Straight Outta Compton is three weeks into breaking records as well as introducing a new generation of people to a journey that would turn an industrial Southern California city into the symbol for racial injustice, police brutality and a hustler’s ambition. As the interviews continue to come out, the one thing that was clearly a priority of this film was to respect and represent the legacy of Eazy-E.
Above The Law’s Big Hutch knew Eazy’ on both a business and personal level and has continued to prove over the years that he will always ride for his former boss. In fact when Ice Cube left NWA in 1989, Hutch, aka, Cold 187um found himself involved in a shootout with the Amerikkka’s Most Wanted emcee, and when Dre offered to take the Pomona-based foursome over to Death Row, the group declined.
Hutch has been credited by many in the industry (including Warren G, who admitted in a 2013 interview that Hutch was the founding father of G-Funk) and a significant influence of Dr. Dre’s seminal album The Chronic, which many people noted sounded too similar to Above The Law’s Black Mafia Life to be mere coincidence.
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For more than 20 years after that Hutch would never reconnect in the studio with either of the rap legends. So when Dr. Dre surprised the world with an all-original soundtrack to his quasi-biopic, it came as a surprise to see Cold 187um, (whose partner in rhyme KMG passed away in 2012)show up on the song “Loose Cannons” along with Dre and Xzibit. In true OG fashion, the “Black Superman” said the reconciliation all stemmed from the last wishes of his fallen friend.
“We’ve been far past all the old shit that people been trippin’ off of. I speak on what was what. Me now, I’m really about what Eazy would want. With [everyone] coming back together I kinda reached out and was like, not [to say] I would like to be a part [of the album] just that I would like to make amends,” Big Hutch told HipHopDX exclusively. “From there it just kinda blossomed into us being patnas again you know? To be honest with you. I can kinda say that in Hip Hop, I want to be in another place for what I was trying to accomplish, just in my mind. We started off as kids making music together, you know, in the streets and from the street’s perspective. I just kinda wanted to get back to that point.”
The “Black Superman” rapper also described how Compton’s most maniacal track “Loose Cannons” came together.
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“Originally we didn’t know who the third person [on “Loose Cannons”] was gonna be, it was just me and Dre on it,” Hutch revealed. “Then I guess through the process he played it for X cause X was diggin’ it so much he wanted to get on it at that point. We didn’t have a third person just yet off the top. It was open so I guess in the process of them playing it for X, X was feeling it and he just decided vocally those three extreme voices would be dope on it. We had a list of people that we possibly wanted on the record, but you know, X kinda just vibed it and he killed it you know. What’s cool about “Loose Cannons” was that we worked together on it. I came in at the process of the beat being made. I came into the process of the vocals you know what I mean, we collabed on that on every aspect of it. Every word that we said we collabed on. it was like an old-school record, it wasn’t like ‘Just send me the track.’ We really were in there laboring on the record,” he added.
Although Eazy did not live to see his life story play out on the big screen, Hutch, who is currently working on his own solo album as well as an Above The Law 25th anniversary album, said he knows that the late legend would be happy seeing everybody back together again.
“It’s important for us to be good with each other you know what I mean because that’s what Eazy wanted and that’s the kind of guy he was. Regardless of any, I don’t want to sound redundant about saying it I just know in my heart this is how he would want it,” Hutch noted. “Like if Dre reached out to me to work with him orI reached out to collaborate with him and we agreed to do work together he would be good with that. And I know that from the conversations that me and Eazy had before he passed he would’ve liked us all to be together you know what I mean. He wouldn’t want me at odds with Cube, he wouldn’t want me at odds with Dre. All of us who started together should be able to collaborate and work together.”
