Straight Outta CA

This is the story about N.W.A. and the people in it, like Ice Cube, MC Ren, Dj Yella, Eazy E, and Dr. Dre. N.W.A. was a group of rappers who grew up in the era of police brutality. Their music was unwanted by most police respecters because of their lyrics condoning violence towards them. Their attitudes were just the icing on the cake, but thanks to a music producing manager, Jerry Heller, N.W.A. went to be the better rappers of the time-zone.

After the first album called “Ruthless” was out; they almost immediately went on tour. They usually grabbed guns along, or at least tried for  protection. Although they did go on tour, and made money by the minute, they couldn't change the fact that police brutality was still happening, or the fact that they didn’t like it. They expressed the reflection of reality in their music. They were themselves and most people didn’t like it, but their reaction was calm and laid back; because of how they knew people were going to hate it. Here is one of the quotes that they used to represent their attitude, “ If people like us, love ‘em, if they don’t, f*** ‘em.” - Dr.Dre.

The result between police brutality and even gang violence to this day hasn’t stopped, but it has put it to a minimum. The story about 5 black people from out of the hood, trying their best to get their families out of the hood wasn’t good enough for the public. They only cared about how they felt against the authorities. The reason why they hated the police was because they couldn’t even walk to their houses on a sidewalk without being arrested. Most of the time it was people just standing there and getting arrested because they were black. After about a year of doing this, Ice Cube was finally understanding that he was getting out of a big deal. The godfather of rap, Eazy E, was getting all of the love by the manager Jerry Heller. Ice Cube, as a young kid was smarter than the average rapper. He backed out of the group and stayed in the record label to have his own rapping career. His first album was called, “Amerikkka's Most Wanted”,  and his first song was called, “Better Off Dead”.

A couple of months later, the rap group N.W.A. were taking shots at Ice Cube, from diss tracks to one particular song. Calling Ice Cube “Benedict Arnold” for backing out, and trading.  Cube was angered and came back with one of the best diss tracks of all time, “No Vaseline”. N.W.A. knew that they were beat by him, causing one of the crew members, Dr Dre, to think about leaving the group. Ice Cube since he left, he had been rapping successfully, and even made a couple movies in that same year. The beef between everyone soon went away, after rapper “The D.O.C.” got into an accident, and Dr Dre’s close friend Suge Knight didn’t want Dre to stay in there, so they made a record label called “Death Row”. Dre left and N.W.A. turned their attention to that. To release him to Death Row, N.W.A.’s leader, Eazy E, had to sign a paper to have him leave the group, of course Eazy didn’t want to, so the nice person that Suge Knight seemed to be, was actually a thug in disguise, and he made Eazy E arrive alone, and jumped him until Dre got released, making Eazy sign it.

So now, N.W.A. had kind of not payed attention to it anymore because of the split ups. After the release of Dre, Eazy was about to kill Suge Knight, but manger Heller didn’t let him do it. Shortly after everything settled down, Suge Knight had turned completely crazy, Dr. Dre thought about leaving the record label because of Suge, meanwhile, Eazy E wanted to have all of the beef between them to go away and go back to being NWA, but his plans were shortened from being diagnosed with HIV. Eazy E died 6 months later on March 26, 1995. For Dr Dre, this was the final straw, and he left Suge and Death Row records to create his own label, named Aftermath. Aftermath records was one of the most successful record labels of all time, signing 50 Cent, Eminem, and many other famous rappers.

Rush

 

Once again, all I see is black. It is the cold and eerie silence I feel as I look for a way out, but I

see nothing, and nothing, with a side of nothing. Wait, I remember that I have a blindfold on so I

could sleep better, although it is scary, and maybe I should stop using it. It is hurting my eyes by

putting too much pressure on them, making me wake up grouchy and rude. I take it off,  and I

see Tyrone standing there as if he was going to take one of my cigarettes. He thinks he’s

smooth. He walks closer to my bed, closer… closer…. and closer. I’m tired of him stealing

my stuff. He is within foot range right now, with my rage building up. I can’t help but kick like a

horse on steroids. I kicked him square in the nuts. He is more surprised than hurt, and then it hits

him. He started screaming louder than a tornado siren. That’s the story on how Tyrone died.

Just kidding. He lost his voice screaming like a six year-old on cocaine.

