The Words and Music of Ice Cube (The Praeger Singer-Songwriter Collection)

The Words and Music of Ice Cube

Recent Titles in The Praeger Singer-Songwriter Collection The Sound of Stevie Wonder: His Words and Music James E. Perone The Words and Music of Frank Zappa Kelly F. Lowe The Words and Music of Carole King James E. Perone The Words and Music of Bruce Springsteen Rob Kirkpatrick The Words and Music of Bob Marley David Moskowitz The Words and Music of John Lennon Ben Urish and Ken Bielen The Words and Music of David Bowie James E. Perone The Words and Music of Paul Simon James Bennighof The Words and Music of Prince James E. Perone The Words and Music of Patti Smith Joe Tarr The Words and Music of Neil Young Ken Bielen

THE PRAEGER SINGER-SONGWRITER COLLECTION

The Words and Music of Ice Cube Gail Hilson Woldu

James E. Perone, Series Editor

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Woldu, Gail Hilson. The words and music of Ice Cube / Gail Hilson Woldu. p. cm. — (The Praeger singer-songwriter collection, ISSN 1553–3484) Includes bibliographical references, discography, filmography and index. ISBN 978–0–275–99043–5 (alk. paper) 1. Ice Cube (Musician) 2. Rap musicians—United States— Biography. 3. Motion picture actors and actresses—United States— Biography. 4. Gangsta rap (Music)—Social aspects. I. Title. ML420.I295W66 2008 782.421649092— dc22 2008029550 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2008 by Gail Hilson Woldu All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2008029550 ISBN: 978–0–275–99043–5 ISSN: 1553–3484 First published in 2008 Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.praeger.com Printed in the United States of America

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This book is dedicated to the memory of my father, Robert Collins Hilson (1928–1989), and to my mother, Jacqueline Dixon Hilson

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Contents Series Foreword by James E. Perone

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Acknowledgments

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Introduction: The Reinventions of Ice Cube 1. The Cultural Politics of Gangsta Rap Rap and Race Nihilism for Profit: The Dualism between Rap as Entertainment and Gangsta Rap’s Culture of Violence Gangsta Rap and Censorship 2. Plenty Attitude: The NWA Years, 1988–1990 Niggaz with Attitude Public Outcry against NWA Eazy Duz It —Again and Again Straight Outta Compton

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3. Early Solo Successes: 1990–1993

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Ice Cube’s Style AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted Kill at Will Death Certificate Boyz N the Hood

28 28 33 36 44

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Contents The Predator Lethal Injection Miscellany An Interview with Angela Davis

4. Collaborations and a New Direction: 1994 –1998 Friday Westside Connection—Bow Down Anaconda “We Be Clubbin’ ” War and Peace, Vol. 1 (The War Disc) Interviews, 1994 –1998 5. Actor, Producer, Director, Screenwriter, Lyricist, Rapper: 1999–2007 Three Kings Next Friday War and Peace, Vol. 2 (The Peace Disc) All about the Benjamins Barbershop Friday after Next Westside Connection—Terrorist Threats Barbershop 2: Back in Business Are We There Yet? Laugh Now, Cry Later Are We Done Yet?

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Conclusion

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Discography

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Selected Filmography (1991–2007)

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Notes

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Annotated Bibliography

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Index

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Series Foreword Although the term, Singer-Songwriters, might most frequently be associated with a cadre of musicians of the early 1970s such as Paul Simon, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell, Cat Stevens, and Carole King, the Praeger Singer-Songwriter Collection defines singer-songwriters more broadly, both in terms of style and in terms of time period. The series includes volumes on musicians who have been active from approximately the 1960s through the present. Musicians who write and record in folk, rock, soul, hip-hop, country, and various hybrids of these styles will be represented. Therefore, some of the early 1970s introspective singer-songwriters named above will be included, but not exclusively. What do the individuals included in this series have in common? Some have never collaborated as writers. But, while some have done so, all have written and recorded commercially successful and/or historically important music and lyrics at some point in their careers. The authors who contribute to the series also exhibit diversity. Some are scholars who are trained primarily as musicians, while others have such areas of specialization as American studies, history, sociology, popular culture studies, literature, and rhetoric. The authors share a high level of scholarship, accessibility in their writing, and a true insight into the work of the artists they study. The authors are also focused on the output of their subjects and how it relates to their subject’s biography and the society around them; however, biography in and of itself is not a major focus of the books in this series. Given the diversity of the musicians who are the subject of books in this series, and given the diversity of viewpoint of the authors, volumes in the

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series will differ from book to book. All, however, will be organized chronologically around the compositions and recorded performances of their subjects. All of the books in the series should also serve as listeners’ guides to the music of their subjects, making them companions to the artists’ recorded output. James E. Perone Series Editor

