Aside from being far and away the highest grossing festival on the entire planet, annual California valley extravaganza Coachella is well-renowned for being the stage where grudges get quashed and reunions you’d never have thought would happen definitely happen. If one O’Shea Jackson, the artist known as Ice Cube gets his druthers this year, we may see a reunion of gangsta rap godfathers N.W.A.
With nostalgia for the original group at an all-time high following the smash success of the Cube-helmed biopic Straight Outta Compton in 2015 and an already amazing semi-reunion that took place at the B.E.T. Awards last year (see above), it seems Ice Cube is still very much keen to bring as close an N.W.A. experience to a new generation of fans as he possibly can, stating his intentions to reunite the group as part of his own performance this year’s Coachella in an appearance on The Talk.
If that was tl;dw, Ice Cube stated:
“I’m trying to bring the members of N.W.A together (to) come with me on the stage. Give everybody a little history lesson on Ice Cube and N.W.A Westside Connection”
It could be just a throwaway comment at this point, and no other members of N.W.A. have put forth further comment at this time, but one would think it wouldn’t be too difficult to get MC Ren and DJ Yella, both a part of the BET Awards reunion, involved. Eazy-E having passed away in 1995 would still not prove to be too big an obstacle either. Should Ice Cube choose to go that route, astounding computer imagery has been used at Coachella in the past to bring Tupac Shakur back to the stage.
The real coup here would be convincing Dr. Dre to ride with the group again. He helped produce Straight Outta Compton and released his long, long (LONG) anticipated third album in support of it, last year’s smash hit Compton, but he was conspicuously absent during the BET Awards reunion and seems more focused on his corporate career than on any type of performing, with Compton being widely recognised as his final album.
Whether Dre decides to participate or not, any sort of N.W.A. mini-reunion would serve only to further drum up hype for this year’s already much-anticipated festival.
Coachella was the site for reunions by Outkast, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, Big Audio Dynamite, Jane’s Addiction, Siouxie And The Banshees, Iggy Pop And The Stooges, Pixies, Rage Against The Machine, the Jesus And Mary Chain, The Verve, Faith No More and Pavement as well as playing host to an LCD Soundsystem reunion to come in 2016 and perhaps the biggest reunion in its history, that of Guns N’ Roses.
Coachella is also famous for surprise appearances, artists like Madonna, who crashed Drake‘s stage with notorious results and Jay-Z and Puff Daddy joining Nas onstage just a few of the many guests to crash the party and leave the audience in awe.
Whatever happens, we’re looking forward to it immensely. Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival runs from April 15-17 and 22-24.