After a bidding war between Atlantic and Warner, Ruthless inked a deal with Atlantic to distribute the album. Radio picked up on “It’s Funky Enough,” a Dre production with way more commercial reach than, say, “Fuck tha Police.” One of the album’s most lauded tracks, “The Formula,” came to Dre in a daydream as he was coming home late at night with girlfriend Michel’le. “It was me and you bustin’ a song called ‘The Formula’ to a Marvin Gaye beat,” Dre told D.O.C., who was living at Dre’s spot and asleep on the floor. Dre rushed to grab a tape of Gaye’s socially conscious anthem “Inner City Blues (Makes Me Wanna Holler)” and played it for D.O.C. before passing out for the night. D.O.C. stayed up through the night working out lyrics.
No One Can Do It Better, released while N.W.A and D.O.C. were finishing their tour, went gold in three months. By the fall of 1989, D.O.C. was a certified rap star. In November of that year he simultaneously filmed two music videos, “Beautiful But Deadly” and “The Formula.” For “The Formula” Dre plays a Dr. Frankenstein working to build the perfect rapper, with D.O.C. as the monster creation. The days were brutal. D.O.C. boozed and smoked weed to get through the arduous eighteen-hour shoot. He celebrated the completion of the videos by partying with girls late into the morning. “I was going from chick to chick’s house high on ecstasy and liquor,” he said.
D.O.C. was on the way home from Beverly Hills around three-thirty in the morning when, intoxicated and high, he ran a red light. A cop flashed his lights to pull him over but he kept going. “I actually tried to outrun the fucking Beverly Hills Police, hitting a couple corners, and then shut the car off and laid down in the seat as if they weren’t going to remember what car it was.” He laughed. “They came and tapped on the window real politely.” When they caught up with him, a wasted D.O.C. cracked jokes with the officers. He’s got his gold and platinum records in the back and the cops laugh the whole thing off, even posing for photos with him and his plaques. “They gave me a ticket for running a red light and let me go—and I’m high as a kite. Thirty minutes later, I was close to death.” Racing down the Ventura Freeway, he fell asleep at the wheel. D.O.C.’s Honda Prelude barreled into a concrete divider, sending him flying through his back window—he hadn’t been wearing a seat belt—and face-first into a tree. Cops had to pry his teeth out of the tree bark.
When the medics arrived, it was a struggle to sedate him. Heavily inebriated, D.O.C. resisted as emergency responders tried to intubate him—causing the breathing tube to damage his larynx. At Cedars-Sinai he underwent more than twenty hours of reconstructive surgery and spent three weeks in the hospital. Eazy, Dre, and Michel’le were the first to arrive at his bedside. The extent of D.O.C.’s injuries was so severe that, his haircut was the only way his friends could recognize him.
D.O.C. fully recovered from the incident, but his voice would never rebound from the damage sustained by the breathing tube—damage he said was multiplied after a doctor removed too much scar tissue in an operation meant to expedite the healing process for his vocals, which are still marked by a rough grit. “It was never even possible for it to ever heal like it once was,” he admitted. “That dream was dead after that point.”
Like Cube, D.O.C. had issues with the compensation he received at Ruthless. He got a $25,000 advance for his debut album, but never signed a proper contract. “That was my first piece of loot, and even that was a fuck job because they were taking the publishing from that too. I didn’t get any real money,” he said. “They were doing me dirty.” Eazy and Dre fronted the bill for his living expenses. Jerry Heller said Eazy took care of D.O.C.’s hospital bill, paying more than $60,000 “out of his own pocket,” and that he himself spent $72,000 to take care of the down payment on a house for the injured rapper in Westlake Village, near where Eazy and Dre lived.