Acknowledgments I am very grateful to many people for their support and advice over the many stages of this project. My students at Trinity College were without question my biggest sources of inspiration and guidance, especially those who were part of my first forays, in the late 1990s, into the world of hip-hop culture. In particular, I thank Trinity alumni Afua Atta-Mensah, Cornell Burnett, Pharoah Cranston, Ashley Hammarth, Ed Jacobs, Tanya Jones, Nell McCarthy, and Rachel Walden, all members of “Current Trends in Black Music Expression,” which was Trinity’s first formally organized class on hip-hop. Thanks, too, to Zee Santiago, a key player in Trinity’s Temple of Hip-Hop, and to Shanice Smith, my research assistant, who helped me organize my messy hiphop files during the summer of 2008. I would also like to thank my colleagues in the College Music Society who, between 1997 and 2004, heard my annual papers on a variety of hip-hop topics and offered feedback and suggestions. Executive director Robby Gunstream and Tod Trimble have been unflagging in their support. In addition, I am grateful for the support and wise counsel of Professor Eileen Hayes of the University of North Texas for her insight into women in rap. Several other colleagues were supportive of this book and my work in contemporary culture in various ways, including Eric Galm of Trinity College; my good friends Andrew Tomasello of Baruch College and Irene Girton of Occidental College, who suffered through many hours of listening to me describe the highs and lows of this project in tedious detail; and Bill Adler, owner of Eyejammie Fine Arts Gallery in New York, who shared with me his

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vast knowledge of hip-hop culture. Thanks, too, to my editor, Dan Harmon of Praeger Books, whose reassurances helped me breathe more easily. My family has been my biggest source of support. I thank my daughters Mary and Lin, who endured, without complaint, the really loud, often profane, music that resonated from my office at home. Finally, I thank my friend and companion of twenty-seven years, my husband, Georgis, without whose constancy, quiet strength, and belief in me I would not have found the peace of mind to carry out this (or any other scholarly) project.

Introduction: The Reinventions of Ice Cube I rap. I produce. I write. I act. I direct. —Ice Cube, 1998 In January 1996, journalist Frank Williams wrote a whimsical piece for The Source called “Hip-Hop Is . . .” in which he defined hip-hop in a series of disjunct descriptors.1 Some are straightforward statements (“Hip-hop is the Black existence”); others are single words (“Hope. Perseverance.”); others still are complex and multilayered, focused on the paradoxes of the genre and the culture (“Hip-hop is tempting sexism and the glorification of a wack state of genocidal abyss” and “Midsummer night fantasies conjured up by ghetto princesses and concrete princes in projects everywhere”).2 Williams cites three men by name, explaining their iconic status in African American culture and linking them to hip-hop’s world: Langston Hughes, Harlem Renaissance poet, novelist, and playwright; Eazy-E; and Ice Cube.3 In Williams’s idealized world, Hughes would come face to face with rappers Das EFX, and Eazy-E’s gravesite would be, like its occupant, a tangible emblem of hip-hop culture. Of the three, the name “Ice Cube” stood alone, in 1996, needing neither qualifier nor explanation; his name alone, in Williams’s eyes, was an unequivocal symbol of hip-hop culture. Two years later, in 1998, journalist Scoop Jackson interviewed Ice Cube for XXL, a hip-hop magazine at that time in its infancy. Jackson asked Ice Cube about his metamorphoses (from gangsta rapper to Hollywood actor, producer, and writer) and pondered whether he “mattered” anymore to

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hip-hop’s audiences.4 Ice Cube’s response—that hip-hop did not define him and that he was comfortable with the range of his professional activity—was important, but less significant than the responses of Darryl James, who was at the time editor of Rap Sheet, and the legendary Chuck D of Public Enemy. James called Ice Cube “the most visible entity for the West Coast” and said, “Asking if Ice Cube still matters to hip hop is like asking if James Brown still matters to black music.”5 Chuck D’s response was even more imperative, for it pointed to the single most noteworthy aspect of Ice Cube’s career: his ability to redefine himself—or, using Chuck D’s words, “his innate ability to reinvent himself ” at critical junctures.6 This book is largely about Ice Cube’s reinventions. From his pivotal recordings with NWA in the late 1980s through his family films of the early 2000s and back again to gangsta rap in 2008, Ice Cube is all about the power of transformation—and, in his case, the ironies, power, and importance of moving forward while looking back. In fact, well-known hip-hop journalist Cheo Hodari Coker addressed these issues in a lengthy article on Ice Cube in XXL called “Return of the Gangsta” (June 2008). Focusing on Ice Cube’s circular path, Coker speaks of Ice Cube’s “hip-hop irrelevancy” through much of the late 1990s and early 2000s, as well as the excitement generated by his upcoming album, Raw Footage, which is alive with politically-conscious rap and recorded on Ice Cube’s own Lench Mob label.7 The album’s first single, “Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It,” also released as a video, is gangsta rap at its best: it lampoons social culture pundits and the media for using gangsta rap as a convenient scapegoat for all of the woes of inner cities, and it calls attention to some of the hottest headline news stories and personalities of the early twenty-first century, among them disgraced radio personality Don Imus, the massacres at Columbine High School and Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and the war in Iraq. The production of this album, Ice Cube’s first since Laugh Now, Cry Later (2006), is particularly remarkable in light of his other work released in 2008, including the film First Sunday, a comedy by Screen Gems. Because I am concerned with exploring the variety of Ice Cube’s work (his films as well as his music), my book centers on key stages in his professional career, beginning in the late 1980s and ending in 2007. In particular, I examine his song texts to uncover a style that is at once unique to Ice Cube and reflective of the social times that he sought to chronicle. As such, this study is from the perspective of the cultural historian—not the biographer—and my primary objective is to discuss the cultural significance of Ice Cube’s work both within and outside the world of hip-hop. While my book is not by any stretch of the imagination a biography of Ice Cube, it contains some amount of commonly known biographical information essential to fully understanding the body of his work. As an example, it is widely known that Ice Cube’s given name is O’Shea Jackson and that he was born on June 15, 1969. It is also useful to know that (1) Ice Cube attended Taft High School in the San

