The problem of the Panthers is that they scared people. The music of N.W.A didn’t scare people; it taught people what it was like to grow up in our inner cities. Jerry Heller Read Quote
I grew up in that era of Hendrix and Joplin and The Doors, and the Summer of Love and Haight-Ashbury, and even the Panthers. That was my era; that’s what I was into. Jerry Heller Read Quote
I just loved Amy Winehouse. I would rather have managed her than anybody in the world. To me, it was like the first time I saw Janis Joplin. Jerry Heller Read Quote
I was always excited about doing things with people that were ahead of their time, that were sort of out of sync with the rest of society. Jerry Heller Read Quote
Who were the biggest acts in the world in 1987? Guns N’ Roses and Metallica. I shamelessly pandered to surfers and skateboarders, and in pictures from then, you’ll see Slash and those guys wearing N.W.A stuff. If they thought it was cool, people in Kansas and Wyoming would buy it. That’s how we broached the subject. Jerry Heller Read Quote
Eazy was an exceptional human being. He was a visionary. He was very Machiavellian, he understood power and how to use it. He was a good-hearted guy, a good father, just an exemplary human being. I couldn’t be any prouder of him than if he had been my blood son. Jerry Heller Read Quote
N.W.A had something in common with the Rolling Stones and MC5 and groups like that: the voice of rebellion. It’s rebellion against your parents. It’s rebellion against the system. It’s rebellion against society. Jerry Heller Read Quote
N.W.A were the audio-documentarians of their time. They were trying to shock people with the violence of their language and the subjects they were talking about. The fact that they dressed in guerilla outfits like the Black Panthers made them shocking by their appearance as well. Jerry Heller Read Quote
My dad wasn’t a gangster, and he wasn’t a criminal, but he sure liked to rub padded shoulders with them. Jerry Heller Read Quote
One thing that N.W.A did, as Larry Flynt did before them, was to expand the boundaries of our reliance upon the good sense of the people to determine what’s right and what isn’t, what’s obscene and what isn’t, and what’s immoral and what isn’t. Jerry Heller Read Quote
