RAP WARS: Los Angeles rappers N.W.A. may...

RAP WARS: Los Angeles rappers N.W.A. may have sworn at the police in the title of their most infamous song, but the group turned to authorities themselves--at least lawyers--to deal with the language of another rap record. It’s the latest flare-up in the no-holds-barred verbal war between the West and East Coast hip-hop nations.

Publicly, N.W.A. had adopted an unconcerned, “no comment” posture in recent months toward the aggressive “dis” (insult) leveled at the group by East Coast rapper Tim Dog in “(Expletive) Compton,” a track on his 1991 “Penicillin on Wax” album. As N.W.A.’s Priority Record publicist put it at one point, Tim Dog was “beneath them.”

In the track, Tim Dog took on N.W.A. for both its “gangsta” image and for member Dr. Dre’s assault of “Pump It Up” host Dee Barnes at a party.

Pop Eye has learned, however, that the group had privately threatened a lawsuit against Tim Dog, ostensibly because of copyright infringement resulting from East Coast rapper’s use a sample of one of N.W.A.’s songs (“Prelude”) in another album track titled “Step to Me.”

But Tim Dog claims the real problem was that N.W.A. was irate because of the “(Expletive) Compton” put-down of the group. At any rate, the matter was finally settled quietly last week, according to a spokesman for Tim Dog. The rapper reportedly paid N.W.A. an undisclosed amount and agreed to drop the N.W.A. sample from future copies of the album.

“I knew they would take it to the court system because I knew they were soft,” Tim Dog said in a statement released by his publicist. “Instead of taking it to the street, like they claim they always do, they run to the courts and the police. I thought they said ‘(Expletive) tha Police.’ This lawsuit exposes them for the joke they are, and if anybody appreciates real rap, they would never buy an N.W.A. album. They actually make it easier for me to explain why I dis Compton rappers. They are a disgrace to their own city.”

Ira Selsky, N.W.A.’s attorney, responded to Tim Dog’s claim by saying that it was a straightforward copyright case, though he added, “The dissing certainly caused the price to go up.”