When J Dilla Said “Fuck the Police”

The late producer’s take on the N.W.A classic was inspired by his own experiences with law enforcement

There’s a scene in Straight Outta Compton in which the members of N.W.A are hanging around outside a studio in Torrance, CA and are harassed and humiliated by the boys in blue, before Paul Giamatti’s Jerry Heller steps in to defuse the situation, in perhaps the character’s only redeeming moment. This is one of several unnecessary run-ins with the cops that the members have in the film, but at this pivotal moment, O'Shea Jackson Jr.’s Ice Cube is pushed past his limit, resulting in his writing of “Fuck tha Police.”

A scene from “Straight Outta Compton” about the creation of N.W.A’s “Fuck tha Police.”

Real life Cube’s writing of the song was actually after several police encounters that he had experienced in his lifetime, rather than just narrowed down to one particular incident. Cube had the song concept before the altercation that was portrayed in the film, however had a hard time getting Dr. Dre on board to record it, because Dre was spending his weekends in jail due to traffic violations.

“He didn’t want that song out while he had to go back and forth in the county. But when he was off of that little stint, when I brought the idea back up, he was down to do it.” Ice Cube told The Guardian earlier this month. “We were sick of being harassed by the police, just because we was young and black. [LAPD chief] Daryl Gates had declared a war on gangs. And if you think every black kid is a gang member, that means there’s a war on every black kid you see.”

Later in the film, when the song is performed on the final stop of their tour in Detroit, the cops arrest N.W.A and a riot breaks out. This actually happened in 1989, roughly around the same time a teenage James Yancey aka J Dilla/Jay Dee was working his first job as a junior police cadet for the Detroit Police Department. His opinion of the police would change years later, as Dilla would record his own version of “Fuck tha Police” at 27 years old in 2001.

“That song was totally true. He caught so much flack from the police for being a clean young man,” Dilla’s mother Maureen Yancey revealed in an interview with Chicago writer Ronnie Reese. “The police department was down the street from where we lived, and every time he pulled off they’d stop him and harass him. They even tossed the car once looking for something; because he was young and clean-cut, they thought he was selling drugs.”