(also known as Cube’s son) and Jason Mitchell (as Eazy-E) - takes place entirely in the dark. Which is how my interview with Dre and Cube and some of the actors who star in Straight Outta Compton - Corey Hawkins (who plays young Dre), O’Shea Jackson Jr. It will remain so for the better part of an hour. It turns out a transformer has blown on nearby Cole Street, and the whole block is without power. “It’s The Walking Dead: The N.W.A Edition.” “This is the zombie apocalypse,” says another. “What the f- just happened?” asks a voice that sounds like Dre’s. Dre (Hawkins) in ‘Straight Outta Compton.’ A few others are picking around the Caesar salad with grilled chicken at a snack table when suddenly - wham! - there’s a loud popping sound and the place goes completely dark.įrom left: MC Ren ( Aldis Hodge), DJ Yella (Neil Brown Jr.), Eazy-E (Mitchell), Ice Cube (Jackson Jr.) and Dr.

Cube, now a 46-year-old comic action actor-producer ( Ride Along, 21 Jump Street), is leaning against a wall, sipping a cappuccino with extra sugar. Thirty years ago, he was producing N.W.A’s signature song, “F- tha Police” today, he’s a headphones tycoon who lives in Tom Brady‘s former mansion in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles. Dre, now 50, is sitting on a comfy sofa, fussing with the cuffs of his designer jeans. We’re in a photo studio in Hollywood in mid-July, a month before the release of Universal’s $29 million movie telling the (mostly) true story of N.W.A, the groundbreaking hip-hop group that Dre, Cube and three other rappers - Eazy-E, MC Ren and DJ Yella - formed during the 1980s. Dreand Ice Cube about the slaying that happened during the shooting of a Straight Outta Compton trailer - about the day in January when Suge Knight turned up on the set and allegedly plowed his pickup truck over two men, including a technical adviser on the film - when the lights go out. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe. This story first appeared in the July 31 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.

Let me watch straight outta compton