Even more disconcerting is the fact the D.O.C. owns very little of the publishing from the records he wrote and performed on during his time at Ruthless. One anecdote is when the group were shopping for thick gold chains ahead of promotional appearances, D.O.C. wanted in on the bling and Eazy took advantage by getting him a gold chain with a diamond-encrusted nameplate, a watch, and a ring in exchange for the royalty rights to a number of songs. D.O.C. was a nineteen-year-old kid from Dallas. He had no clue what publishing was or how it worked. He ended up taking about five thousand dollars in jewelry and forked over, at his estimation, about a million dollars worth of publishing. “I didn’t know anything about the business. I was just happy to be making really great music. I was happy to be involved,” D.O.C. admitted. “I didn’t think of money. I was just a team player willing to do whatever it took to make the team win because I figured if I gave all I could to those guys, sooner or later they’d give all they could to me.
“Before Eric bought that gold chain, they had already taken the publishing. We Want Eazy was already out and certified gold—before he gave me any fucking thing” D.O.C. said, seething at the memory. “I’m sure that he knew and Jerry knew that what they were doing was kinda dirty. Sooner or later everybody found out at the label that they were getting screwed.”
NO MORE LIES
Shortly after the arrival of the D.O.C.’s debut, Ruthless introduced its first nonrap act with the release of R & B songstress Michel’le’s self-titled album. The South Central singer, born Michelle Toussaint, was an early Ruthless recruit because of her relationship with Dre. A few years earlier she had gotten her feet wet in the music industry when Lonzo tapped her to record “Turn Off the Lights.”
Michel’le blew away anyone who heard her sing. She had a hearty and powerful vocal, which stood in stark contrast to her speaking voice that sounded like a child that inhaled helium, the result of naturally talking over her larynx. She was paired with Larry “Laylaw” Goodman to develop her material. Laylaw was a local drug dealer (he actually used to give Eazy dope on consignment) turned writer/producer who even cut a few Macola-distributed recordings, including 1985’s Halloween-themed “Monster Rapping,” produced by Dre and Lonzo. Because of the squeaky tone of Michel’le’s voice, Laylaw decided her stage name should be Baby.
“Laylaw got this pacifier and put it around my neck on this chain. It sounds crazy,” Michel’le said, laughing at the memory. “I was Baby for about two weeks. Dre said it was wack.”
She decided to pay homage to her Creole heritage and Frenchified her given name by inserting an apostrophe.
Eazy was looking to push an act that wasn’t hard core. “We can’t only have all this rap shit on Ruthless. We have to have an R & B thing going,” he told Jerry.
Michel’le wasn’t looking to be the next Whitney Houston, whose polished R & B–pop was marketed to the masses. Instead, she wanted to go street. It’s what she knew, and who she was. Dre and Yella collaborated to produce hard-knocking hip-hop and dance-pop beats for an album that became a seminal entry in the new jack swing movement transforming R & B in the late eighties. Though she’s not always given her props, the arrival of Michel’le laid the foundation for hip-hop-flavored R & B and soul music that later launched Mary J. Blige and Faith Evans to fame. A novice in the studio, aside from the one song she did with the Cru, Michel’le was insecure about working with Dre, given his experience. Neither were sure they’d gel given their varying styles, but together they stumbled upon a sound.
“I knew nothing about hip-hop, because I grew up with big bands. I had just gotten into hip-hop a little bit and loved it,” Michel’le said. “We didn’t get in there with no plan. Dre worked around what I could do, and I worked around what he could do.”
Michel’le’s self-titled album, released in October 1989, went gold in five weeks. The record was crammed with banging new jack grooves like “No More Lies,” a gold-certified hit, “Nicety,” “Keep Watchin’,” and the jazzy ballad “Something in My Heart,” which has become her signature tune.
Despite their musical synergy, Michel’le’s union with Dre was rocky from the very beginning.
They started dating follow
ing work on “Turn Off the Lights.” At first Dre was seeing her and J. J. Fad’s MC J. B. simultaneously, before Michel’le busted him. He also fathered a child with another woman while they were together. The couple eventually got serious. Dre proposed and bought a lavish troubadour-style home for them in Calabasas. Michel’le got pregnant in 1990, finding out while touring with MC Hammer. She decided to pause her career to raise their son, Marcel.
Michel’le is candid when disclosing the physical abuse she claims to have endured throughout her relationship with Dre.
