It has now been 25 years since the death of Eway-E, at the age of 30. Things weren’t always perfect in N.W.A., the group Eazy-E helped create, and when members Ice Cube and Dr. Dre went from friends to foes, Eazy-E wasn't alone. He got help in the form of Gangsta Dresta. Dresta had spent five years in the California juvenile justice system and they surprisingly had a media program. Dresta studied music and video production and also had a link to Eazy-E.
The man that helped him out when his friends turned foes, dropped some surprising information about who might’ve taken over had Eazy-E gone thru with the idea of having N.W.A. remain a group, just with different members. Besides working on his own album and directing/consulting in the careers of up and coming rap group Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Dresta said that Eazy-E thought about releasing another N.W.A.
“He wanted to do an N.W.A record when he was trying to get Dr. Dre and Cube to come back together, but they wasn’t really with it at the time. So Eazy had a thought: He wanted to do a N.W.A record with just a black cover with ’N.W.A’ written on it and he was gonna include him, me, [B.G. Knoccout], and I think he was pitching to DJ Quik to be in the group. That was one of his ideas as well that he never got to. He owned the rights to the name N.W.A so if he couldn’t get the original members he was gonna do a record with no cover photo and have us as the rappers.”
Do you think the idea would’ve worked? Without social media or the internet to
disseminate things quickly, it might’ve worked but also could’ve mad a lot of fans upset thinking that they were purchasing an album with a reunited N.W.A. Check out Hip Hop DX for the full Dresta interview.
by: Steven Sandage