In 1992, in the wake of the Rodney King verdict, Los Angeles went up in flames, and scared the hell out of white America. I was thirteen, suburban, and white. The riots were front-page news, occupying countless hours on CNN featuring flabbergasted and frightened talking heads pontificating about their significance. But to a lot of us, this wasn't news, it was just how the world was. We knew, because before the riots, we listened to N.W.A., the group including Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, MC Ren, and DJ Yella.

A few years earlier, my passions had shifted from sports to music. I went from caring only about baseball to caring only about hip-hop. Actually, I don't know if I knew anyone who called it hip-hop yet. All I cared about was rap music.

Pretty soon, my favorite group was Public Enemy, and I knew all the words to “Fight the Power.” My friend's older brother had P.E.'s previous album and masterwork, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, and it didn't leave my Walkman for weeks. I didn't have the tape's case, because it had one of those Parental Advisory warnings, making it contraband in my house. Then, through another older kid in the neighborhood, I got a hold of an N.W.A. tape. He'd dubbed it for me and it was on a plain, matte black cassette -- perfect.

Public Enemy was a force for change, advocating political overthrow, and it was unclear how white kids in the suburbs would fare during the revolution. Even so, they weren't the scary ones. That N.W.A. tape made me sick to my stomach with its window-into-hell street reportage. Of course, I listened to it even more than Nation of Millions.

The N.W.A. biopic, “Straight Outta Compton,” comes out August 14, and I have no idea if it will capture the adrenaline rush that this group inspired in countless listeners. For guaranteed insight into the group, and for an explanation of why Ice Cube, the guy who stars in the family comedy Are We There Yet?, used to be terrifying, you can turn to Jeff Chang's invaluable history of hip-hop, Can't Stop Won't Stop. Chang devotes a chapter to the seminal group and provides well-researched context into the Los Angeles from which it exploded. Through Chang, we understand the economic and racial realities of the city and why it was almost inevitable that five teenagers would come together to make songs like “F--- tha Police” and “Dopeman.”

There were plenty of groups with better lyrics, who were more informed, and who had stronger and more intriguing music backing the vocals, but none quite had the impact of N.W.A., which shifted the entire central geography of the music and culture from New York to Los Angeles. The reasons for N.W.A.'s influence go beyond their raunchiness and anarchist point of view. N.W.A.'s music hit our cassette players at a time before many of us realized how disenfranchised and furious people were in their neighborhoods. Anyone listening wasn't surprised by news of the L.A. riots. It fit right into the worldview of N.W.A. fans.