Special Ed has continued to insist that N.W.A did, in fact, bring destruction to Hip Hop — and he doesn’t care what sort of pushback he gets from rappers for saying it.
“I would first like to say that none of those people [who criticized me] were actual members of N.W.A.,” he said to VladTV on Monday (November 27). “So for them to have an opinion was just like me having an opinion. So let’s start there. Secondly, I did have a discussion with Cube, and he understands where I’m coming from.”
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He continued: “They say that they were just making — I wouldn’t say parody, but records for the hood. Selling out the trunk. It wasn’t intended for global-scale marketing. But that’s where it was taken. They have to take some accountability, but at the end of the day now, once again, we go back to the labels. […] So yes, music does affect people. contribute to people’s behavior and the outcome and it’s the same thing we’re saying now. […] So if we’re all dealing with reality and our conscience and facts, then we have to look at it for what it is. They are encouraging us and paying us to be destructive.”
Check out the interview below.
The controversy first started back when Special Ed made the controversial comments while on Drink Champs on September 16. “N.W.A. came out, and their shit was hardcore — and I said, ‘See, they can say what they want,’” he said on the popular podcast. “But the label didn’t want to market me that way. And I had hard shit.”
He continued: “They didn’t want that. They wanted commercial music. We all wanted to be original. Now, it’s a bandwagon effect. Now, it’s all about cloning. These guys […] ushered in the age of destruction.”
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But KXNG Crooked went on TMZ Live on September 25 to dispute these claims.
“Let me talk to you, my brother,” he began. “We did not live in a utopia until Straight Outta Compton dropped. Straight Outta Compton is a masterful, street-conscious album. That’s not glorification. We gotta really listen to it. JAY-Z said, ‘Do you really listen to it, or do you skim through it?’”
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He continued: “This destruction has always been here since we touched this soil, and art imitates life, my brother. That’s what happens. Go read The Destruction of the Black Civilization. I don’t think NWA brought the destruction age. I think they highlighted it. That was it.”
Following KXNG Crooked’s dispute, Tha Dogg Pound confronted Special Ed over his claims on Instagram.
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“My point was basically N.W.A was used for the era we’re in now,” began Special Ed, pointing to what he characterized as a recent rise in violent crime among Black youth. “We’re in the era of destruction. We’re destroying ourselves as a Hip Hop community. Period. We’ve got teenagers out here killing each other, every state, every urban city over Hip Hop music, over tweets, over social media”
“So, that’s my point — none of this existed before the FBI got involved,” he concluded, asserting that N.W.A played a pivotal role in bringing Hip Hop to the attention of federal law enforcement.
The West Coast crew’s anti-law-enforcement stance in songs like “Fuck tha Police” inspired the FBI’s then-assistant director of the Office of Public Affairs Milt Ahlerich to send them a letter in late 1989. The letter read, in part, “Law enforcement officers dedicate 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.”
“You motherfuckin’ right they did [get the FBI’s attention],” Tha Dogg Pound’s Kurupt responded to Ed. “That’s what we do on the West Coast. We push that line.”
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“Don’t be mad at us though, cuz. You say we ruined something — like ruined Hip Hop. We took Hip Hop to a different world,” he continued. “N.W.A took Hip Hop up top.”
Maintaining his stance, Special Ed said he wasn’t there to debate over “character.” Instead, his goal was to shine a spotlight on the concerning “change” in our culture. In particular, he wanted to highlight the various ways the government has negatively impacted the Black community.
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“They brought the attention of the government. There was already an agenda. As we know, the FBI dismantled and destroyed the Black Panthers. They assassinated Malcolm X. They assassinated Martin Luther King. So, what you think they’re going to do to us? We low-hanging fruit.”
