In the 1990s, the Oakland Raiders and west-coast hip-hop rap became connected and remain so. More specifically, the Raiders and the N.W.A. intersected in a perfect cultural moment in the 1990s.
The Oakland Raiders Were in… Oakland?
Raiders Nation has been located in multiple places since it was born in 1960. First, the franchise was in Oakland for 32 years. After a quick trip to Los Angeles from 1982 to 1995, the team was back in Oakland. The team stayed there until they moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, in 2020.
Although most people felt that the Raiders move to Los Angeles was a poor move, there was one major benefit. The N.W.A. really connected with the team when they moved to LA.
As the rap group says, they are “Straight Outta Compton” and not Oakland. The cities are nearly six hours apart. Had the team not moved, history would have taken a hit.
Who Made the First Move?
Ice Cube started the love affair. Jackson has been an Oakland Raiders fan since day one. He really connected with the team when they moved to Los Angeles and then won the Super Bowl at the tail end of the 1983 season.
Jackson also pointed out the business savvy the rap group had when they connected at least visually with LA sport teams. Between the Olympics coming to the city in 1984, the Raiders killing it, and the Lakers being on top of the world, the LA sports scene was ideal to be apart of.
Not every member of the N.W.A. were sports fans, though. The group decided they needed a general uniform of wearing black. Since Ice Cube was wearing a lot of Raiders gear, and his group members needed to make sure they had enough black clothing, they slowly began to adopt Raiders wear too.
N.W.A. identified with the culture and attitude of the NFL franchise; a lot of their fanbases did as well. O’Shea Jackson explains it well in his interview with Page 2: “They moved the baddest team with the baddest attitude into one of the baddest cities in America. It convinced the world that this kind of LA really exists.”
The Cultural Impact of the Oakland Raiders-N.W.A. Connection
Non-sports fans still wear Oakland Raider apparel to this day because of the connotation it has with the rap culture of the 80s and 90s, as well as Los Angeles culture in general. The fusion of football and rap groups allowed a greater audience to see the realities of living on the not-so-hollywood side of LA.
The Raiders became a symbol of a lifestyle that was the reality for many Americans across the country that hadn’t felt represented in the past.
Not everyone was so open to the Raiders new reputation. Schools would ban the team’s logos because of the “lifestyle” it was associated with.
Despite benefiting from it fiscally, the Raiders themselves said very little about the N.W.A. Their merchandise shot to #1 in the nation over night, and Al Davis decided to completely skip over the entire cultural movement his team was part of.
.@icecube hangin' with Mark Davis ✌️ pic.twitter.com/Em0AzbiEOA
— NFL on Prime Video (@NFLonPrime) December 9, 2022
It makes good business sense that the Oakland Raiders steered clear of the conversation. The NFL is historically conservative and would have likely reacted very poorly to the N.W.A. identifying so closely with the league.
However, this would have been an opportunity for Al Davis to embrace his fan base. He certainly was able to benefit financially from the N.W.A., and it was the least he could do to shout them out in the 1990s, when it was controversial. Mark Davis embracing Ice Cube in the racial climate we live in now in Las Vegas is a little too late.
It’s about time that all NFL franchises respect and promote black culture in its many facets, considering the league has been predominantly black for over 60 years. The Davis’ family truly missed a golden opportunity to do so.
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