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Fernando Valley, bussed daily from his home in South Central Los Angeles; (2) his neighborhood was a “Crip neighborhood,” and, while he “managed to have some gang friends,” he did so without being a gangbanger himself; and (3) he studied architectural drafting at the Phoenix Institute of Technology in Arizona following his graduation from Taft. Coker points to some of the many contradictions in Ice Cube’s biography and output, writing, “Ice Cube has street credibility as a gangsta rapper. Yet you’d be hard pressed to find a parking ticket on his record. He’s never spent a day in jail in his life. He’s been with the same woman for more than twenty years, married for the last sixteen. Ice Cube makes street music but no longer lives the street life.”8 The book contains five chapters. Chapter 1, “The Cultural Politics of Gangsta Rap,” provides a contextual framework for the chapters focused on the gangsta idiom. I explore the roots of gangsta rap and discuss the music’s popularity and controversies in the chapter’s three sections. Chapter 2, “Plenty Attitude: The NWA Years, 1988 –1990,” looks at Ice Cube’s affiliation with Niggaz With Attitude, the group widely acknowledged to have created gangsta rap. This chapter centers largely on the landmark recording Straight Outta Compton and considers, along the way, the pioneering work of the late Eazy-E. I begin my exploration of Ice Cube’s solo recordings in chapter 3, “Early Solo Successes: 1990–1993,” the longest of the book’s chapters. In addition to discussing AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted, Kill at Will, Death Certificate, The Predator, and Lethal Injection, the five blockbuster recordings from this period, I look at the elements of Ice Cube’s musical and rhetorical style in the early 1990s. This chapter concludes with excerpts from an interview conducted in 1991 between Ice Cube and noted political activist Angela Davis, as well as a brief discussion of Ice Cube’s collaborations with other recording artists. The years 1994–1999 saw Ice Cube establish himself firmly in the world of cinema as an actor, writer, director, and producer. Thus, chapter 4 is appropriately titled “Collaborations and a New Direction: 1994–1998,” to underscore the importance of Ice Cube’s forays into film. The chapter also includes excerpts from several noteworthy interviews: “Generation Rap,” an interview with Ice Cube and poet Abiodun Oyewole of the Last Poets, a maverick pre-rap group of the early 1970s; Rap, Race, and Equality, a documentary that features Ice Cube and a host of hip-hop luminaries, among them Russell Simmons, Ice-T, and Queen Latifah, as well as scholar Tricia Rose and journalist Jon Pareles; “Don of the Westside,” an interview conducted by Selwyn Seyfu Hinds for The Source; and “Bow Down,” an interview by Scoop Jackson for XXL. Chapter 5, “Actor, Producer, Director, Screenwriter, Lyricist, Rapper: 1999–2007,” focuses on a grand buffet of productions in the recording studio and on film and considers Ice Cube’s dual commitments to maintaining his image as a founding father of hardcore rap and his new (and highly successful) image as a family man in mainstream family film. In this light,

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I discuss War and Peace (The Peace Disc) and his long-anticipated solo album Laugh Now, Cry Later, as well as his roles as Calvin in the Barbershop series, his role as marijuana-smoking Craig in the Friday sequels, and his warm and fatherly character Nick in the films Are We There Yet? and Are We Done Yet? The book concludes with an annotated bibliography, a discography, and a filmography. Because Ice Cube moves so fluidly between his personae as a hardcore gangsta rapper and a lovable family film actor, there are inconsistencies and contradictions in my depiction of him. This obfuscation is intentional, both on my part and, I dare say, on the part of Ice Cube, who has been deliberate in blurring the lines between his various roles as an entertainer. Thus, if my book has any single goal, it is to encourage readers to understand the many dimensions of Ice Cube: as gangsta rapper, certainly, but also as motion picture mogul, businessman, and social activist.