As a smoker, it would hurt his throat when he puffed a pack. He started smoking when he

was in 6th grade I think, at least that’s what he told me, I should have known; we were in the

same classes. He was influenced by the kids who normally would bully him. Instead of dealing

with it violently, he followed what the teachers told him to do; snitch. This wasn’t smart at all,

including the fact that they would beat him up after class. There was that one teacher, where

she was straight out of alabama, the redneck teacher. You know, that one teacher where you

really don’t learn anything, but you act like it because you feel as if she will beat the crap out of

someone. Since we have been in the same schools together for years; you would think I would

have saw this and beat them up, but obviously not. In history, we were just learning about this

one guy named Martin Luther King Jr., but nobody knew who he was. I guess maybe he had

something to do with mexicans or space or something like that.

Anyway, we were having fun learning about it, and Mrs. Betty-Jo was getting a little angry because her can of Bud Light was almost out. Then the kids came over to Tyrone, I think because he was black, they would tease him. It was the south, it wasn’t exactly diverse, but these weren’t just harmless bullies; they were like demented, future KKK or ISIS members. They were bad, okay? Mrs. Betty-Jo, normally found her ruler stick and slapped it against the chalkboard; she was mad. It turns out that she was mad because her son had got into trouble in his highschool, another fight. Mrs. Betty-Jo was aware that she couldn’t get up and leave the class for that. It was bad timing for the bullies, because right after Mrs. Betty Jo put the phone down; they instantaneously started tormenting Tyrone, who happened to be sitting at the back of the class, where nobody could see them. Tyrone was scared to tell Mrs. Betty-Jo because she always gave out detentions for interrupting free time or class. Nobody wanted to stay near her. She looked like Honey Boo Boo’s mom, and she had skin tags, while reeking of Bud Light. The things that they were saying were a “little” racist, and the leader lit up a cigarette that he got from his dad’s truck, causing an addiction that Tyrone would soon regret. Mrs. Betty Jo was red with a temper, and she heard everything that was happening. She gets up, which almost shakes the whole classroom, and stomps closer and closer to the kids. She grabbed their “leader”, picked him up, and pinned him on the wall next to Tyrone, as she spits out the words “ I WILL END YOU!” To me it was kind of funny, with the hillbilly voice she had, I couldn’t help but laugh. So did everybody else, that was one of the funnest days in school that I remember. Not for Tyrone.

Now, about 4 years after school got out and in college, My friend and I are roommates. As you can tell from the beginning of the story, we are very friendly. Our little incident earlier was a little stupid of me; I have to present almost everything, because we are in all of the same classes. We had to do a project on Nelson Mandela, and we looked up a picture of him. Our project was just dumb, we had the facts, but the wrong person apparently. Our professor said that we had a picture of Morgan Freeman, which now that I think about it, they look the same, look it up. We both now have an average of  D+ in that class, I personally believe that the professor is just jealous of how smart I am. I’m not smart. One day in class, I would say about a couple weeks after our little project incident, we hear our alarm clock for school, the last one. This means that we only have 5 minutes to get dressed and go to school, recently we have been getting lates upon lates upon lates, so we will get a whole afternoon of detention, a referral, and our program we have will kick us out of financial aid. We can’t have that, if we do then our whole career of what we have been working on for so long, will be just wiped away like a bug off a windshield. We are hurrying, as fast as we have ever went, and we are just winging it. I already have my jeans on, and I am trying to get my gym red nike shirt on, I pack my gatorade, some snacks, and a fresh new pair of shoes for basketball practice. I already got out of the door and headed to the stairs, thinking Tyrone was right behind me. Before this, everyday I would wake up and think about how we got here, I was proud of how successful Tyrone was, he just got an offer to play for the Minnesota Timberwolves, he didn’t even get a scholarship like me, and he went to the next level.

As I walk further and further down the stairs, I hear a loud bang, as if somebody dropped something really heavy. That is when I heard the gasp for air. It utters out my name, “Steven.” I get goosebumps and ran up the stairs as fast as I could. It was Tyrone, he collapsed and started reaching out towards the railing trying to lift himself up. I had no idea of what happened, so i picked him up, ran outside with him on my shoulders, and put him in the passenger seat of my car. I feel his head hit the window as soon as I close it. I run around the car to get to the driver’s seat and start up the engine. There is blood at my glove compartment, coughing it up it seems. about 2 minutes away from the hospital, I see his body go limp and dead-like. Not a peep. I’m rushing, faster than earlier; I run two stoplights, and a stop sign. I hear an ambulance’s siren and wonder if the same thing is happening to another helpless kid… My mind is racing, faster than it ever has, or ever will be. Thoughts are running through my mind, wondering if he’s gonna be OK, or what is wrong with him, or even... BAM!… We collide with a firetruck. There is a flash, and once again, I see the eerie darkness. Along with the smell of gasoline.  

                 

                    …………...TO BE CONTINUED…………...

