N.W.A. have started work on their long-awaited reunion album, Not These Niggaz Again, using a mobile recording studio while on the Up In Smoke Tour. "We've started a blueprint process," says Dr. Dre, who left the pioneering gansta rap troupe in 1992 to help form Death Row Records, three years after Ice Cube exited. "We're gonna see how it goes."

"We have a studio bus that just got out here with this whole tour and we're gonna start trying to create some things," Dre continues. "If it starts coming out hot, we'll continue it and finish it."

The reformed N.W.A. -- composed of Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren and Snoop Dogg (subbing for the late Eazy-E) -- all appear on the Up In Smoke Tour, banding together for a one-song finale. So far, the only N.W.A. vet not in the loop is DJ Yella. "DJ Yella's back home. I finally got back in touch with him before the [Up In Smoke] tour started, so he'll be involved," Dre says.

With the lineup in place, the last obstacle is gaining ownership of the N.W.A. name. "I believe Priority Records [owns the name]," says Dre, asserting that there is no impending litigation. "I think that's getting cleared up. Everything's gonna work out."

In keeping with such N.W.A. classics as 1988's "F*** Tha Police" and "Straight Outta Compton," Dre says that "violence" will be Not These Niggaz Again's lyrical topic of choice. The album is tentatively scheduled for a fall 2001 release.

KAREN BLISS
(July 8, 2000)