The lyrics were a vivid painting of their reality.
“It was more than just a song that was insulting the police, it was a revenge fantasy. I think that’s really what made people feel scared like we was really wanting to fight the police, you know? It’s just one of them things where that song was doing a little more than just expressing our anger: It was telling what we would do if you wasn’t a cop, if we could have a fair fight. All these things just scared the shit out of people” (Ice Cube). Indeed, law enforcement were so frightened of the message in the lyrics that The Federal Bureau of Investigation took action. The Federal Bureau of Investigation sent a letter to Priority Ruthless Records stating that “Advocating violence and assault is wrong, and we in the law enforcement community take no exception to such action…I wanted you to be aware of the FBI’s position relative to the song and its message.” Yet, this letter did not stop N.W.A. from performing the song on stage. The explicit content of the song led many radios to ban it from playing. “Even without any radio play or media coverage the album still managed to become an underground hit” (Cooper, “Hip-Hop &