Last night at the Grammy Awards, Universal teased that it would be dropping a new trailer for this summer’s hotly anticipated N.W.A. biopic Straight Outta Compton, and now the studio has made good on that promise, unleashing a red-band trailer that doesn’t shy away from the social and political impact that the famous hip-hop group had on their gritty South Central world.
“Your songs, they glamorize gangs and drugs,” one reporter says to the rappers, including Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell), Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins) and Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson, Jr.). “Our art is a reflection of our reality,” Cube snaps back. It certainly looks that way – Straight Outta Compton‘s trailer plays up the intensity of their lifestyle, from gyrating models to car chases and street protests.
The preview showcases an array of (in)famous faces, including Snoop Dogg, MC Ren, Chuck D. and even Suge Knight (appearing to beat the snot out of someone inside a recording studio). It also maintains the fast-tempo beat of our first look at the biopic, an exciting indication of what audiences can expect when the movie drops this August. Straight Outta Compton has the energy and wide-reaching appeal of a summer smash hit, and the intriguing introduction given to this trailer by Cube and Dre suggests that the F. Gary Gray-directed drama could be awards-caliber stuff.
We’ll find out when Universal takes us Straight Outta Compton on August 14th.
In the mid-1980s, the streets of Compton, California, were some of the most dangerous in the country. When five young men translated their experiences growing up into brutally honest music that rebelled against abusive authority, they gave an explosive voice to a silenced generation. Following the meteoric rise and fall of N.W.A., Straight Outta Compton tells the astonishing story of how these youngsters revolutionized music and pop culture forever the moment they told the world the truth about life in the hood and ignited a cultural war.