“No Whites Allowed”

I’m tearing through “Ruthless”, rap impressario Jerry Heller’s memoir of his days managing N.W.A. The book is a stunning chronicle of the gangsta rap movement, not to mention late-80’s urban social dynamics. Heller was a classic rock executive who found himself at 45 sleeping on his parent’s couch, entirely disillusioned with the post-disco corporate takeover of the music industry. He got back in the game distributing local funk and early hip-hop records out of a warehouse on Santa Monica and Vine, when an alleged crack dealer from Compton named Eric Wright paid one of his associates $750 to meet him. Wright was putting together a rap group with a local Compton pop producer who turned out to be Dr. Dre (those pics of Dre in the sequinced jumper were really him), and a high school kid named O’Shea Jackson who spent the hour long bus ride from Compton to Taft High School each day writing fuming lyrics about life in the ghetto (and called himself Ice Cube). Heller asked Wright the name of his group:

Eazy-E: “N.W.A.”

Heller: “What’s that stand for? No Whites Allowed?”

Eazy-E: “Close enough.”

Below check out the group’s classic appearance on “Arsenio”, barely a month after N.W.A. got a letter from the F.B.I. condemning their music.