You can’t watch Straight Outta Compton in Compton

Troubled city still doesn't have a multiplex

(Getty)

While interviewing Dr. Dre, Kendrick Lamar recently said he hadn’t seen Straight Outta Compton yet because he "didn’t want to go to a preview and see it in a privileged setting.

“I would rather wait for it to come to the neighborhood and see it with everyone else, that way it’ll mean the most to me,” the Compton-born rapper said.

He might be waiting a long time however, as despite the film having already taken more than $50 million at the US box office, none of it came from Compton as it doesn’t currently have a cinema.

"It's a low income area, it's been heavily dis-invested in," Manuel Pastor, a professor of sociology at USC, told CBS Los Angeles. "When you live in a community that doesn't have that kind of retail, it's a sign that the community is devalued and people within the community feel devalued.”

It’s a sign of how little the city’s fortunes have changed, though Dre is seeking to address this by pledging to plough the royalties for his new album that accompanies the film back into an arts centre in Compton for local kids.

Compton City Manager Johnny Ford also said that negotiations are underway to open a 16-screen movie theatre.

The movie was this week criticised for leaving out Dre’s alleged history of violence against women, though its director has insisted this was simply because it didn’t fit the narrative.