N. W. A Rhetorical Analysis

It has been twenty-eight years since the music group Niggaz Wit Attitudes, abbreviated as N.W.A, released their “Straight Outta Compton” music video in 1988. Twenty-eight years after the song’s release, racism and police brutality are still very much at the heart of Hip-Hop and black culture in contemporary America. During the music video, members of N.W.A portray images of the violent setting of Compton, California, a city that has been synonymous with poverty, drugs, rap music, sex, and gang violence for years. “Straight Outta Compton,” written in its crude and coarse manner, draws on the struggle of growing up in such a community, where the majority of youth end up being either a victim or perpetrator of gang violence by the time they reach adulthood.
From beginning to end, N.W.A’s “Straight Outta Compton” music video not only presents a misogynistic image of how women are exploited and objectified through Hip-Hop, but it also paints a raw picture of the systemic racial discrimination and police brutality of a poverty-stricken city that put gangster rap on the
map.