Director Chris Fisher wanted to convey a sense of Los Angeles being a dry, desolate place where people aren't supposed to live, which was a challenge since shooting took place during early 2005, one of the rainiest seasons in Los Angeles history.
Armando Sancho and Salim Adel were based on real people.
At around 31m25s Salim and Armando are having a conversation in the car. At one point Salim says; "Hoes gotta eat too." That same line is said by Doughboy in Boyz N the Hood (1991) at the bbq, which Cuba Gooding Jr also starred in alongside Ice Cube as cousins.
The game that the drug-dealing white "jokers", that according to Baine doesn't fit the profile, is playing when Sancho and Adel busts through the door is Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004), a game in which actor Clifton Collins Jr. (Sancho) does one of the main characters voices.
For fear of lawsuits, the studio discouraged the filmmakers from shooting at many Los Angeles landmarks, or at least making them recognizable.