1 The Cultural Politics of Gangsta Rap NWA’s Straight Outta Compton was a landmark in hip-hop and popular culture. Released in 1988, the recording brought together five young men— among them rap icons Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, and Ice Cube—whose aggressive, confrontational demeanor and incendiary messages ushered in a new standard, the style of music that became known as “gangsta rap.” These “niggaz with attitude” incited controversy at every turn and consciously appealed to society’s disenfranchised and marginalized elements; in fact, the liner notes to this first recording pay homage to and thank the gangsters, dope dealers, criminals, thieves, vandals, villains, thugs, hoodlums, killers, and hustlers for their support. In addressing the dire issues that confronted many urban dwellers—in particular, young black men—in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the recording sounded a clarion call that alerted the nation to the gang violence, police brutality, and despair that the group’s peers encountered. The story of rap, including gangsta rap and rap’s other subsets, is mercurial. Attributable in large measure to the ephemeral nature of popular music, the kaleidoscope of rap reflects the trendiness and faddism of popular culture. A multitude of cultural historians, politicians, social activists, and, indeed, rap musicians, has commented on the definition, goals, and future of rap. In the campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, candidate Barack Obama told cultural historian Jeff Chang that “rap is reflective of the inner city, with its problems, but also its potential, its energy, its challenges to the status quo.”1 Years earlier, Jon Pareles, a journalist with the New York Times, and Tricia Rose, whose pioneering work, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America, set the standard for hiphop scholarship in the early 1990s, discussed the evolution, significance, and

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vicissitudes of rap in Rap, Race, and Equality, a documentary produced in 1994 that considers rap’s social complexities. Referring to rap as a “symbol of otherness, of blackness, [and] of poverty,” Pareles remarked that the genre, in addition, “has to contend with every stereotype against black culture in America, especially against young blacks.” Far from being a static art form, rap, according to Pareles, is “not a monolith; it’s like a virus that keeps changing.” Rose discussed the function of rap, saying that it is “about grounding,” about saying where someone is from. She also commented at length on the different way black and white audiences understand black culture and, by extension, react to rap: Black culture, when it functions in distinctly black ways . . . alienates a good percentage of white people, by definition. Because I think there is, more often than not, a kind of colonial attitude about black culture, so that when it refuses to interface, as if it is expecting a white subject, then it feels like an aggressive form of alienation. [Those who do not understand rap] take it as a direct offense that there’s an alternative way of speaking, or dressing, or moving that they don’t understand. So, the only way you can be offended is if you assume you’re supposed to have access.2

Ice Cube, who was also interviewed in Rap, Race and Equality, extended Rose’s comments on the function of rap, citing the importance of rap as a vehicle for transmitting collective feelings. In his eyes, rap is “definitely a place where we can get our views out, our anger, our frustration, our protest to a broader audience.” He also cited the importance of black filmmakers such as John Singleton, Matty Rich, and Spike Lee, who, like Ice Cube and other performance artists of his generation, “can give their perspective on what’s going on” to diverse viewers. Rap’s shifting mosaic reflects and is influenced by the ebb and flow of regional and national sociopolitics. Race, as a subject, is at the core of much of this music. During the period of NWA’s heyday and Ice Cube’s first flowering as a solo performer in the late 1980s and early 1990s, print and broadcast media across the country headlined news stories focused on race and black men that became centerpieces in rap: the beating of Rodney King and the acquittals of the policemen charged in the King beating; the O. J. Simpson trial; the Million Man March; and racial profiling. As we might expect, critical response to rap’s representations of these issues has been mixed. Some tout rap’s portrayals as a much-needed infusion of urban reality into popular culture; others, more numerous, dismiss these depictions as hyperbolic and harmful distortions of black culture. For example, while NWA has been credited with providing a social barometer of life in some of America’s urban slums, the group—and gangsta rap in general—is more commonly derogated for its excesses. Journalist Angela Bouwsma, who wrote for The Source in the mid-1990s, censured “the gangsta ethic” for “not [being] about the meaningful act; it is about, fittingly, stroking the ego . . . there’s an ocean

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of difference between trying to educate people about a way of life and systematically exploiting and glorifying it for a check.”3 Others are even more damning in their censure, including folk singer Michelle Shocked. According to John Leland, Shocked “dismissed hard-edged rap as a new species of blackface minstrelsy” and likened “the drug-dealing, Uzi-toting ‘nigga’ of today” to the “chicken-thieving, razor-toting ‘coon’ of the 1890s.”4 Whatever our assessment of rap’s realities and incongruities, we need to understand the sociology of rap and the complex nature of the cultural texts embedded in the music’s lyrics. Only then can we address, with some confidence, the idiosyncratic nature of gangsta rap and Ice Cube’s role as one of the idiom’s foremost performers.

