N.W.?.

As a young white boy growing up on a river in West Virginia, I always thought that these N.W.A. guys really existed. That they wore all that black under the sun, and that between recording tracks, they shot people and then laughed and drank beer. God, it was beautiful. But I had my suspicions that some of it was bullshit, and eventually that all of it was bullshit. Still, even if they did turn into Real Estate Appraisers and Transporters for Aerospace Companies With Attitudes, the music remains very solid.

L.A. Weekly ran this piece but with Before, After, and Now. I just lifted the Now parts off of it because they were the funniest/saddest. Let’s do 1 to 12 guns on this one. 1 means you run the other way when a dog barks at you. 12 means you shoot the dog, then you shoot the dog’s owner and his family while they are having dinner. Then you slide them off of their chairs, sit down and finish their meals. Because you are a 12. Oh yeah, this whole time you’re also drinking beer.
Arabian Prince
AKA: Mik Lezan, Professor X
Now: He’s working on a cartoon/music project called Funky Lil Anime, “like an animated Black Eyed Peas kinda thing.”

3 GUNS

Sir Jinx
AKA: Anthony Wheaton
Now: Jinx recently did some studio work with Dr. Dre and keeps busy doing DJ gigs and appearing places like The Jimmy Kimmel Show and The Orlando Jones Show.

4 GUNS

DJ Scratch
AKA: LaMont Burnett, King Scratch
Now: Scratch lives in Barstow, California. He says it’s a place where he has a house that’s “nice and cheap and big.” He’s a family man with children and grandchildren. Scratch has recorded some new music and has also started a company that does merch for other musicians.

2 GUNS

MC REN
AKA: Lorenzo Jerald Patterson, The Villain in Black
Now: In addition to having a new EP in the works, Ren is rumored to be part of the N.W.A. movie project that Cube and Dre are working on.

7 GUNS (But really only because he was fucking awesome and was sometimes my favorite.)

DJ Train
AKA: Clarence Lars
Now: DJ Train was killed in a house fire on July 26, 1994. His brother, Jesse “Tootie” Lars–who produced MC Ren’s single, “Same Ol’ Shit”–tells me Train saved the lives of several family members. “He went back in because he thought some of our family was still in there. He passed out in the living room, right in front of the TV, and they found him right there when they went back in,” Lars says. “Train was a big man–over 6 feet, over 200 pounds–but he was a peaceful man, a spiritual man,” says Rebecca Morfin, the mother of his 5-year-old son, Sean. “He was courageous, too. When the paramedics were putting him into the ambulance and we were all screaming that we loved him, he signaled to us that it was all right.”

10 GUNS

Kid Disaster
AKA: Darryll Johnson, K-Dee
Now: K-Dee lives in L.A., and is in the trucking business. He’s also still doing some radio work and performing live, including a recent concert with Michel’le, perhaps the ultimate hip-hop temptress, Dr. Dre’s ex-girlfriend and the mother of his son Marcel.

5 GUNS (Sorry Darryll, if doing gigs with Dre’s old girlfriend gets mentioned in your bio then you’re automatically docked a few.)

Candyman
AKA: Candell Manson
Now: Candyman lives in Vegas and books parties. Considering the heated public feuds that divided loyalties between the superstars on the Posse cover–Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Eazy-E–it’s surprising that Candyman is probably the least popular person in this photo, dissed by several others pictured when he was mentioned. “Candyman always kinda thought his shit didn’t stink,” says one of the other guys from the cover. “He’s still that way.” (He also toured with Milli Vanilli and Tone Loc. Barf.)

2 GUNS (Ugh, I hate this guy.)

Krazy D
AKA: Damon Trujillo, Culo Popper, Crazy D, Krazy Dee
Now: Krazy D lives in Las Vegas and does real estate appraisals for a living. He’s been working on a wide variety of new music but hasn’t released anything lately. He also says he’s working on a documentary about his time in N.W.A. called Ghetto Godz.

8 GUNS (I’m going to give this guy a higher number than he probably deserves because real estate and Vegas are a shady match and he is probably still a hustler.)

Ice Cube
AKA: O’Shea Jackson, Purple Ice
Now: Ice Cube’s career could be a series in itself. Though his music career has fallen off over the years, he wrote the classic Friday films and has starred in flicks like Higher Learning, Three Kings and Barbershop. Cube recently announced he’ll be releasing a new album, I Am the West, in July. Interestingly, he’s said to be using beats from fellow Posse photo veteran Sir Jinx for the first time in nearly 20 years.

(Fuck you, Ice Cube. You were the greatest but now you get no guns. You did a fucking family Christmas movie. Here is a pocket switch-comb. Go fix your hair or something.)

MC Chip
AKA: Granville Moton, Chip Dirty, Da Konvicted Felon
Now: Chip isn’t doing anything with music and keeps a low profile online. His only Web presence is a BlackPlanet account. He lives in LA and works in transportation for an aerospace company. “I still write a little bit, but I’m just working, man, just basically taking care of wifey. I can still do it, I’m still sick with it, but the reality of life, it didn’t crack the way it was supposed to crack.”

10 GUNS (This guy sounds pretty real to me.)

Dr. Dre
AKA: Andre Romelle Young, Dr. J
Now: Nary a week goes by when Dre is not either rumored or confirmed to be doing something big and important. The latest? He’s apparently selling computers for HP, planning a new joint album with Snoop Dogg and, of course, working on a new record called Detox, a long-delayed project that is fast becoming hip-hop’s Chinese Democracy.

11 GUNS (Sometimes you have annoyed me, Andre Romelle, but you will always be number two in my book.)

Eazy-E
AKA: Eric Wright, Little Rat, The Greatest Gangsta
Now: Eazy-E passed away at age 31 on March 26, 1995, after issuing a final message to his fans: “I was a brother on the streets of Compton doing a lot of things most people look down on — but it did pay off. Then we started rapping about real stuff that shook up the LAPD and the FBI. But we got our message across big time, and everyone in America started paying attention to the boys in the ‘hood.’ Soon our anger and hope got everyone riled up. There were great rewards for me personally, like fancy cars, gorgeous women and good living. Like real nonstop excitement. I’m not religious, but wrong or right, that’s me. I’m not saying this because I’m looking for a soft cushion wherever I’m heading, I just feel that I’ve got thousands and thousands of young fans that have to learn about what’s real when it comes to AIDS. Like the others before me, I would like to turn my own problem into something good that will reach out to all my homeboys and their kin. Because I want to save their asses before it’s too late.”

12 GUNS (“We wanna fuck you, Eazy!” “I wanna fuck you too.”)