Straight Outta Compton

The Straight Outta Compton cover was shot from the ground up. The members of N.W.A crowd around the lens and stare down at it, and one of them points a gun straight at the viewer, so the person holding the record is placed in the position of a victim.

Photographer Ithaka Darin Pappas took the picture on 11 November 1988 in his studio apartment in Los Angeles' Miracle Mile district, and he calls it "The Miracle Mile Shot." The album credits name Eric Poppleton for photography, and Helane Freeman handled art direction. Arabian Prince appears on the cover even though he had left the group by the time the record came out.

The photograph took on a life of its own. It ran on the cover of The Source in May 1989, was reused for the 2015 documentary Kings of Compton, hung in a 2017 exhibition at the Musée d'art contemporain de Marseille, and served as the backdrop when N.W.A was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2016.