She endures Dre and Suge’s abuse for the promise of money, fame and – most importantly – love. Michel’le’s character, as a young girl, is taught by the women in her life that men beating women is normal, and should be tolerated. Other details – that NWA were marijuana fans, or that Suge Knight intimidated Tupac Shakur and bossed him around – are entirely false.īut the soul of the story rings true. It depicts the squeaky-voiced South Central native Michel’le being plucked from obscurity from a job folding clothes at the mall to sing with Dr Dre’s first group, but neglects a funny detail I uncovered – that her initial stage name was Baby, and she walked around with a pacifier around her neck. To be sure, Surviving Compton glosses over many details. A Ruthless rapper named Tairrie B also maintains that Dre beat her.) (Dre pled no contest to beating Barnes, and received probation, while Johnson was granted a restraining order against him. The film largely echoes Michel’le’s accounts to me, though she never went to police with her allegations – unlike other women including television host Dee Barnes and Lisa Johnson, the mother of three of Dre’s children who alleged he beat her many times, including while she was pregnant. I extensively interviewed Michel’le and other survivors of Dre’s alleged abuse for my new book Original Gangstas: the Untold Story of Dr Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Tupac Shakur, and the Birth of West Coast Rap, and investigated their claims. The question many viewers will have after their viewing: is the film accurate? Michel’le’s next love interest – Suge Knight, by now Dre’s arch rival – doesn’t come off much better. He’s otherwise portrayed as a cheating, boozing manipulator who neglects her once he becomes famous. But Surviving Compton nonetheless contains numerous chilling sequences of Dre beating her, and even one where he shoots at her. Both Barnes and Michel’le criticized the film when it came out for erasing their voices now, it looks like certain uglier parts of the group’s legacy will finally get the chance to come to light.Prior to its release, Dr Dre’s lawyers threatened legal action against the film-makers if the movie contained scenes of him assaulting her, which he denies. Dre’s history of violence against women, and neither his relationship with Michel’le nor his infamous assault of female journalist Dee Barnes were included in the story. Dre, Ice Cube, and Eazy-E’s widow, Tomica Woods-Wright, omitted Dr. Straight Outta Compton, which was produced by Dr. Marcos Taylor, reprising his role in Straight Outta Compton), whom Michel’le later married, also plays a key role in the film. Incendiary Death Row Records head Suge Knight (R. “Behind the men who changed hip-hop is the woman who knows the truth,” reads the trailer, which depicts a string of harrowing scenes, including one where Dre (Curtis Hamilton) grabs Michel’le (Rhyon Nicole Brown) by the throat and threatens to beat her up. Dre’s former fiancée and the first female signee to the group’s Ruthless Records, who has been public about the abuse she received while she was involved with Dre. The film centers on R&B singer Michel’le Toussaint, Dr. We now have a first look at the trailer for Surviving Compton: Dre, Suge, & Michel’le, a dark coda to last year’s acclaimed N.W.A.
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