Dr. Dre and members of N.W.A, circa 1988, at Audio Achievements in Torrance while they were recording Straight Outta Compton. Ice Cube is notably absent. He was studying architectural drafting in Phoenix around this period, though I can't remember whether that was the reason he wasn’t there that day. The group had just returned from a gun shop and began unboxing their purchases in the studio. They asked me to photograph them with the weapons. I was the only photographer there along with doc filmmaker Matty McDaniel. One photograph from the session appeared in The LA Informer, a 3-4 issue 'zine I published with my friend Paul Stewart. The rest remained largely unseen. Years later, the USPS destroyed the negatives while they were being shipped from storage in Miami to New York. Only a few prints and one proof sheet survived. A single copy of the 'zine, replete with typos, is in my personal archives. I’ve been looking at these again this week. What stays with me is how close the whole record of this shoot came to disappearing.