They had pedigree Dr Dre and Yella were part of World Class Wreckin’ Cru, who fused R&B and rap with some success.
It was more complicated than that, though: if you hadn’t noticed NWA, that was your fault. This relatively unknown group was suddenly at hip-hop’s pinnacle, both underground and simultaneously highly visible, thanks to an album that could blow you away – its cover is designed to look like Eazy-E’s gun is the last thing you’ll ever see. It made the West Coast matter in hip-hop. Straight Outta Compton arrived, on August 8, 1988, like a road crash: you couldn’t ignore it.