Eazy-E: the Compton founder of Ruthless Records and a voice of N.W.A | Ultimate Hip Hop Reunion

Why fans still care

Plenty of rappers have owned a label. Few started with the label and found the microphone later. EAZY-E did it that way round, and the records he put out with N.W.A changed how the West Coast sounded to everyone else.

The Rock Hall credits N.W.A with shaping gangsta rap into a genre of its own. Eazy was there at the start, as a member and as the man running the business side.

Early years

Eric Wright was born on 7 September in Compton, California. The Library of Congress and AllMusic give the year as 1964, though many obituaries said 1963. Ice Cube, Who’s Who number 24, told Complex that in the early days Eazy “was not rapping at all. He was trying to learn the business.”

The breakthrough

He started Ruthless Records with Jerry Heller, his later manager, according to XXL and AllMusic.

The first big break came from a song nobody else wanted. Ice Cube wrote “Boyz-n-the-Hood” for a group called HBO, who passed on it as too West Coast for them, a story Ice Cube told Complex and AllMusic also tells. According to Ice Cube, it was Dr. Dre, Who’s Who number 1, who talked Eazy into recording it himself. That one decision turned the label boss into a rapper.

Career chapters

1. 1988Straight Outta Compton with N.W.A, and the solo album Eazy-Duz-It
2. 19925150: Home 4 tha Sick
3. 1993It’s On (Dr. Dre) 187um Killa
4. 2015Straight Outta Compton, the film
5. 2016Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with N.W.A

N.W.A 1988

N.W.A was Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren and DJ Yella. Straight Outta Compton came out on Ruthless in 1988, and Eazy’s solo album Eazy-Duz-It followed the same year.

Going solo 1990 to 1993

After Ice Cube left to go solo, Eazy kept Ruthless moving, and in 1993 Encyclopedia.com reports the label signed a distribution deal with Sony-Relativity. The EP It’s On (Dr. Dre) 187um Killa came out that October.

The roster

Ruthless was more than one act. XXL lists N.W.A, The D.O.C., Michel’le and Bone Thugs-n-Harmony among the artists who came through the label.

Craft, sound and the studio

A team sport

Eazy never hid that he worked with writers. Ice Cube wrote “Boyz-n-the-Hood”, and MC Ren has said Dr. Dre wrote “Eazy-er Said Than Dunn”. Ice Cube put it simply in Complex: he “had the best writers and producers around him.”

An ear for business

Ice Cube has described business as Eazy’s real contribution to the group. Vibe’s Kevin Powell, as quoted by Encyclopedia.com, called him one of the most successful black businesspeople of the hip hop era.

Stories people still tell

1. The song HBO passed on.

   “Boyz-n-the-Hood” was meant for someone else. Turned down by HBO, it became the record that launched Eazy as a rapper.

2. The film.

   Straight Outta Compton, the 2015 film about N.W.A, took US$202,182,981 worldwide, according to The Numbers.

Legacy

N.W.A entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2016, inducted by Kendrick Lamar, and Dr. Dre gave Eazy the credit from the stage. Wish Bone of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony calls him the Godfather of Gangsta Rap and says his group’s career started with him. Eazy-E died in 1995.