As a kid, I mostly listened to the local rock station, KROQ. Through that outlet, I heard a cover of an Eazy-E song long before I ever heard any of N.W.A.'s music. Texas post-grunge group Dynamite Hack took a song written by Ice Cube and put out on Eazy E's first solo album and made it over into a rock style. In the music video, the group portrays rich white youths embodying the gangster attitude of groups like N.W.A. They point their golf clubs at the camera as if gesturing with a gun, and stalk forwards in a group in a manner reminiscent of N.W.A.'s Straight Outta Compton video. Instead of opposing the police, as in Straight Outta Compton, the characters have a good relationship with them.
Dynamite Hack's cover retains lyric phrases like "reached back like a pimp and I slapped the hoe" and "nappy-ass weave". Because of this type of language I assumed, or hoped, that those words were not that rock band's own. The images within their music video both allude to the song's connection to N.W.A. but also seem to parody the excessive lives of the young, rich, and white. I am glad that they don't attempt a more literal visual allusion to the song's hip hop origins. However, I am not sure that the commentary on white society is worth the appropriation of hip hop. it draws to mind more recent instances of white music acts appropriating aspects of black music culture for the commercial success it seems to deliver.
What I am wondering is what the opinion might be of someone who did not grow up hearing the Dynamite hack version. Is it just funny to hear the subject matter being sung in such a way? Is the cover and music video another instance of appropriation? Would it have been better for the rock band to leave it at the cover and not have conceptualized and filmed a music video?
N.W.A.'s music video for Straight Outta Compton:
Dynamite Hack's music video for Boyz in the Hood cover:
Eazy-E's version of Boyz in the Hood:
No comments:
Post a Comment