Oscar Nominated Straight Outta Compton Writer Welcomes Us to Death Row Next

S. Leigh Savidge, screenwriter and co-executive producer of the Straight Outta Compton, arrived late Wednesday night at the hip-hop headquarters of Kingz Graphics Design in Orange. He had been invited to do a podcast interview with Wake The Flok Up on the eve of Oscar nominee announcements the next morning. As it turned out, Savidge's work on the N.W.A. biopic got a bid from the academy for best original screenplay. But the writer might already be plotting a sequel of sorts by returning where it all began. Back in 1998, Savidge began filming the award-winning documentary Welcome to Death Rowabout the notorious west coast gangsta rap label run by Marion "Suge" Knight. The script for Straight Outta Compton hatched from the project. Now with the film's success, Savidge released Welcome To Death Row: The Uncensored Oral History of Death Row Records in the Worlds of Those Who Were There in August 2015. The book goes further in depth than the documentary through more than 60 interviews with key players. From Death Row's start with seed money fronted by convicted drug kingpin Michael Harris to its demise in the wake of Tupac Shakur's death, Savidge's work covers it all. Might make for a great film, no?

Read the interview on my latest OC Weekly Heard Mentality Blog post:

http://www.ocweekly.com/music/oscar-nominated-straight-outta-compton-writer