I’m mustering the nerve to ask Dr. Dre and Ice Cube about the slaying that happened during the shooting of a Straight Outta Compton trailer — about the day in January when Suge Knight turned up on the set and allegedly plowed his pickup truck over two men, including a technical adviser on the film — when the lights go out.

We’re in a photo studio in Hollywood in mid-July, a month before the release of Universal’s $29 million movie telling the (mostly) true story of N.W.A, the groundbreaking hip-hop group that Dre, Cube and three other rappers — Eazy-E, MC Ren and DJ Yella — formed during the 1980s. Dre, now 50, is sitting on a comfy sofa, fussing with the cuffs of his designer jeans. Thirty years ago, he was producing N.W.A’s signature song, “F— tha Police”; today, he’s a headphones tycoon who lives in Tom Brady‘s former mansion in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles. Cube, now a 46-year-old comic action actor-producer (Ride Along, 21 Jump Street), is leaning against a wall, sipping a cappuccino with extra sugar. A few others are picking around the Caesar salad with grilled chicken at a snack table when suddenly — wham! — there’s a loud popping sound and the place goes completely dark.

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