“It was where the music business should be. “I thought what was happening at Macola was where rock’n’roll was in 1964 and ’65,” Heller told me during our 2006 interview. Heller – who had years of experience in the music industry, promoting gigs on the west coast by ’70s superstars such as Elton John and Van Morrison – became their manager. Jackson and Young became Ice Cube and Dr Dre, and, alongside a former drug dealer called Eric ‘Eazy-E’ Wright, Lorenzo ‘MC Ren’ Patterson, another Wreckin’ Cru member, Antoine ‘DJ Yella’ Carraby (and, for a short while, Kim ‘Arabian Prince’ Nazel), they formed NWA, standing for Niggaz Wit Attitude.Įazy-E set up the label, Ruthless, that went on to release their records, and those by a slew of associated artists. The World Class Wreckin’ Cru’s DJ was Andre Young, while CIA included a teenager called O’Shea Jackson. I go down there, and who’ve you got pressing records, but Ice-T, MC Hammer, JJ Fad, Bobby Jimmy And The Critters, and a little group called the World Class Wreckin’ Cru and their friends, CIA.” For $1,000 you got 500 records and the artwork. “It’s 1985,” he recalled, “nobody’s making any money, there’s nothing new happening in the world, and I hear about this scene that’s happening at this little pressing plant on Santa Monica Boulevard called Macola. He met NWA right at the start of their career, and did more than anyone outside the group to bring their music to the world. NWA needed their own Russell Simmons, and found him in the unlikely form of Jerry Heller.

Nwa discography torrent