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Greatest Hits-Worlds Most Dangerous Amazon.co.uk NWA. came straight outta Compton and changed the world. Led by the diminutive jheri-curled foul-mouth Eric “Eazy-E” Wright and given musical impetus by the fully rounded production skills of Andre “” Young, may not, with the benefit of hindsight, have actually been all they claimed but asGreatest Hits shows, they made records that still reverberate today. Five angry blokes in black t-shirts and Raiders baseball caps, NWA’s incendiary debut shocked a complacent music business, introduced the Beirut-like war zone of Los Angeles’ crack-ravaged ghettos to a worldwide audience and, by selling bucket loads, transformed not only the nascent rap music business but indelibly changed the course of hip-hop history. Put simply, it’s impossible to conceive of a world in which is a star that hadn’t first been touched by these five Angelenos. From the sick humour of the morally reprehensible “A Bitch Is A Bitch” and the blank nihilism and titillating reportage of “Straight Outta Compton” to “100 Miles And Running”‘s self-referential cheek, NWA rewrote all the rules. There is art and import in here too, much of both from the poison pen and unsurpassable vocal skills of whose decision to quit the group spelled the end. Overall, the dispiriting tendency for contemporary rappers to out-sick one another means that much of what is contained here sounds almost quaint and, as a coherent statement, it’s “Straight Outta Compton” that remains essential. ButGreatest Hits tells enough of the story and as a starting point is hard to fault. –Angus Batey