"The 31-year-old rapper was diagnosed with AIDS after being hospitalized for breathing troubles three weeks ago. "I would like to turn my own problem into something good that will reach out to all my homeboys and their kin because I want to save (them) before it's too late," Wright said in a statement... The singer did not previously know he was HIV-positive, and does not know how he contracted the disease... Wright admitted to leading a fast life filled with "fancy cars, gorgeous women and good livin'" and he noted that he had fathered seven children with six different women. "Now I'm in the biggest fight of my life, and it ain't easy," he said. N.W.A. released the landmark 1988 album, Straight Outta Compton, a chronicle of inner-city squalor. It sold more than 2 million copies. N.W.A.'s music mixed swatches of previously recorded music - called samples - with rhyming, frequently vulgar lyrics. Few of N.W.A.'s songs could be played on the radio, and yet the band was popular and influential. Followers of "gangsta" rap say the gritty music is steeped in social commentary... A follow-up record, 1991's "N!ggaz4Life," became the first hardcore rap album to hit No. 1 on the charts even though it was banned by a record store chain and seized by the British government. Mostly recently, Wright had been a solo artist (1993's "It's On (Dr. Dre) 187um Killa") and had produced and supervised several other acts, including Above The Law, Bone Thugs N Harmony, and Blood of Abraham. N.W.A. alumni Ice Cube and Dr. Dre went on to become trend-setting and controversial rappers, and the band's angry, rebellious style was imitated by a variety of top rap artists." Eric "Eazy-E" Wright died due to complications from AIDS on March 26, 1995, at age 30.
