N.W.A are a legendary crew and changed hip hop forever. One of the first hip hop acts to come out of California after Ice-T, N.W.A was the first nationally accepted and respected Californian act. However, with all the controversy the group caused, they soon found themselves under scrutiny.
Comprised of Ice Cube, Eazy-E, Dr Dre, MC Ren and DJ Yella, many would point to N.W.A. as the kings of gangsta rap, as they were the group that brought it to a broader audience and crossed it into the mainstream. With songs such as ‘F*k The Police’ and Eazy-E’s ‘Boyz-N-The-Hood’, N.W.A ended up going nationwide with their music. They were unstoppable with vicious rappers such as Ice Cube and mega-producers such as Dr Dre.
However, with such a large audience and such influence, their lyrics caused grave concern among some, especially with regard to the group’s somewhat casual use of the derogatory term “bitch”. When the crew caught wind of the angst surrounding them and their words, they decided to make a song to explain why they had to use it.
They endured a lot of struggles in getting their message to the public. Once the crew had finished the track, they added it to the tracklist of their album N.W.A and The Posse, which was to be released and distributed by Macola Records, but the song did not sit well with the label, which removed the track from the album without the outfit’s knowledge.
After the crew discovered that the song had been omitted from their album and replaced with one of their more palpable cuts, the group demanded their manager Jerry Heller help them to terminate their Macola distribution deal. Obliging the outfit’s wishes in 1987, N.W.A And The Posse was re-issued with the inclusion of ‘A Bitch Iz A Bitch’.
Introduced by a very ‘white-sounding’ individual, listeners first receive a monologue stating, “Let’s describe a certain female / A female with a disease of character and attitude / If you will, a snob/ However in the view of NWA..” after which listeners then get Ice Cube bluntly proclaiming “A bitch is a bitch!”
Ice Cube highlights how not all women are bitches, and that most are not, but also explains how when you come across one (a bitch), it is akin to a “disease plaguing their character.” He goes further with the disease analogy by rapping how what some would bitchiness is “Taking the women of America!”
The track is awfully blunt but epitomises the essence of gangster rap and the abrasive nature of N.W.A as a group. You can listen to the song in the video below.
