the LA Times were the first to run the story on it—on June 28, 1991.
The host of a weekly rap TV show filed a $22-million lawsuit Thursday against four members of the top-selling rap group “N.W.A,” contending that one rapper severely beat her at a Hollywood nightclub in January and that the others libeled her.
In the Los Angeles Superior Court suit, Denise (Dee) Barnes, who hosts Fox-TV’s “Pump It Up,” accused Andre Young, who is known in the group as Dr. Dre, of assault and battery and emotional distress. N.W.A members Eric Wright (Eazy-E), Lorenzo Patterson (M.C. Ren) and Antoine Carraby (Yella) are accused of libel, slander and emotional distress.
Young, 26, who could not be reached for comment Thursday, already faces one misdemeanor criminal charge related to the incident. Barnes, 23, is also seeking a restraining order against Young. The alleged beating occurred during a private party on Jan. 27 at Po Na Na Souk, a nightclub on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood.
Then again on July 23, 1991:
“He picked me up by my hair and my ear and smashed my face and body into the wall,” said Dee Barnes, the petite host of a Fox-TV rap show, describing the night that, she claims, rapper Andre Young attacked her in a Hollywood club.
“Next thing I know, I’m down on the ground and he’s kicking me in the ribs and stamping on my fingers. I ran into the women’s bathroom to hide, but he burst through the door and started bashing me in the back of the head.”
The alleged assault, which occurred during a private party on Jan. 27 at the Po Na Na Souk club, has become the center of a $22.7-million lawsuit filed by Barnes, 23, against Young (who goes by the stage name Dr. Dre) and the other three members of the Los Angeles rap group N.W.A.
And Barnes says her suit–which accuses Young of “assault and battery” and other N.W.A members with “libel, slander and infliction of emotional distress”–is at its core about the close relationship between N.W.A’s misogynistic lyrics and violent crimes against women.
Fast forward.
Well as you may very well know by now, NWAs biopic Straight Outta Compton just
