"Fuck the Police" by NWA is one of Hip-Hop's most controversial songs and perhaps NWA's signature. As perhaps the gangsta rap group’s greatest hit, the rap song launched the members of the group — rappers Arabian Prince, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, DJ Yella, and MC Ren — to notoriety.

In Jonathan Abrams' new book, The Come Up an Oral History of the Rise of Hip Hop, he reveals that "Fuck The Police" is the song that almost wasn't.

"I threw the lyrics away at first," Ice Cube said. "Dre said that he didn't wanna do the song. I had rapped it to him a year before we actually did it, and he was going through an issue where he had to go to jail every weekend, Friday night, get out Monday morning. He didn't wanna do the record 'cause he was like, 'Dude, I don't want these sheriffs fuckin me up when they find out that I produced this record when I go in for the weekend.' He had just served like three months or something, so he was like, 'Nah.'"

Cube revealed that it was one of his friends in Arizona who convinced him to salvage the lyrics.

"I'm thinking this song is never gonna get made," Cube said. "I was going to school in Phoenix, Arizona and I was goin' through my lyrics in my rap books and I was bustin' raps to my homeboy Phoenix Phil. I came across "Fuck The Police" and I rapped it to him and he freaked out. When he freaked out, I just tore it out the book, because I didn't wanna keep it if we weren't going to do it. I just balled it up and threw it in the trash, and he was like 'Aw hell no.' He took it out of the trash, opened it back up and spread it across the table and made it flat, and he put it back in the folder part of my notebook."

Cube says that once work started on Straight Outta Compton, he said his "Fuck the Police" rhymes for Eazy, Yella, and Ren. "I told them that I had this song, and Dr' didn't wanna do it, and Eazy said, 'Pull it out. I wanna hear this shit'. I pulled it out and did my verse, and he was like: 'We doing this. We are all gonna write a verse, and we are gonna do this fucking song.' By then, Dre was off of that weekend program, and he was like, 'Fuck it, let's do it. Let's start working on it.'"