N.W.A. gold and platinum awards uncovered in B.C. family's storage locker
Bryan Turner was 30 when he signed the rappers to his fledgling L.A. record label
A Canadian record producer who was the first to sign the L.A. gangster rappers N.W.A. is auctioning off a treasure trove of old gold and platinum plaques the family recently uncovered in an old storage locker in Richmond, B.C.
Bryan Turner lived in Vancouver and attended UBC before moving to L.A. and eventually co-founding record label Priority Records. He was 30 at the time, and signed the controversial group when no one else would.
Coming out of nowhere in the late 1980s, the band N.W.A. exploded out of Compton — one of L.A.'s most notorious neighbourhoods at the time — into the mainstream world, jump starting the careers of members like Ice Cube and Dr. Dre.
Their story is the subject of one of the summer's top grossing movies Straight Outta Compton, named after the band's hit song and album.
"They seemed like they were passionate and knew what they wanted to do, it was something completely different than I had ever heard before and I wanted to be part of that," said Turner.
Turner had been handed a cassette tape by N.W.A.'s manager at the time, Jerry Heller. It took several days but eventually Turner pulled it out of a pile of demo tapes and gave it a listen.
"It moved me, it had such an impact on me. I thought it was going to have this kind of impact on others as well."
Turner said it was clear that the music needed to reach a wider audience, because the lyrics reflected the realities of police brutality and racism that had plagued L.A.'s Compton neighbourhood.
"Just the urgency of it, the rawness of it, the reality of it, how the stories were so vivid and something as a Canadian I couldn't relate to."
N.W.A. soon topped the Billboard 100 charts and the album went on to sell three million copies.
"Nobody would have guessed or predicted that it would have crossed over as it did," said Turner.
Plaques sent home to parents
Every time the group and its members' later solo albums hit record sales, Turner would send a record plaque to his parents, George and Muriel Turner, who were living in Richmond.
"My parents were a huge influence on my life. We are a very close family, and I did something that was very out of the ordinary, as you can imagine. I wanted to share that with them, I thought it would be something they would be proud to display on their house," he said.
His parents mounted every single record plaque on their living room wall, and soon the living room walls turned into a hip hop museum.
But after several years, Turner's parents renovated and the plaques came down and were forgotten until a few weeks ago.
Turner's mother passed away last month and his father had passed away five years ago. The family decided to sell their Richmond home.
Turner's nephew, Daniel Cutler was cleaning out the storage locker a few weeks ago when he laid eyes on what would become a treasure trove of rap history.
"I see this sort of group of pile of something and it was covered with blankets, [I] lift it up, and it was stacked perfectly," said Cutler.
Turner's grandfather had meticulously protected each piece in bubble wrap.
After a few weeks of trying to decide what to do with the historic collection, Turner and Cutler decided the pieces of hip hop history should be shown to the public before being auctioned off.
The 30 pieces will be set up at a one-day pop-up gallery at Fortune Sound Club on Saturday, Aug. 29.
Fans will get a chance to bid on the items in a silent auction. Three of the pieces will be available online, and half of the proceeds will go to the YMCA.