I know, I know, what rock have I been living under that I just recently started playing Witcher 3 and I just got around to seeing "Straight Outta Compton".

Here is the sad truth...

I grew up in the country. Despite there being two major corporations in the nearest town (Dow Chemical and Dow Corning) with a plethora of global travelers, the overall population of my school and surrounding area was 99% white.

Thankfully, I had awesome parents who never held or imposed the bigotry on me that is often attributed to country folk. In fact, I can't recall ever hearing anyone speak hatefully about another race or culture. Perhaps it was the benefit of growing up in the Northern US.

Anyway, despite that fact, music and shows depicting black culture were not as popular or talked about in my area. Sure we watched the Cosby show and we listened to Motown Oldies, but the two hour drive to Detroit may as well have been two days.

I mention all of this because after watching this movie I really feel like I missed out on a golden era of the rap genre. Being a fan of all forms of music I am sad that I didn't at least know about these guys in the late 80's and early 90's when all of this stuff was going on.

I would have been in high school, so it isn't like I was too young for any of it, but quite honestly even if they would have played the songs on the radio, none of the stations around us were the right format. Plus, there was Internet back then, but not like we have today. Getting your hands on the latest song or album wasn't as easy as going to Spotify or YouTube.

Music was expensive and you had to save up your pennies to be able to purchase it. Taking a chance on the latest album by a guy named Snoop Dogg just seemed ridiculous.

Warning Explicit Content in the Embedded Video

This is one of @mrsbozz and I's favorite scenes from the movie. The idea that Easy-E didn't really know how to rap at first is pretty comical given the icon he turned into. I am sure there are parts the left out and parts the embellished, but it really was cool to see how they evolved and grew into what they would eventually become.

A few of my impressions:

• I had always seen Easy-E the way they depicted him at the beginning of the movie. It was impressive to see just how down to Earth he was and although he got screwed over by his manager, I really believe he had some great business and marketing skills.

• Dr. Dre is just amazing. I don't think there is any way you can argue with that

• It was awesome to see my wife bobbing around to the songs throughout the movie. She actually listened to these songs when they were out and I am a little jealous of her getting to experience that while it was happening.

• Suge Knight was scary and shady as heck. It is not surprising he is currently in jail.

• Ice Cube is a lyrical master. I have started adding a bunch of his stuff to my Spotify playlists. It was interesting to see how they were able to become the life even though they weren't initially living the life.

• It is awesome that they were able to reconcile before Easy-E passed away even if they weren't able to make a comeback like they had planned.

• I do remember during this time period the song "F#@#% the police" and the uproar over it. Being a good middle American white Christian boy, I took all of the criticism as the truth. Seeing what we have these past couple years and watching the movie, it is easy to understand why they wrote the song and why that attitude resonated so closely with those communities like Compton.

note - I fully support law enforcement and those good cops who do their jobs to serve and protect us with respect every single day

If you haven't been able to catch this movie yet, I highly encourage you to do so. It is probably one of the best films I have seen in a while. Please be aware it is not for children and it fully deserves the R rating it was given for language and nudity. If those things offend you, try to catch the censored version on cable.

all video embeds obviously taken from YouTube

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