N.W.A’s Latest Ghetto Blast Takes Off in Middle America : Album Tops Pop Chart Despite Limited Store Exposure, Less Airplay

N.W.A’s success in reaching the No. 1 spot on the national pop chart with its new “Niggaz4life” album after just two weeks in the stores is remarkable on several levels.

Not only has the album’s controversial language kept it from receiving virtually any radio airplay, but that same stark tone has also kept the album from being sold in discount department stores that account for approximately 15% of annual record sales.

“I’m not surprised by what’s happening,” Jerry Heller, the Los Angeles-based group’s manager, said this week. “N.W.A’s earlier records created demand for this album. Kids were calling for months . . . everyone was anticipating the new record.”

Word of mouth, along with the growing mainstream interest in rap, apparently triggered the wider interest in the new collection--an interest that has made the album a hit well beyond the urban centers that once were rap’s primary market.

“This is a big group, a monstrous act,” said Lew Garrett, vice president of purchasing for the 300-store Camelot chain. “We are mostly in suburban malls, so it’s not primarily an urban audience buying this.”

At Tempo Records in the Crenshaw District of Los Angeles, where rap is generally among the hottest sellers, assistant manager Luther Curtis confirmed Heller’s remarks about a huge advance interest in the album.

“We expected this to be big,” he said. “Kids were asking about it (for months).”

But no one is buying the album at such national chains as K mart, Wal-Mart and Sears. The distribution companies that supply records to these stores are not carrying the N.W.A album, saying that the material isn’t suitable for its clients.

“Most of our accounts are family-oriented,” said an executive at one major rack-jobber firm who wished to be unnamed. “We don’t like to pass up items with sales potential, but we have to support our customers.”

Thanks to the success of such acts as M.C. Hammer and Vanilla Ice, rap albums have been consistently at or near the top of the charts for more than a year now.

But N.W.A’s style of rap is nothing like the generally polite, mainstream sound of those two acts.

The Los Angeles rappers pioneered the controversial “gangsta” rap style that was once accused by an FBI official of encouraging violence against law enforcement officers. As the title suggests, the new album is a brutal, no-holds-barred expression of sex and violence from a ghetto perspective.

While the group’s “Straight Outta Compton” album in 1989 was an underground sensation that sold almost 2 million copies, the sales were spread over several months and the album only registered at No. 37 on the pop charts during its peak sales week.

But one Midwest record and video store chain--like the discount department stores--has also declined to carry the album.

“I don’t carry X-rated videos, and I consider this X-rated music,” said Terry Woodward, president of Owensboro, Kent.-based Waxworks, which has 140 stores, mostly in the Midwest. “I’ve had store managers say that they’re missing a lot of sales, and that our competitors are carrying the album. Obviously, the monetary return is not my guiding force.”

Woodward is dismayed that an album of this nature can reach No. 1, no matter what the odds against it.

“I personally think it’s a black eye on the whole industry,” he said. “I’m not sure what that says about our consumer right now.”

N.W.A member MC Ren takes the opposite view.

“Everybody’s buying it,” he said. “They’re trying to find out about the ghetto. When they listen to the music they understand it. They were curious, now they’re getting the answers.”

The album, which debuted at No. 2 last week and moved to the top spot this week, may have benefited from Billboard’s recent switch to a new electronic system to track sales.

“I suspect that the album’s debut would not have been near as high with the old system,” said Geoff Mayfield, a chart researcher for Billboard. “I still think it would have moved to the top, but I don’t know if it would have done it in two weeks. An artist in any genre with a dedicated audience like N.W.A can make a big splash early.”

How long the album keeps selling at this rate is uncertain. Heller, who is also co-owner of the group’s Ruthless Records company, said that the initial shipment on the N.W.A album was sizable--700,000--but that reorders have brought shipments near the 1-million mark.

A key factor in determining just the album’s eventual sales total will be radio airplay.

A “clean”--or sanitized--version of the song “Alwayz Into Somethin’ ” is being rushed to radio and a video, targeted for MTV, is in the works.

Though the release date for Guns N’ Roses’ two new albums--”Use Your Illusion” I and II--has been pushed back to August, the band is emphasizing material from the albums on its upcoming tour--along with such old favorites as “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” “Paradise City” and “Welcome to the Jungle.”

Reports from Guns N’ Roses’ two shows last weekend in Toronto are that the concerts are running between 2 1/2 and 3 hours with the order of songs changing dramatically each night. Meanwhile, “You Could Be Mine,” a single from one of the new albums, was released to radio on Friday. The song will be featured in the movie “Terminator.” The band, which already has sold out four nights at the Forum next month, comes to the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa on July 25.

RUFFIN MEMORIAL: Stevie Wonder, Dianne Warwick and Gladys Knight are among those scheduled to join actor-director Robert Townsend and the Dells at the Wiltern Theatre tonight in a memorial tribute to former Temptations singer David Ruffin, who died of a drug overdose June 1. The show, which will also feature other cast members of Townsend’s film “The Five Heartbeats,” will be a benefit for Ruffin’s family. Townsend and the Dells play the Celebrity Theatre in Anaheim Sunday night.