Straight Outta Compton director defends film’s accuracy

O’Shea Jackson Jr. plays his father, Ice Cube in the highly anticipated film, Straight Outta Compton. Movies like Jurassic World, Furious 7, Fifty Shades of Grey and Minions have all made stupid amounts of money this year, but the studio has also found more modest success with films like Trainwreck and Pitch ideal 2.

Gary Gray’s “Straight Outta Compton” rolls into theaters (our review is here) this weekend, telling the story of the 5-man crew that seismically redefined the hip hop landscape, controversially ushered in the era of the gangsta rap, and launched stellar multi-hyphenate solo careers. From Cube’s declaration that “A Bitch Iz A Bitch” on 1988’s landmark Straight Outta Compton to the Slim Shady-esque murder fantasies on the hateful “One Less Bitch” from their uber-controversial sophomore album Niggaz4Life, N.W.A presented a casual contempt for women that foreshadowed what would become a recurring theme in even the most mainstream stars of the genre. The song is a rare spotlight for Dre’s rapping, though Cube wrote it (“Blame it on Ice Cube, “cuz he said he gets funky, when you add a subject and a predicate”)”. A back-and-forth rundown of Ice Cube, Eazy, and Dre’s three-way diss-track feud is fun, even if it cuts out the “Dre Day” video, in which a character called “Sleazy-E” does the Roger Rabbit while clutching a cardboard sign reading “Will Rap for Food”.

The remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity. “The royalties don’t go up for how many members you have in the group”. He just owned it. I can only say I focused on making the best movie. I’m proud of the group.

AP: Kids often think their parents are dorky in some way. You know, hip hop, in a lot of ways, is about authenticity.

Ice Cube: Seeing my son getting roughed up by the police is not fun. The energy gives up with about 30 minutes left to go, and the pacing becomes baffling, skipping past seemingly major moments and lingering on footnotes, like Dre leading L.A. cops on a high-speed chase with no apparent outcome. So it’s cool to finally be on the other side of that. They got to be accountable for what they are doing. Soon, Dre jumps too, fatefully hitching his wagon for a time with Knight, who’s painted as a sort of Thug-life Caligula with his penchant for terrorizing rivals with his Dobermans when he’s not using the blunt, business end of the gun stuffed in his sizable waistband. Then at 18, he started to really perform with me. So he has a knack for the stage. Similarly, rising star Fetty Wap has a flexible crew, Remy Boyz, who did not appear on his 2015 smash “Trap Queen” but worked with him regularly and recently hit the charts on follow-up singles “679” and “My Way”. So to see him do this on the big screen, it was great. I know the music. “I had to figure out how to generate that same energy by myself, and it’s more work”. “There’s a lot to examine, but I want [moviegoers] to leave inspired”. Did you feel like one had more responsibility than the others?