Credit: Kein Ahnung

It is not for nothing that Eazy-E is known as “The Godfather of Gangsta Rap.” Throughout a career cut short by his untimely death in 1995, Eazy established himself as one of the subgenre’s most distinctive and influential figures, be it through his solo work or through his output as a member of NWA. Without Eazy-E, rap as we know it would surely sound a little bit different.

That notion makes it all the more strange to consider that the man was once incredibly reluctant to get behind the mic. He didn’t consider himself to be a rapper, and he needed to be convinced otherwise—and the man who did that was none other than his fellow NWA member, Dr Dre.

Eazy-E set up Ruthless Records in 1986, and, as part of his plans to break into the burgeoning West Coast hip hop scene, he recruited a team of musicians to begin putting together some tracks. That team, which in those early days counted Dr Dre, Arabian Prince and Ice Cube as members, soon fashioned the bones of what would become the classic song ‘Boyz-n-the-Hood,’ but, initially, they had intended for it to be used by a New York-based rap group called HBO, or Home Boys Only. In a move one imagines the HBO members later came to regret, they rejected the track, which left it available for somebody else to take on.

During an interview on Hot 97, which can be found on YouTube, Ice Cube recalls that, initially, Dre turned to him, hoping that he might be the one to rap on ‘Boyz-n-the-Hood.’ But when he refused, that meant Dre’s attention fell on Eazy. “[Dre] looked at Eazy, like, why don’t you do it, man?” Ice Cube recalled. “You got a voice. Your voice is gonna sound good on the record. And he was like, hell no.”

Eazy-E didn’t want to do it, but Dre was convinced that he was the right man for the job. For a couple of hours, they argued until, eventually, Eazy relented. But that didn’t mean things fell into place right away. He was no rapper yet, so Dre had to guide him through the process.

“‘No man,’” Ice Cube remembers Dre telling Eazy during the session, “‘that ain’t how you say that line. Say it like this.’ We was going back and forth. It took forever to get two or three lines out. So Dre was like, you know what? Everybody just leave. Everybody leave. I’m gonna work with this dude.”

Progress was painfully, painfully slow, but, eventually, they got there in the end. “We came back later that night,” said Ice Cube. “They hadn’t even finished the first verse. I was like, damn. I’m gone. I left again. I came back the next day, they was in the middle of the second verse. I came back the next night, that same night, they had finished the song. And… it was dope.”

‘Boyz-n-the-Hood’ is now considered to be one of the most important tracks in gangsta rap, and, without it, maybe NWA wouldn’t have formed in the manner that they did. Eazy-E was such a critical voice in the group, and, had it not been for Dr Dre’s persistence, maybe he never would have picked up the mic. The history of rap may very well have taken a different course.