“I do remember when he first hit me, when he gave me my very first black eye,” she said in a radio interview in 2015. “We laid in the bed and he cried. He was crying. I was crying because I was in shock and hurt and in pain. I don’t know why he was crying, but he said, ‘I’m really sorry’—I think that’s the only time he said he was sorry—and he said, ‘I’ll never hit you in that eye again, okay?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, okay.’ And we fell asleep.”
It wouldn’t be the last time he struck her, she said. Michel’le alleges Dre punched her with a closed fist on several occasions and that he gave her black eyes on at least five occasions—bruises she had to cover up with makeup in order to film her music videos. She said he also broke her nose—which required plastic surgery—left her with a cracked rib, and pulled out a gun and shot at her during a heated argument.
“It just never stopped. It became commonplace,” Michel’le confessed. “It became so bad, it got to the point where people around us was like, ‘Okay, I’m leaving, I gotta go.’ No one helped—other than D.O.C. He would say, ‘Hey, Dre, man, stop, you don’t have to do this.’ He was one of the only people to my memory. There may have been others [but] he was the main force that would be like, ‘Dre, what are you doing?’ ” D.O.C. respectfully declined to discuss the matter.
When asked if Eazy ever stepped in, Michel’le giggles. “Not putting his business in the streets, but I don’t think he could have helped,” she said, noting the vast size difference between the two.
Michel’le was so accustomed to the abuse, she said, that she grew weary whenever too much time passed between incidents. It’s a feeling she admits sounds ridiculous, but facing a man’s fist just came with love, or so she believed. People in her life, like her grandmother, told her it was normal and so it was something she accepted. “At the time it felt like if he didn’t hit me, I felt like something was wrong,” she said. “It’s almost like a child, if they get As they get a gift. In my mind, if a man beat you it was like ‘Okay, he cares.’ I couldn’t believe I was actually that girl.”
Michel’le documented her abusive relationship with Dre in a 2016 Lifetime biopic, Surviving Compton. Dre, through a statement given to his attorney and included in the film’s ending credits, denied abusing Michel’le and “challenges her credibility.”
F**K THA POLICE
The backlash against N.W.A, and specifically the controversial song “Fuck tha Police,” came to a head on August 1, 1989, when Priority Records president Bryan Turner scanned his mail.
There was a letter, printed on Department of Justice stationery. It was just three paragraphs:
A song recorded by the rap group N.W.A on their album entitled Straight Outta Compton encourages violence against and disrespect for the law enforcement officer and has been brought to my attention. I understand your company recorded and distributed this album, and I am writing to share my thoughts and concerns with you.
Advocating violence and assault is wrong, and we in the law enforcement community take exception to such action. Violent crime, a major problem in our country, reached an unprecedented high in 1988. Seventy-eight law enforcement officers were feloniously slain in the line of duty during 1988, four more than in 1987. Law enforcement officers dedicated their lives to the protection of our citizens, and recordings such as the one from N.W.A are both discouraging and degrading to these brave, dedicated officers.
Music plays a significant role in society, and I wanted you to be aware of the FBI’s position relative to this song and its message. I believe my views reflect the opinion of the entire law enforcement community.
The letter was signed by Milt Ahlerich, the assistant director of the bureau’s office of public affairs.
It was the first time an FBI official had offered a position on a recording, book, film, or any other kind of artwork in the bureau’s entire history. No specific recording was referenced in the letter, but given the furor from law enforcement throughout the country, there was little question that it was about “Fuck tha Police.” The assistant director hadn’t actually heard the song himself. He was reacting to lyrics sent to him by “concerned law enforcement officials.” Ahlerich’s missive didn’t actually accuse the group of committing a crime—there wasn’t an offense to break considering the right to free speech extends to music—nor did the letter threaten any consequence, as anything of the sort would have been unconstitutional.
“What are they gonna do? Put us in jail for making a record?” Eazy wondered.
Turner, however, was terrified. “You kidding? It was the FBI. I’m just a kid from Canada, what do I know?” he said.
