How sad that Ice Cube, MC Ren and DJ Yella can reunite in 2015 to perform N.W.A's best-known (and unprintable) anti-police anthem and have so much new footage of brutality against young people of color to project onstage.
The clips came from Ferguson, Mo., Staten Island, N.Y., a McKinney, Texas, pool party and other places around America. As the trio rapped about fighting back against a ceaseless police state, stagehands drove an LAPD car across the Staples Center stage with its flashers on.
It was a classic bit of old-school hip-hop theatrics, but one that everyone in the arena felt acutely.