RAP AND RACE The June 29, 1992, issue of Newsweek magazine contains a provocative article entitled “Rap and Race,” whose opening photo spread is of NWA holding assault weapons; a scowling Ice Cube appears as an inset. The seven-page article, which cites a variety of popular culture luminaries and notables—among them rap publicist Bill Adler, musician Quincy Jones, rapper Dr. Dre, and rap promoter Bill Stephney—opens by claiming that “race and our racial divisions have become the rhetorical center of pop music” and that pop music has become “our most pointed metaphor for volatile racial polarization.”5 The author points to similarities between rap and rock and roll and states that in 1992, an election year, “pop music careered into national politics. And it did so as a stand-in for an inconvenient topic that had been looming over the [presidential] campaign all along: race.”6 It was impossible, in 1992, to ignore race and the intersections between popular culture and race—or, if we understand rap to be the most dominant form of popular culture in the early 1990s, the confluence between rap and race— because it was an inescapable fixture in our daily lives. News magazines such as Time and Newsweek, as well as Rolling Stone, The Source, and Vibe, featured hip-hop’s images and icons on their front covers and crowded the racks at supermarkets, convenience stores, and gas stations across the country. In June 1992, truculent, finger-pointing Sister Souljah of Public Enemy graced the cover of Newsweek; a year later, in November 1993, Snoop Dogg was the magazine’s cover boy for an article called “When Is Rap 2 Violent?” Six years later, in February 1999, Time magazine’s lead story proclaimed a “hip hop nation” and showcased rap and fusion musician Lauryn Hill on the cover. In many respects, rap was the catalyst for provoking national discussion about race and class in the aftermath of the civil rights movements and struggles of the 1960s. If there was little remarkable difference in the social issues addressed between 1960 and 1990—racial equality and respect were at the heart of both—the musical means of calling attention to the desiderata

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were monumental. Songs derived from black religious music and folk music, with their emphasis on group participation and acclamation, were the core of much of the best-known music of the struggles of the 1960s. With titles like “We Shall Overcome,” “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ’Round,” and “Blowin’ in the Wind,” this music inspired the masses, black and white, to question the status quo and to seek out social reform. By contrast, the music that became the rallying cries of black urban youth in the 1990s was markedly more confrontational and sought less to solicit consensual approbation than to identify and lash out against proponents of social injustices. There is a palpable urgency and anger in the rhythms and texts of this music that was hitherto unheard. The titles alone command our attention and point to their centeredness on race: Public Enemy’s “Fear of a Black Planet,” NWA’s “Niggaz 4 Life” (written as “Efil4Zaggin”), and, certainly, Ice Cube’s “The Wrong Nigga to Fuck Wit” and “The Nigga Ya Love to Hate.” What all of this points to was a national obsession with race in the final decades of the twentieth century. In fact, in the eyes of cultural historian Leland, whereas “the heart of the culture in the ’60s was a fascination with youth, the heart now is a fascination with race. Race has replaced the generation gap as the determining force not just in what music says and sounds like, but in how it is promoted and what it means to different listeners.”7 Feminist author and cultural critic bell hooks argued this point one step further, affirming in 1996 that “Blackness is one of the hottest commodities, whether we’re talking about Black public intellectuals or whatever.”8 Indeed, if discussion of race in the 1990s, with rap as its primary vehicle, was financially very profitable, we need to explore just what made this so by looking at rap’s various cohort and fan groups and considering the marketing of rap to these varied audiences. It is tempting to accept virtually all of the explanations offered by rap’s rainbow of commentators. Musician Quincy Jones contended that black men who rapped in the early 1990s were “speaking the truth at the most dramatic and theatrical level”; Dr. Dre proclaimed that rap marketed black culture to white people; and Bill Stephney asserted that rap made a conscious effort to be as hardcore as possible to appeal to white audiences who expected rebellion and aggression from young black rappers.9 According to Leland, “the harder the music got, the more white audiences bought in.”10 Ironically, some of the messages recorded by rap’s “hardest” performers issued from the mouths of those born outside the hardscrabble communities sung about in the music. Most of the members of Public Enemy, for example, grew up in a middle-class suburb of Long Island, yet everything about the group, from its stage persona to its sound and lyrics, was marketed as the rage and aggression of inner-city youth. The creation of these “racial warriors,” who “dramatized racial conflict” and threatened white audiences, was an intentional marketing strategy, according to Stephney, co-founder of the group:

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Forget about watering down. I think there’s dehydration. Not only are we not going to add water, we’re going to take water out. In many respects, that was done on purpose . . . to curry favor with a white audience by showing rebellion. [As a result] an orthodoxy developed of certain politics you can have, a certain look, a certain way that you refer to women, to whites, to homosexuals, a certain way that you comport yourself—all based on macho aggression.11

This is reflected clearly in the texts of two of Public Enemy’s best-known recordings, “Fight the Power” and “Fear of a Black Planet.” Both were recorded in 1989, both center on race, and both contain driving, pulsating rhythms that accentuate the mordant lyrics. In the first, which was part of the soundtrack to Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989), listeners are exhorted to rail against all social inequities, especially those based on race. The most powerful and dramatic lines castigate the iconic adulation of American “heroes” Elvis Presley and John Wayne: “straight up racist that sucker [Elvis] was . . . mother fuck him and John Wayne.” The group’s “Fear of a Black Planet” is about interracial sexual alliances and white people’s fears that these partnerships might lead to a “browning” of the world’s inhabitants. Although the message addresses racial fears worldwide, the immediate target group is white Americans: “She’s a woman, I’m a man. But . . . ya can’t stand it.” Equally forceful and caustic lyrics are found in Public Enemy’s “Revolutionary Generation,” also recorded in 1989. Here, the group decries racism in the United States, citing in particular the mistreatment of black women and calling on young people to realize a social revolution that acknowledges and rectifies past wrongs.