Jerry Heller showed the letter to lawyers, who confirmed what he already knew: there wasn’t actually anything the FBI could do. The group found the entire ordeal comical—“Oh, I didn’t know they were buying our records, too!” Cube snarked. Ruthless decided not to make the letter public.
The label did, however, give a copy to Phyllis Pollack, executive director of the anti-censorship organization Music in Action. Pollack had long been a supporter of N.W.A and shared the letter with New York rock journalist Dave Marsh, her partner in Music in Action. Pollack, who later joined Ruthless as a publicist, and Marsh investigated Ahlerich’s letter and the government’s involvement in censorship for a bombshell Village Voice cover story. “The FBI Hates This Band,” was printed in bold red letters over a portrait of the group in black hats and thick gold chains, Yella with a handsome smirk plastered across his face. Billboard and the Hollywood Reporter did their own versions of the story, and Oprah Winfrey displayed the front page of the article on an episode dedicated to the outcry over lyrics from N.W.A, Ice-T, and Guns N’ Roses.
Ultimately Ahlerich’s three-paragraph “warning” became a boon for business. There was a backlash from the media, furious that the government attempted to censor or intimidate musicians, and reporters tripped over themselves to call out law enforcement agencies while first-amendment activists, and even a member of Congress, publicly blasted the FBI for Ahlerich’s actions—ironic given how critical the press was of their music.
US congressman Don Edwards, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, penned a terse rebuttal to the FBI, admonishing them for crossing a line.
“The FBI has developed an official ‘position’ on a rap song by the group N.W.A and has conveyed that position to the group’s record publisher, Priority Records. I am afraid this smacks of intimidation. Officials of the FBI should not be music or art critics,” Edwards wrote. “I do not believe that it is appropriate for the FBI to single out a particular song or film or book and write to its distributor. The only credible purpose of such an exercise is to encourage the distributor to drop its promotion of the work or the performer, and that would seem to be censorship.”
The American Civil Liberties Union insisted the letter had the potential to do more harm than good in decreasing violence against police. “It reinforces the notion among minorities that the government is against them,” an ACLU chairman told the Los Angeles Times. “Rap is one of the most positive role models, a positive way for poor people using their energies, making art and poetry out of their social dilemma. They should be applauded by the police.”
While the fiasco delivered a wealth of publicity to N.W.A and boosted sales for Straight Outta Compton, one can’t help but wonder how many more records the group would have sold if it was more widely available
to purchase or if mainstream radio had shown support. Ahlerich’s letter now sits on display at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland as a testimony to the great length the government went in an attempt to censor rap.
“That letter wasn’t for N.W.A,” D.O.C. theorized. “It was for the public at large. It was a sign to America to not like them. The United States government says this is no good, so everybody says this is no good—the preachers, the teachers that are listening to the words and not listening to the message. ‘Fuck tha Police’ was a really poignant record. That was actually the best record to tell you what the possibilities of that group was. Eazy just wanted to say, ‘Suck my dick, kiss my ass, shoot a bitch, stab a ho.’ Eazy didn’t give a shit. But Cube and Ren? Both of those guys were very mindful of the fucked-up conditions young blacks were exposed to in California. None of those other guys felt like that. If it was just a Cube and Ren [album] the records would have been a lot more Public Enemy, and a lot less Eazy-E.”
A few days after Priority received the FBI notice, N.W.A approached the final date of its tour. All summer, along various tour stops, police departments attempted to stop the group from performing.
For the entirety of the tour, N.W.A abstained from performing its most controversial recording. Still, it wasn’t enough to curb fears from law enforcement that the group would incite violence against them. Washington, DC, Milwaukee, and Chattanooga were some of the cities that caved to pressure and pulled the plug on their shows.
When N.W.A arrived at Detroit’s Joe Louis Arena on August 6, 1989, they didn’t encounter a police boycott—instead they were met with a beefed-up law-enforcement presence, including members of the force’s undercover gang squad. “There were close to two hundred of us,” retired Detroit police sergeant Larry Courts remembered. “We were strategically placed . . . we didn’t think there was going to be a riot. But we had our marching orders. We were told that under no circumstance that they were to perform that song.”
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