As foreshadowed by Ice Cube back in January, all of the surviving members of iconic rap group N.W.A.—plus Eazy-E’s son, Eric Wright Jr./Lil Eazy-E—reunited at Coachella this weekend, making this the first time they had all performed together in almost 30 years. This comes from the Los Angeles Times, which notes that a partial reunion happened during Ice Cube’s set at the first week of Coachella as well, but only MC Ren and DJ Yella showed up that time. Dr. Dre, the usual holdout in these situations, was presumably off doing whatever he normally does when not reuniting with people.
This week started off the same way, with Cube, Ren, and Yella performing “Straight Outta Compton” (the song, not a stage version of the movie) before bringing out Lil Eazy-E and moving onto “Boyz-N-The-Hood” (again, the song). After a while, though, Cube playfully noted “somebody’s missing” and asked if there was “a doctor in the house.” Dre then “emerged from a platform above the stage” and joined the others, bringing N.W.A. back together.
Interestingly, though, the LA Times article suggests that there should be a “slight asterisk” next to this performance, as the group onstage didn’t actually do any N.W.A. songs together. Instead, Dre stuck with a medley of his own songs, eventually exiting the stage with Ren, Yella, and Lil Eazy-E so Cube could finish with a surprise appearance from Kendrick Lamar.
Now the countdown to whenever N.W.A. will get back together and actually perform N.W.A. songs begins.