NIHILISM FOR PROFIT: THE DUALISM BETWEEN RAP AS ENTERTAINMENT AND GANGSTA RAP’S CULTURE OF VIOLENCE Leland winds down his discussion in Newsweek on rap and race by stating that “rap is locating white insecurity about race and black insecurity about class—and selling it back as entertainment.”12 This is a powerful statement. Through it, Leland hints at a “white fetish for the most extreme rap,” and he reminds of us that rap is “the most extreme measure of the division between the races.”13 More important, though, is the statement that rap is being sold as entertainment. Virtually everyone who has written on rap—from academicians whose scholarly work focuses on hip-hop culture, to dilettantes with a curious interest in hip-hop’s lifestyle, to self-professed “hip-hop heads”— acknowledges that, at some level, rap, like most forms of popular culture, is fundamentally a form of entertainment. Some, like cultural critic hooks, advise us to “distinguish between rap as creativity and the rap that makes tons of money that mass white culture really listens to. The white corporate structures that market rap are mostly interested in the quick fix, which tends to

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be the lowest thing.”14 Others, like journalist Lorraine Ali, urge us to “decipher what the dividing line is between true artistic value and provocative schlock.”15 Others still, including journalist Christopher John Farley, argue that “hip hop is perhaps the only art form that celebrates capitalism openly. Rap’s unabashed materialism distinguishes it sharply from some of the dominant musical genres of the past century.”16 For many Americans, the image most often associated with the gangsta rapper is that of a foul-mouthed, woman-hating, gun-toting thug who is hell-bent on killing off his own kind. Indeed, according to cultural historian Murray Forman, “the very term ‘gangsta rap’ is more concretely concerned with the articulation of criminality than with any other attributes that may emerge from its lyrical and visual texts.”17 We find references to the nihilistic tendencies of urban, black men between the ages of 18 and 30 in article after article, assessment upon assessment of rap—and, in particular, of gangsta rap—in the early to the mid-1990s. We learn of the young men’s proclivity for acts of violence, their patent disregard for symbols of authority, and their wanton abandonment of rules and laws. The images, both implicit and tacit, of gangsta rapper as gangbanger were as ubiquitous throughout the 1990s as were those of Motown’s bewigged and bejeweled Supremes as “dreamgirls” in the 1960s. So omnipresent, in fact, were these gangsta images that true aficionados of hip-hop culture and gangsta rap, the culture’s most controversial subgenre, frequently questioned whether the images were more conceit than reality. On the one hand, skeptics were convinced that gangsta rappers and the marketers of gangsta rap had “found a pot of gold in selling images of blackon-black crime to mainstream America.”18 By contrast, fans and true believers were more likely to be convinced that gangsta rap’s images were accurate depictions of life in many of America’s most desperate communities. To speak of gangsta rap’s “culture of violence,” as Leland did in the title of an article written in 1993, acknowledges, at the least, some presence of a criminal element in the genre. This is validated by reams of statistics from the late 1980s and early 1990s that detail the arrest records of rappers and industry executives, including, among others, Death Row co-founder Suge Knight, Snoop Dogg, Nas, and Tupac. Other national statistics—including those that compare the numbers of black and white victims of violent crime and homicide between 1989 and 1992—are startling. In 1991, for example, 159 black males but only 17 white males under the age of 24 were victims of homicide; in the age group 25 to 34, the numbers were 125 black men and 16 white men.19 Numbers alone, of course, never tell the complete story, yet in many respects these statistics reflect the attitudes and social mores of the “profoundly nihilistic teenagers” who in the early 1990s “turned the nation’s ghettos into free-fire zones” and who terrorized inner cities “as ruthlessly as the KKK ever terrorized the South.”20 Sociologist Elijah Anderson referred to this behavior as “the oppositional culture” of the streets, with its “own code of behavior, based on gangsta bravado and gangsta respect [that] subverts

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the values of hope, work, love, and civility, [as it] condones and romanticizes violence.”21 The romanticization of violence is seen in part in this subculture’s obsession with guns. Cultural critic and writer Nelson George has said that the guns that are sometimes used as fashion accessories in contemporary popular culture “have always been a part of America as sort of a style thing.”22 One of the most famous “gangsta photographs” is of Tupac sporting a handgun necklace; Ice-T often posed and performed with a fist wrapped around an Uzi; rappers Scarface and Mobb Deep were often photographed with assault weapons; and other rappers, including Smif-n-Wessun and Mack 10, named themselves after guns. Part of this culture of violence and the nihilism that it either begat or influenced can be linked to the powerful gangs on the West and East coasts. Stories abound—some true, others apocryphal—of rappers’ connections to these gangs, among which, most notably, are those of Ice-T’s links to the Crips and of Suge Knight’s alleged ties to the Bloods. Although Ice-T was never a hardcore member of the Crips, he was among the first rappers to realize that a consumer market existed for the romantic appeal attached to rap and the gangsta lifestyle. He quickly and easily developed a national reputation as the hardest rapper in the business in the early 1990s, the result in large measure of his business savvy and knowing that having his picture taken in front of graffiti-spattered walls in Compton would earn him the street credibility that an unsavvy, largely suburban fan base would willingly embrace. His experiences as a gang member at Crenshaw High attest to the ubiquity and influence of gangs in South Central Los Angeles in the 1980s: If you went to Crenshaw High School, you was Cripping and that’s just point blank. It was pretty much run by Crips, and there was no way you could really go to that school without being affiliated with the gang. You kind of had to be down or you’d be an outcast and victimized by other people.23

