N.W.A. should be in hip-hop's Hall of Shame

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Once upon a time, there was a young intern at a radio station in North Carolina who was desperately digging in the crates for a song to feature on the “Make it or Break It” program he was producing.

Suddenly, he came across a record called “Gangsta Gangsta” and begged the DJ to put on the air.  Before the song even ended, “Spence,” the program director, burst into the studio and warned him to never play the  record again  because kids out west were doing ‘drive-bys’ listening to that garbage. Unfazed, the upstart intern just called the program director an old hater and walked out of the studio rapping, “it’s not about a salary/it’s all about reality…”

That knuckle-headed intern was me 25 years ago and that was my introduction to the group N.W.A. (Ni**az With Attitude).

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Recently, it was announced that N.W.A., pioneers of what the media would tag “gangsta rap” has been nominated for induction into the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame. Of course, many hip-hop heads are ecstatic.

I ain’t one of them.

During the height of the “conscious hip-hop” era, N.W.A. infiltrated the Hip-Hop Nation in a Trojan-horse-type manner, under the guise of street reporters, courtesy of their anti-pig anthem “F**k the Police.” However, by the time that their second CD came out, all pretenses of being hip-hop’s politicized lumens were replaced by odes to black-on-black violence and the most misogynist lyrics known to man.

Fratricide became the order of the day as killing other black men was the topic of most of their songs. Funny, with all their tough talk, the only person that they ever put their paws on was a black woman, former hip-hop TV host Dee Barnes.

Other than that it was just smoke and mirrors. Black faces on the stage while the real white music gangstas like Jerry Heller raked in the cash behind the curtain.

I am asking black leaders to join me in asking the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame to drop N.W.A. from consideration.

So, why am I so against N.W.A. being inducted into the Hall of Fame?

Maybe it’s because of the black blood that is being spilled on pavements from the Southside of Chicago to Your City, U.S.A.

Perhaps it’s because as a father, listening to songs like “She Swallowed it” about NWA sexually assaulting a 14-year-old child, even a quarter of a century after the fact, still sends chills down my spine.

But probably it’s because of the shame I feel for being one of the first people in NC to put that record on the air and the need to right the wrongs of history.

I not only owe it to Spence but all the mothers whose sons did not live long enough to realize that the “gangsta-ism” of N.W.A. was just a facade.

Paul Scott aka “TRUTH Minista” is a Hip Hop journalist, activist and lecturer based in Durham NC. His Website is No Warning Shots Fired.com. Scott is a frequent guest commentator on Militant Minded Radio which airs on the Black Talk Radio Network Tuesday’s at 9PM EST.