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There is a hysterical Chris Rock piece in which, as a public service, Rock instructs black folks on how to behave when being stopped by the po-leece, as he says, so as not to incur a beating. Under the instruction to “turn that s**t off,” he shows a gangsta war wagon being pulled over, even as “F**k Tha Police” by N.W.A is playing over its speakers. Playing “F**k Tha Police,” Rock tells us, while being pulled over by the police, is just ignorant. Yes indeedy. In the late 1980s, however, it was more commonplace than not. N.W.A --- Niggaz With Attitude --- were the archetype of gangsta rap, the embodiment of everything which mainstream culture --- white or black --- considered to be wrong with the genre. The violence toward police, the language, the disrespect toward women, was a wakeup call, as if any was needed, that all was not well. It is said that white folks don’t feel threatened by smiling, overweight black men; the members of N.W.A --- Dr. Dre, Easy E, Ice Cube, MC Ren and DJ Yella --- couldn't have looked more threatening, if such was true. They were thin, scowling and, like the music, hostile. And there was more going on than the simple-minded belligerence that L’il’ Jon and company have nuzzled to their bosoms and so dearly love to call their own. When a black female journalist who had taken issue with the band ran into them at a club, they tossed her down the stairs, shrugging off the incident with the comment that the “bitch had it coming’.” The guys, and their music were real, and real underground, selling some two million copies of STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON upon initial release without radio airplay and without conventional video broadcasts. While the group split up all too quickly for the usual reasons ---artistic direction, jealousy, and money, money, money --- they left a legacy that, as documented on THE BEST OF N.W.A: The Strength of Street Knowledge, is just as chilling today as it was when first released.

THE BEST OF N.W.A is the Rosetta stone of gangsta rap, 17 tracks that transformed a genre that remains as controversial as it was two decades ago, and for all of the same reasons. The creative yin and yang that ultimately split the group up --- Dr. Dre wanted to eschew the stereotypical street hustle image and concentrate on commercializing the genre, while Eazy-E wanted to take the street image deeper --- brought an added level of tension and immediacy to such tracks as “Straight Outta Compton,” “Real N’s Don’t Die,” and “A B**** Iz A B****.” The DVD includes videos of “Straight Outta Compton,” the infectious “Express Yourself” with the improbable “Mr. Big Stuff” sample, “100 Miles and Runnin’” and “Appetite For Destruction,” videos which thematically set the bar that later gangsta such as Apache would attempt to surpass, with mixed results. The DVD also includes interviews with various members of the group, but such seem superfluous in light of what is seen, and more importantly, heard, elsewhere on the CD and DVD. There is at best a chicken and egg logic encompassed here, but the anger, misplaced or not, is real.

The individual members of N.W.A have gone on to other things. Dr. Dre, of course, has had the most commercial success musically, while Ice Cube has done surprisingly well with a film career. Eazy-E, after a couple of blistering releases aimed primarily at his ex-homies, died of AIDS. DJ Yella, interestingly enough, has turned to producing porn movies, though his career in that regard seems to be languishing. It is ironic that MC Ren, arguably the best rapper in the group, is in semi-retirement, surfacing occasionally to guest on an underground joint or to deny the occasional white, middle-age reviewer’s friend request on his myspace page. Regardless of where each member is, THE STRENGTH OF STREET KNOWLEDGE: THE BEST OF N.W.A is a document of a turning point in a genre that remains as controversial as it was 20 years ago. Recommended.