![n.w.a. straight outta compton n.w.a. straight outta compton](https://media2.firstshowing.net/firstshowing/img9/StraightouttacomptonbigPosterart59b2.jpg)
Indeed, the whole release feels like an old-fashioned studio package, carefully calibrated for maximum impact. It feels like a cultural milestone – a rags-to-riches story told with enough classical sensibility to lionise a movement that has long been vilified and marginalised by the mainstream cultural narrative. The picture is an imposing, self-conscious epic, blinkered and celebratory, constructed with an Old Hollywood zeal for legacy preservation. While the men canonised in Straight Outta Compton left the area decades ago – “I moved out of the hood for good, d’ya blame me?” Dre rapped on ‘The Watcher’ in 1999 – it is a notion that has come to define not only their identities, but the movement they helped create. It is the story of ’80s rap collective NWA, the influential progenitors of gangster rap, whose debut record, ‘Straight Outta Compton’, was a defining part of the hip hop aesthetic of the late 20th century. The cover of Dr Dre’s accompanying album even replaces the Hollywoodland sign with one saying “Compton”. In this moment, Compton has ceased to be a place it is to West Coast hip hop what Hollywood is to the American cinema – an idea and a promise.
![n.w.a. straight outta compton n.w.a. straight outta compton](https://media.senscritique.com/media/000011910442/source_big/N_W_A_Straight_Outta_Compton.jpg)
The movie, the record, the headphones, the ads, the memes – a commemoration of a musical revolution, unified and commodified. Music critic Sasha Frere-Jones called it “The Compton Moment”. The NWA story is told in the style of a luxe, classic-era studio biopic.