Straight Outta LA

I watched an ESPN 30/30 documentary Straight Outta LA, directed by Ice Cube that did an excellent job of putting the significance of the Los Angeles Raiders franchise history into the context of the economics, politics, entertainment and race relations going on in Los Angeles and area at the time.

Ice Cube talked to many players from the era (Howie Long, Marcus Allen, etc.), as well as Al Davis himself, and wonderfully captured the connection that the franchise - particularly in its LA days - shares with the people of Los Angeles, especially those of the hip hop demographic.

Watch it here:



As Ice Cube said himself (paraphrase): "you don't have to like football, and you don't have to like rap. But, you'll appreciate this story, because it's what happened."

As we will continue to contend here at D&D's Sports Talk, sports encompasses all the best things of the human experience, and all the worst things of the human experience; sports is a microcosm of the human experience. Sports is economics, sports is politics, sports is business, sports is medicine, sports is triumph and tragedy, sports is race, sports can empower, and sports can destroy, sports can humble, and sports can puff up...sports is life.