem odd (and a direct reversal of the old screenwriting maxim of “write what you know”) to hire a 36-year-old white woman to write about the seminal hip-hop group behind the notoriously controversial “Fuck tha Police,” N.W.A.’s influence was felt perhaps even greater in white suburbia than it was in South Central. After all, as defenders of gangsta rap often said, N.W.A. wasn’t glorifying violence, they were simply reflecting the reality of life in the ghetto; a life that most middle-class white kids had no idea even existed.
I still remember hearing “Fuck tha Police” for the first time. A friend’s brother had a copy and it was smuggled into school where we all snuck into the back of the cafeteria passing the Walkman headphones around, jaws agape. (In reality, “Fuck tha Police” isn’t even one of the best songs on the album – that honor goes to either “Express Yourself” or the title track.)
Culturally significant music aside, the N.W.A. story certainly has enough to fill a feature film. Overnight success, drugs, backstabbing, bitter rivalries, death and reconciliation – the stuff of any good music biopic.
Ice Cube, who wrote the majority of the lyrics for the group before leaving in 1989, is producing the film along with Eazy-E’s widow (strange that Dre isn’t listed anywhere).
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