How did I know the Raiders were cool? When all the breakdancers in my school – which was in suburban Chicago, far from the Raiders’ then-L.A. home – started wearing the team’s distinctive silver and black, pirate-themed gear. Ice Cube apparently seems to agree – he’s made a documentary about his Raider love for ESPN called “Straight Outta L.A.” As he told the Los Angeles Times, the appeal of the renegade football team was their rebellious image on the playing field. “The Raiders had a cast of characters that looked like a gang of pirates,” the veteran rapper/director is quoted. “Any kind of outlaw mentality we loved. It wasn’t that they were bad. They just played by their own rules.”

Ice Cube actually helped popularize the Raiders as a member of NWA: the iconic rap group would wear the team’s hats and shirts almost as an extension of themselves, using the Raiders’ bad boy image send a message about NWA’s own rough and tumble approach. Actually, Cube’s rap career dovetails explicitly with the film: the title evokes NWA’s classic breakthrough album “Straight Outta Compton,” and he even wrote a rap track, “Raider Nation,” to go with it (sample lyric: “You’re in the black hole with the black beast . . . This ain’t black gold, this is black silver. Commitment to excellence we deliver.”) It’s clear from his statements and actions that “Straight Outta L.A.” is a true labor of love – he could’ve made another popcorn flick, or the expected gangster rap record, but he chose to do this (“Straight Outta L.A.” is part of an ESPN series where established directors – John Singleton, Barry Levinson – make documentaries on sports about subjects that are dear to their heart). Most of all, we’re excited because we know Ice Cube can translate the Raiders’ explosive, unpredictable essence onto film in the same way his best rhymes still shock and startle. As Dan Durbin, a USC professor, said in the L.A. Times piece, said of the team’s trademark style, “If they didn’t cheat, they came damn close to it. But the other thing was, they were an excellent team.”