Dear Davida,

Sorry for squeezing your hand so tightly at the Gravediggaz concert.

This would have been fall 1997. I was working at Vibe magazine. You had looked me up and given me a call after reading something I wrote—and I was flattered. We hadn’t spoken in a couple years, I don’t think. Not since we’d graduated college. We hadn’t spoken in any substantial way, really, since you’d broken up with me at the end of junior year. Which was okay. We’d only been together for a few months. A nice, easy-going relationship; never very emotional, never a huge big deal. But I was freshly single again when [...]

Twenty years ago this month, N.W.A. were doing good. Songs like "Fuck the Police" and "Gangsta Gangsta" had traveled from the inner-city streets of Southern California to backyard barbecues in white suburban towns. While the group was on a nationwide tour, their album Straight Outta Compton sold its millionth copy. They were making it. But it took the promotional touch of the F.B.I. to really blow them up into megastars.