I think that N.W.A. picked up where Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King would have gone if they hadn't been assassinated.
Who were the biggest acts in the world in 1987? Guns N' Roses and Metallica. I shamelessly pandered to surfers and skateboarders, and in pictures from then, you'll see Slash and those guys wearing N.W.A stuff. If they thought it was cool, people in Kansas and Wyoming would buy it. That's how we broached the subject.
I'm a child of the sixties. I grew up with a president who was a crook, who put us into the most unpopular war in history, who had no communication with people under thirty. I had seen the Symbionese Liberation Army and the Panthers and the Diggers; I understood what they were about.
I'm the boogeyman used to scare South Central kids when they tell ghost stories.
N.W.A were the audio-documentarians of their time. They were trying to shock people with the violence of their language and the subjects they were talking about. The fact that they dressed in guerilla outfits like the Black Panthers made them shocking by their appearance as well.
I don't want to be judged next to guys like Suge Knight. I want to be measured next to David Geffen, Irving Azoff, and Clive Davis. Whether I measure up or not, I let my record speak for me. That's how I want to be judged - by what I've done, not by what people like Ice Cube and Dr. Dre have said about me.
My dad wasn't a gangster, and he wasn't a criminal, but he sure liked to rub padded shoulders with them.
Eazy was an exceptional human being. He was a visionary. He was very Machiavellian, he understood power and how to use it. He was a good-hearted guy, a good father, just an exemplary human being. I couldn't be any prouder of him than if he had been my blood son.
