Straight Outta Compton an honest review

Any movie that can make me feel something genuine is an automatic winner to me.

All my favorite movies have a premise that I connect with on a much deeper level than just what's happening on the screen. For example: 300, Braveheart and Gladiator are some of my favorite movies of all time because I not only have a strong interest in those periods of history but because each of those characters were the epitome of the underdog. If there could be something one step below underdog they're it and being an independent musician, I feel like every day of my existence is about fighting a battle i'm in no shape supposed to win.

But Straight Outta Compton takes it one step further.

When the storyline finally started to develop I couldn't help but feel the feelings of being about 9 years old when my oldest brother Marcus would come home from the studio with demos of politically charged raps in the same vein as NWA. This is the early 90s when not everybody had a computer and some free version of recording software so not everyone was a rapper, this was a really big deal. My older brother had all of those NWA records on tape too and I would dub over one of my Dad's old tapes some NWA or some Dr. Dre records, sneak a walkman he had lying around and bring the profanity filled rap music to school. I was in elementary school and playing the Clarinet in band where me and my boy Jereme would try to learn the melodies before lessons began.

There was so much excitement around all of that. All this discovery was happening and all this culture was taking shape and I was witnessing it. This was a crucial time for me as a very young musician as it was also for hip hop music. NWA had a crucial part of my musical childhood and this movie made me feel all that and more.

Seeing NWA in the studio just trying to figure it out in the beginning took me back to when i'd bring a 4-track recorder I got as a Christmas gift to school with beats I made on my brothers old sampler to record my friends. My first times in the booth were terrible but it was the bond me and my boys built that was the key and theres a lot of that in Straight Outta Compton. These guys were working on something special and they knew it.

All in all, if you like feeling nostalgic and seeing an insightful recreation of a crucial part of hip hop history, black history and american history this is it. No question.