Respect The Shooter: Janette Beckman

Dr. Dre

“I was doing my first book called Rap!: Portraits and Lyrics in a Generation of Black Rockers, which I did with Bill Adler. He’s the author, and I did the photos. I’d wanted to go to L.A. to get some of the West Coast beats, and this was around 1990. So I took a trip out there, and I knew I had to get NWA because they’d just come out with the “Fuck The Police” song, and they were really happening. So I found out where they were, they were recording in this studio in Torrance, and I got permission to go over there. I drove over there and you know, they’re freaking recording. They didn’t really have time, but I got the whole group out there. There was a little alley by the side of the studio, so I just wanted to do an individual picture of each one of them. At that point, I was working on a Hasselblad, so you know it’s film and it takes much longer. The whole process is not like a digital quick snap and you’ve got it. So I just had each person find a little spot in this alley, and Dre’s just casually leaning against this wall. I think I took three shots in all to get this and I really love it, because he really looks like he’s just kind of hanging out, you know, as you do in South Central. Then I actually flagged down a police car on the street, and got the whole group to pose in front of a police car. I don’t think the cops knew who the band was, and we just got a couple shots of them posing in front of the police car, which is pretty funny. The end of the story is, Eazy says to me, “Janette, do you want to come in and record something? We’re doing our album and we’d like you to read something on our album.” So I was like, “Oh, okay. I’ll come in!” So I go in there and he gives me this piece of paper, and basically, it’s instructions on how to give a perfect blowjob. I think they liked my English accent or something. So I’m like, “No, I don’t think I can do it. I can’t do it.” It went against my kind of feminist instincts. I was like, “I’m really sorry. I can’t do it.” And frankly, in hindsight, I kind of wish I’d done it now because it would have been really funny. But whatever! That’s the end of the story.”