Released August 9, 1988 Length 5:43 Writer(s) Ice Cube
MC Ren | Recorded 1988 Label Priority
Ruthless | |
Genre Gangsta rap
political hip hop
hardcore hip hop | ||
"Fuck tha Police" is a protest song by the group N.W.A that appears on the album Straight Outta Compton as well as on the N.W.A's Greatest Hits compilation. It was ranked number 425 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Protesting police brutality and racial profiling, its lyrics express approval of violence against police.
Contents
Since its release in 1988, the "Fuck the Police" slogan continues to influence pop culture today in the form of T-shirts, artwork, and even transitions into other genres as seen in the cover versions by Dope, Rage Against the Machine and Kottonmouth Kings (featuring Insane Clown Posse).
Ice Cube and MC Ren wrote their own lyrics, while Eazy-E's lyrics were written by MC Ren.
Composition as depicted in the music video
"Fuck tha Police" parodies court proceedings inverting them by presenting Dr. Dre as a judge hearing a prosecution of the police department. Three members of the group, Ice Cube, MC Ren, and then Eazy-E, take the stand to "testify" before the judge as prosecutors. Through the lyrics, the rappers criticize the local police force. Two interludes present re-enactments of stereotypical racial profiling and police brutality.
By doing this, Dr. Dre takes the formalities of the judicial system and stands them on their head. He mocks the way that prosecuting attorneys use witnesses to prove their side of the story, while still respecting it, taking it on as his own way in allowing the MCs to state their cases in order to prove how the police department is focused on young black minorities, assuming that they are all drug dealers and are looking to rob or murder (see Criminal stereotype of African Americans). At the end, Dre finds the policeman guilty of being a "redneck, white bread, chickenshit motherfucker."
FBI letter
The song provoked the FBI to write to N.W.A's record company about the lyrics expressing disapproval and arguing that the song misrepresented police.
In his autobiography Ruthless, Jerry Heller wrote that the letter was actually a rogue action by a "single pissed-off bureaucrat with a bully pulpit" named Milt Ahlerich, who was falsely purporting to represent the FBI as a whole and that the action "earned him a transfer to the Bureau's backwater Hartford office". He also wrote that he removed all sensitive documents from the office of Ruthless Records in case of an FBI raid.
Impact
The song "Fuck tha Police", containing N.W.A's trademark inflammatory lyrics, stood out in particular from many of the songs on Straight Outta Compton. It highlights many of the tensions between black urban youth and the police.
Especially controversial were the areas of the song that appear to condone violence towards police authorities; lines such as "I'm a sniper with a hell of a scope/Taking out a cop or two, they can't cope/with me" and "A sucka in a uniform waitin' to get shot/by me, or anotha nigga" directly reference the murder of police officers.
Censorship
In 1989, Australian radio station Triple J had been playing "Fuck tha Police" (the only radio station in the world to do so) for up to six months, before being banned by Australian Broadcasting Corporation management following a campaign by a South Australian Liberal senator. As a reaction, the staff went on strike and put N.W.A's "Express Yourself" on continuous play for 24 hours, playing it roughly 360 times in a row. It was revealed in 2005 that the scratch sound from that track was sampled for the Triple J news theme.
On 10 April 2011, New Zealand dub musician Tiki Taane was arrested on charges of "disorderly behaviour likely to cause violence to start or continue" after performing the song at a gig in a club in Tauranga during an inspection of the club by the police. On 13 April, Tiki told Marcus Lush on Radio Live that the lyrics often feature in his performances and his arrest came as a complete surprise.
Cover versions
This song has proven popular, covered by various bands. Bone Thugs-N-Harmony's version was added to the 20th anniversary edition of Straight Outta Compton.