Ice-T also reveals the extent of gang members’ commitment to their gangs and members’ fatalist mentality: The whole street mentality is like “Fuck it, I’m gonna die anyway, and I don’t got nothing really going.” Once you’ve been involved with gangs, it’s for life. It’s not like something you can totally ever really get away from you. People die. It’s not like a club; thousands of people have died on each side of the gang scene, so it’s more real than you can possibly imagine. . . . And when you’ve got groups of men who not only endure murder, but murder together in retaliation, then you’ve got a bond for life.24

The loyalty pledged by and demanded of members—that is, the specific deeds required to elevate one’s status through the ranks from initiate all the way to OG (original gangster)—resulted in Los Angeles’s having the highest homicide rate among cities in the United States between 1985 and 1989. In

8

The Words and Music of Ice Cube

this, according to The Source journalist Allen S. Gordon, “unlike the previous wars on California soil, Crips and Bloods weren’t fighting for land or gold, but for a perverted perception of respect.”25 The role of gangsta rappers in all of this is duplicitous. To be certain, several high-profile rappers, gangsta and otherwise, have affirmed a lifestyle consistent with gang life. Even this knowledge, however, does not negotiate satisfactorily the fine line between nihilism for profit (that is, gangsta lifestyle as entertainment) and gangsta rap as a bona fide slice of life. In other words, when it comes to the lyrics and messages of gangsta rap, does art really imitate life, or are the messages espoused in much gangsta rap between 1988 and 1998 merely conceits of the genre—or, to use street vernacular, were rap’s most notorious gangsta rappers simply “fronting” for a consumer base all too eager to indulge in puerile fantasies of guns and “bitches”? A look at the lyrics of two songs written or co-written by Ice Cube and recorded in the late 1980s and early 1990s will help in our understanding. We find core components that define much of early gangsta rap in “Gangsta, Gangsta” and “A Gangsta’s Fairytale,” both written or co-written by Ice Cube. The use of the words “nigga,” “motherfucker,” and “bitch,” and the themes of guns, violent acts, and money are omnipresent in each. In the first verse of “Gangsta, Gangsta,” we learn the following about the song’s subject: (1) he’s a “crazy motherfucker” who, by his own admission, should not have been released from prison; (2) his life’s calling is “taking a life or two”; (3) he scoffs at the idea of being a role model; and (4) his life is all about “bitches” and money. Verse two, in which the word “nigga” or “niggas” is used six times, is centered on gun violence that results in NWA’s being wanted for homicide. Ice Cube begins “A Gangsta’s Fairytale” in the familiar “once upon a time” manner characteristic of most fairy tales, but he tells us at once that his tale takes place in the black part of the city. His young sidekick, a boy of perhaps seven or eight years, cajoles Ice Cube into centering his tale on “some shit about the kids . . . the fuckin’ kids.” Although childhood favorites Humpty Dumpty, Cinderella, Mister Rogers, and Little Boy Blue are the key characters in this piece, there is little that is charming, likable, or warm and fuzzy about any of these figures in Ice Cube’s depiction: Humpty Dumpty is shot dead with an Uzi as he is getting high; Cinderella is a whore who has been plying her trade since she was 12; Mister Rogers is always watching his back; and Little Boy Blue is a big troublemaker. Without question, the most significant lyrics are found in the chorus of “Gangsta, Gangsta.” With the words “it’s not about a salary, it’s all about reality,” a sample from a song by rapper KRS-One, we are reminded of NWA’s mission as self-professed chroniclers of a certain lifestyle in South Central Los Angeles. And here is the rub: are we to believe the “reality” of messages, or are we wiser to acknowledge that whatever truths might exist in the lyrics, the bottom line, in fact, is money? If we believe the former, we

The Cultural Politics of Gangsta Rap

9

accept NWA’s vision of street life in their neighborhoods; that is, we accept as truth the egregious disregard for authority, the rampant drug use, and the obsession with guns—in short, the nihilistic behaviors—portrayed in their music because we believe that NWA is reporting life as it really is. By contrast, if we incline toward the latter, we understand that these street “realities” are distorted and exaggerated, often at the behest of recording executives, to increase the music’s value as entertainment and appeal to consumers who are wont to fantasize about so-called gangsta behaviors.