A+

34...35...36...37...38...39...40, just 40 3’s in a row and no problem and also just a couple of

hours before the NCAA final four game. Kentucky and Duke are playing against each other

tomorrow and we're about to play Notre Dame, i’m still thinking on how I even got here to all of this

being on watch for the NBA and being one of the best college players of all time, but still no title.

             At the age of  9,  my dad put me in a basketball game that I had just wanted to watch,  

they had a teammate get injured and nobody else was on the team of his position,  Point  guard.  I

was a lot shorter than the rest of the players,  I was very un-athletic and very intimidated by the

other team.

      

            After a while from getting ready,  I had gotten my name called by my dad and I had

 gotten nervous, because he was known as the best coach in the eastern part of  

Chicago, due to his several years in the NBA, and I wanted to impress him.

 “ Alright Jeremy, get in there.”  As he said my name.

We were down by 35, we weren't gonna win and we all knew it, so I felt like having fun with it.

It was in the 3rd quarter with 7 minutes to go, and also with me not knowing anything but

football, so when the ball was inbounded I grabbed it and ran to the other end without dribbling,

and I stiff armed the guy in front of me; so it turns out that you can't do that. I also didn't know

what three pointers were, so when my dad told me to shoot a three, I thought he meant shoot

with three fingers. I did, and I got subbed.

At the end of the quarter, we actually were winning by 35. I didn't know how to read the game

scoreboard. The 4th quarter was starting, but since I was benched, I was gonna go gets some

popcorn and some drinks because I  thought I wasn't gonna play anymore. Time passes,

some big fat lady is done getting all of her food, and after her scooter almost runs over my

foot. I somehow got through the crowd of people and there was cheering, it's not a very exciting

game to be cheering, but it turns out we were tied 70 - 70 and 3 seconds to go on our possession.

I get back and coach was telling me to sub in for number 46, so I went in and after i got the ball, i

dribbled as the clock went down, I shot the ball just before the 3 point line and I

made it for the buzzer beater. After that, I had played nothing but basketball, I played in AAU

tournaments and made it varsity in every grade I made the nba teams like the Chicago Bulls and

The Lakers, along with The Celtics. And I also got attention from Oregon, Michigan and Duke,

shortly after that, i decided to pick Michigan.

It is my final semester until spring break and I want to have all A’s and I won't go to the NBA if

I don't get a high GPA, it's just that simple. I could be an NBA legend and get paid millions of

dollars, but not yet, just as long as i'm getting A’s and I haven't ever gotten an A on anything yet , so

yeah.

But here we are, at the NCAA tournament and tipoff is in a couple of seconds, Notre dame has

no chance against us because we are an undefeated team. Just about another couple seconds and

we are gonna start the game, my dad in the stands next to the court is cheering my name and so is

my brother, The announcer is telling everybody to take their seats and stand for the national

anthem as the whole arena lights dim and fade until there is only light from the sponsors and the

circle of light from the spotlight illuminating the singer. My only question is how did I come

from a 5’5” freshman to a 6’3” future NBA hall of famer. The atmosphere of the arena, from the

loud people quieting for one song and standing as stiff as if they were soldiers, it makes me

pumped. Just about getting ready, I can hear the announcers for T.V. on the sidelines, I can

also hear them saying my name. Here we go, I thought as the stadium lights get brighter and

brighter to the point i'm sure everyone is blind. The ref has the ball and is walking towards the

middle of the college ruled court. Everyone is yelling our school's mascot and there is paintings

on their faces. The ref finally gets here and holds the ball, he throws it and our center is tall

enough to get the tip, it's our possession. I go up to the three point line and just shoot a no brainer

because the pick and roll i had set up right before had him caught up. Now we are in the lead by 3.

At around halftime, we are keeping up the pace, the score is 50 to 13 and we are winning.

the coach says we are taking too many 3 pointers and we need to drive to the basket. I can dunk

like Jordan, but coach doesn't let anyone dunk, it always has to be layups. We get back out there

and 5 minutes in the second half, the pick and roll that our center had set up had caught three

people at a time, I had the ball and it was clear to the basket, so I ran up as fast as I could and I

went for a dunk, I hit my head on the rim and got a concussion from hitting the ground face

first. I miss the whole rest of the season and we won the whole championship undefeated, and

i’m the number one pick in the NBA draft selected by the Chicago Bulls for 5 million dollars.

Although i’m the first person in my family to go pro after my dad, I am also the first

person in my family to win the MVP in the NBA, Along with Defensive Player of the Year

award, and multiple titles. I am happy that I did it while having good grades, which was hard for

me, because I was stupid at most of the time.