The problem of the Panthers is that they scared people. The music of N.W.A didn't scare people; it taught people what it was like to grow up in our inner cities.
— Jerry Heller
I was always excited about doing things with people that were ahead of their time, that were sort of out of sync with the rest of society.
Eazy was an exceptional human being. He was a visionary. He was very Machiavellian, he understood power and how to use it. He was a good-hearted guy, a good father, just an exemplary human being. I couldn't be any prouder of him than if he had been my blood son.
One thing that N.W.A did, as Larry Flynt did before them, was to expand the boundaries of our reliance upon the good sense of the people to determine what's right and what isn't, what's obscene and what isn't, and what's immoral and what isn't.
The music business and I were made for each other.
Eazy was a true visionary. He really was like flesh and blood. Like a son. He was a good kid. He was the best.
I'm the boogeyman used to scare South Central kids when they tell ghost stories.
I consider the most important period of my life, from March 3rd, 1987, I think it was, to March 26th, 1995: the day I met Eazy-E and the day he died. To me, that was the most important period of my life, of my career, and the part that I am most proud of.
I've probably represented almost every major artist in the world, either directly or peripherally, at one time or another.
I grew up in that era of Hendrix and Joplin and The Doors, and the Summer of Love and Haight-Ashbury, and even the Panthers. That was my era; that's what I was into.
Who were the biggest acts in the world in 1987? Guns N' Roses and Metallica. I shamelessly pandered to surfers and skateboarders, and in pictures from then, you'll see Slash and those guys wearing N.W.A stuff. If they thought it was cool, people in Kansas and Wyoming would buy it. That's how we broached the subject.
N.W.A had something in common with the Rolling Stones and MC5 and groups like that: the voice of rebellion. It's rebellion against your parents. It's rebellion against the system. It's rebellion against society.
I'm a child of the sixties. I grew up with a president who was a crook, who put us into the most unpopular war in history, who had no communication with people under thirty. I had seen the Symbionese Liberation Army and the Panthers and the Diggers; I understood what they were about.
There are two kinds of people in the entertainment industry: Those that close deals and those that don't.
I think that N.W.A. picked up where Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King would have gone if they hadn't been assassinated.
N.W.A. were the first great rap audio documentarians of the problems in our inner cities.
I was always a champion of the minority, of the underdog.
I just loved Amy Winehouse. I would rather have managed her than anybody in the world. To me, it was like the first time I saw Janis Joplin.
Suge was a part-time security guard at Ruthless. He can be a very charming guy, and my initial instincts were to help him. Eazy was more perceptive: he always thought he was going to be a problem.
N.W.A were the audio-documentarians of their time. They were trying to shock people with the violence of their language and the subjects they were talking about. The fact that they dressed in guerilla outfits like the Black Panthers made them shocking by their appearance as well.
The more parents hate the music, the more their children will like it. It had been true with Elvis, and it had been true with the Rolling Stones. 'Straight Outta Compton' was music that parents could loathe with a passion. I knew we had a massive hit.
My dad wasn't a gangster, and he wasn't a criminal, but he sure liked to rub padded shoulders with them.
I don't want to be judged next to guys like Suge Knight. I want to be measured next to David Geffen, Irving Azoff, and Clive Davis. Whether I measure up or not, I let my record speak for me. That's how I want to be judged - by what I've done, not by what people like Ice Cube and Dr. Dre have said about me.
Gangsta rap was the most important movement since the beginning of rock n' roll.
I am what I am, but I'm not a thief. And I'm not scandalous.
