Gangsta-Lite Compton Ready for Its Close-Up

It can be a letdown for LA Hood Life & Hip Hop Tours customers, passing the Welcome to Compton sign and seeing an ice cream truck, tidy bungalows and the lot where the new Wal-Mart Supercenter’s going up.

“The perception is that Compton is a very decadent, dangerous place where you got guys running around wearing red or blue, with guns and this or that. That’s what they kind of expect to see,” said Hodari Sababu, who runs the tour company, selling $75 tickets from a Hollywood Boulevard kiosk. “It was like that at one time. Now it is a much kinder, gentler place. You can walk through without being accosted, mostly.”