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Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous
How is it overrated? It was never hyped, or highly rated, or critically acclaimed. NWA was low-life, street, gang-related music, not for the radio, never intended for the radio, and never got play on the radio. NWA was underground, or as Eazy-E put it, "The underground hip-hop thugsterz.."
To be over-rated you have to be hyped in the first place, I'm just not buying that NWA or Eazy E were ever hyped in the first place. Did they make a lot of noise? Fuck the fuck yeah. Did that noise necessarily translate into critical acclaim or mainstream success? Not entirely.
Interestingly enough, MC Ren was actually quite intelligent and political in his music, both his raps in NWA and his later solo releases. I think the cerebral aspects of NWA are subtle. Songs like "100 Miles and Running", "Dopeman", "Fuck the Police", "Approach To Danger", "Appetite for Destruction", "Boyz In Da Hood", were all very political, very critical of society and socio-economics of American life, very much reflective of the gritty, low-life, pessimistic approach of being poor and living in ghetto America in the Reaganomics era. Yes the music was crude, violent, and hopelessly misogynistic, but interestingly enough, that was sort of the point, so that their music was bordering on ghetto fabulous satire. It was a way to be able to find a way to laugh at otherwise totally not funny shit.
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