Arabian Prince worked alongside Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, MC Ren and DJ Yella on N.W.A‘s 1988 debut album Straight Outta Compton and appears on the cover art.
Dr. Dre, Ice Cube and Eazy-E‘s widow Tomica Woods-Wright teamed up with director F. Gary Gray to create a film with the same name of the album based on the group’s story. Arabian Prince is not portrayed in the film, which sat at the top of the box office for three straight weeks.
“A lot of the scenes in real life, I was there,” he says to VladTV. “I’m just not there in the film, which I’m like, if you’re gonna write me out of a movie, shoot some other scenes. Don’t write scenes where I was there.”
The rapper-producer also says that the group’s manager Jerry Heller, played by Paul Giamatti, was inaccurately portrayed in the biopic. He suggests another influential figure should have been highlighted.
“I know they always say we didn’t have time to do it or whatever, somebody was very pivotal in the success and the sound of N.W.A was Donovan Smith who was our engineer who owned Audio Achievements, the studio in Torrence that we recorded at,” Prince says. “He’s nowhere to be seen. He was always there hanging out with us. Always like part of the family, part of that thing. [In the film,] it seemed like Jerry was there all the time. Jerry was hardly around with us in the studio or on tour. But that was part of the movie. I understand, you got a big star to play Jerry Heller, you gotta put him in the movie to build that story.”
He further explains other inaccuracies in the movie, including the roles of Suge Knight and MC Ren. Prince speculates on the reasoning for these discrepancies.
“I really just think that star power matters,” he says. “Dre’s a big name. Cube’s a big name. Eazy’s a big name and that mattered more than the full story.”
I agree with Arabian prince he was also in n.w.a but the reason he prolly wasn’t portray in theovie because he was a non factor like candyman and few others
Bandwagon
At least he’s not bitter about it, and tryin’ to make his own cheap ass version of the movie.
NWA had an album called NWA and the Posse, which was the debut album.
Not official. He explained that on another Vlad interview
What about stan the guitar man? Prince had a whole song on that album too. How can you forget that. Jinx was at every show and in the studio mixing as well. The movie was mostly about Cube and Dre’s careers. Eazy was doing a lot more than the movie suggested with other groups. At least put chuck D and the bomb squad in the movie instead of the backs of people wearing Public Enemy jackets.
But they have to put it all in a 2 hour movie, you can’t put EVERYTHING in there. I thought they did a damn good job. To me, it’s the best hip-hop/street movie of all time, along with Juice. Maybe I’m biased because I’m nostalgic about the era I grew up in, but I thought they nailed it.
Damn…NWA( Niggas Without Arabian)?
DAYAMN!!! Never would have though of that.
Yea man I really liked the movie but coming from cats who got famous by being brutally honest I think it’s bs that they left out and changed so much..it’s been bugging me that Arabian Prince wasn’t there and that mc ren and yella were relegated to the back..when yella was apart or a lot of the beats and ren was a dope mc who wrote a lot of nwa rhymes..I don’t know what happened but I think it’s bs if cube and dre had control and left them out
Same here . . . it’s even obvious that on the cover of the album is “a 6th guy”. I understand it’s Hollywood and the need to make an entertaining 2 hours. I guess they wanted to leave out the electro/techno roots of L.A. hip hop and that Arabian Prince was that facet of N.W.A. I heard he was even one of the first to realize Heller was jacking them early, most likely influencing Ice Cube to see that as well.
See, I don’t like reading. I get bored too easily, regardless of how well I can read and write. However, video and audio are more, well… right there. You aren’t forced to imagine what it is, it’s shown in as much of its glory. So when a movie, documentary, whatever, fails to give the full story, I feel that somebody is altering history in my mind. Sure, I can find other sources, but if I think I got the full story, and usually won’t, I won’t keep looking. I enjoyed the movie, always thinking that others were part of NWA, like Snoop, but weren’t. I finally know the members, in the movie, by name and thought I finally got it right, but then see that they just took the story and dramatized it for ticket sales. I’m always looking for other things and can’t just stick to one thing, so I end up being the gullible one believing half truths. Hollywood…
NIGGA, PLEASE!!!