Artist: N.W.A
Best Album: Efil4zaggin
Best Song: Automobile (Yes, it is.  Shut up.)
This Letter Could Have Been About: Nicki Minaj, Nappy Roots, Nas, Naughty by Nature, Notorious B.I.G., Northern State

Why I’m Writing About This Artist: This is another crowded-as-hell letter, guys.  N.W.A, which stands for Niggaz With Attitudes.  Point blank: They’re the most important group in the history of rap music.  Period.  Not necessarily the most talented, not the best, but absogoddamnlutely the most important.  In fact, I’d say that there’s a large gap between them and the second most important– which, to my mind, would be Public Enemy, with the Wu-Tang Clan a reasonably close third.  A lot of rappers and rap groups call themselves notorious; one guy who you might have heard of actually named himself that.  N.W.A released a song called Fuck Tha Police in goddamn 1988.  

Think about that shit for a second.  Think about the effect that Dr. Dre and Ice Cube all by themselves had on the music business.  I don’t have the space here to get into the history of the group– the Wikipedia page doesn’t do a half-bad job, actually— but when the authoritative history of hiphop is finally written (and maybe I’ll write it) N.W.A deserves a couple of chapters all by themselves.

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