 |
|
|
::: Main :::
Interact |
b. Eric Wright, 7 September 1963, Compton, California, USA, d. 26 March 1995, Los Angeles, California, USA. There are those critics who did not take well to Eazy-E's 'whine', but his debut kept up NWA 's momentum by managing to offend just about every imaginable faction, right and left. Attending a fund-raising dinner for the Republican party and having lunch with police officer Tim Coon, one of the LAPD's finest charged with the beating of Rodney King, hardly helped to re-establish his hardcore credentials. His work as part of NWA, and as head of Ruthless Records (which he founded in 1985 allegedly with funds obtained from drug dealing) had already made him a household name. However, as a solo performer his raps lacked penetration, even if the musical backdrop was just as intense as that which distinguished NWA. His debut solo album contained a clean and dirty side. The first was accomplished with very little merit, cuts such as 'We Want Eazy' being self-centred and pointless. The 'street' side, however, offered something much more provocative and nasty. His ongoing bitter rivalry against former NWA member Dr. Dre provided much of his lyrical subject matter, including his 1994 single, 'Real Muhaphukkin' G's', which was essentially a rewrite of Dre's 'Dre Day'. Ruthless also released an EP, It's On (Dr. Dre 187UM) Killa, in the same year. Eazy-E subsequently moved on to production for artists including Tairrie B and Blood Of Abraham. Having been a pivotal figure of gangsta rap, he succumbed to AIDS and died through complications following a collapsed lung after having been hospitalized for some time. The material he had been working on prior to his death was released posthumously on Str.8 Off Tha Streetz Of Muthaphukkin' Compton. |
