"Fuck tha Police" is released

Why it matters

"Fuck tha Police" is the third track on Straight Outta Compton and the song the FBI assistant director wrote a letter about. It is structured as a courtroom: Dr. Dre (acting as the judge) calls the witnesses. Ice Cube, MC Ren, and Eazy-E (acting as the witnesses) each deliver a verse describing specific police interactions in Compton in 1988. The verdict, in the chorus, is the title of the song. Hardly anybody in 1988 had committed anything like this to a major-label rap record. Nobody had ever said it this plainly. The FBI did not love the record. The Compton Police Department did not love the record. The Detroit cops who refused to provide security at an NWA show in 1989 did not love the record either. The song has, in the 36 years since its release, been used as a protest anthem in roughly every major demonstration in the US against police violence. You can argue whether one song can change anything. You cannot argue whether this one has been put to that use, because it has, repeatedly, every decade since it came out.