GANGSTA RAP

AND

CENSORSHIP

The issues of gangsta rap as entertainment and the thorny problem of separating reality from truth in this music are also central to discussions of rap and censorship. Although the question “how did we get to a point where ‘art’ became a code word for money?” envelops some arguments on gangsta rap and censorship, most conversations focus on the music’s language, which has commonly been condemned as profane, vulgar, and misogynist.26 Not surprisingly, the cultural critics who have written voluminously about gangsta rap are divided into at least two camps: those who argue in favor of the performers’ and recording companies’ right to record and produce “obscene” material and those who disavow these rights. In the first camp is noted essayist bell hooks, who contends that “there is a place for vulgarity in creativity” and points to the historical politicization of black vernacular: “I think Black vernacular has been politicized language from the get go. Rap simply took it to another level because it used so much obscenity in ways that were unsettling to the larger society.”27 Henry Louis Gates, Jr., director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University, defends rap’s language similarly. In his defense of 2 Live Crew’s controversial album As Nasty As They Wanna Be, Gates suggests that those quick to condemn the group’s obscene language would be wise first to become “literate in the vernacular traditions of African Americans.”28 Gates contends that the group’s “exuberant use of hyperbole (e.g. phantasmagoric sexual organs) undermines—for anyone fluent in black cultural codes—a too literal-minded hearing of the lyrics.”29 He goes on to explain—and to justify—the group’s “obscenity” in terms of these codes, foremost among which are signifying and playing the dozens. Whether or not we agree with Gates’s traditions-rooted defense, the discussion of hyperbole and its roots in African American street culture and literature is significant, as it affirms a continuum between contemporary street parody and centuries-old West African traditions. More to the point, however, is hooks’s defense of street vernacular in creative expression: “in thinking about African American creativity and rap in particular, the question becomes how important is it to protect street language, even when it has obscenities within it which some people find problematic?”30

10

The Words and Music of Ice Cube

The arguments of hooks and Gates are reified in As Nasty As They Wanna Be. Banned from sale in Florida in March 1990, the recording, taken as a whole, was deemed illegal under Florida law on the basis of its obscene content. Within seven days of the ruling issued by the sheriff of Broward County and a Broward County circuit judge, retail stores in the area had stopped selling the album. Although Skywalker Records, 2 Live Crew’s label, contested the ruling and the consequent suppression of album sales, “the crusade against rap music did not abate,” and the conflict “moved from threats to criminal prosecution.”31 More important than either the ruling in Florida or the countercharges by Skywalker Records were the debates that ensued. The recording’s prurient nature—which the Supreme Court has defined as “material having a tendency to excite lustful thoughts”—sparked a national debate on free speech and asked in particular whether obscene speech is protected under the First Amendment.32 With its graphic references to male and female genitalia, explicit descriptions of sexual acts, moaning, and other sounds associated with having sex, the recording was judged to appeal to “dirty” thoughts and to neither the intellect nor the mind. In a debate on the CNN show “Crossfire,” co-host Michael Kinsley argued that adults have the right to purchase a dirty record album and defended record stores’ right to offer these for sale; by contrast, guest Pat Buchanan, a right-wing conservative, rebuked 2 Live Crew for “cramming six hundred dirty, sexy, obscene, or filthy words into one album.”33 Among the most vocal opponents of 2 Live Crew and gangsta rap in general were social activist C. Delores Tucker and the National Political Congress of Black Women (NPCBW), an organization Tucker founded in 1984 and chaired until her death, in 2005. Tucker waged a public campaign against all gangsta rap, soliciting the cooperation of former Republican senator Robert Dole and Republican activist and former Secretary of Education William Bennett in the early 1990s. Chief among Tucker’s objections were the aspects of the music “that contributed to America’s demeaning portrayals of Black women as society’s bitches and hoes, and [those that] recreate images of Black on Black male homicide—all as entertainment.”34 In an effort to reverse these stereotypical depictions in the media, she and the NPCBW exhorted all gangsta rappers and the genre’s recording executives to discontinue writing, performing, and promoting misogynist, sexist, and pornographic lyrics. The best-known and most controversial song in As Nasty As They Wanna Be, “Me So Horny,” became the centerfold for discourse on censorship and rap. The piece begins with a sample, interwoven throughout the rap, from the movie Full Metal Jacket (1987), in which a Vietnamese prostitute tells a prospective client “Me so horny. Me love you long time.” From there, the group sings “I’m like a dog in heat, a freak without warning.” A variety of pornographic descriptions of sex acts follows, all accompanied by vulgar language. Among the scores of academicians, record executives, and artists,

The Cultural Politics of Gangsta Rap

11

politicians, and public officials who participated in the debates around “Me So Horny,” the following are especially significant. 2 Live Crew member Luther Campbell (aka Luke Skywalker) defended his right to write and perform songs “that are purely for adult entertainment,” likened the persecution of rap music and musicians to the return of the Salem witch hunts, and argued that the music of 2 Live Crew, a “comedy group,” is “nothing but a group of fellas bragging.”35 Ice Cube rallied to 2 Live Crew’s defense, contending, “If they succeed in banning 2 Live Crew, they’ll go after other rappers, and later other kinds of musicians or artists that someone happens to find ‘offensive.’ They’ve opened the door with 2 Live Crew. I’d like to see it shut right back in their damn faces.”36 NWA’s second album, Efil 4 Zaggin (“Niggaz 4 Life” backwards), has its own interesting saga in the annals of censored rap. Released early in June 1991, the album was seized from a distribution depot near London by officers of Britain’s Obscene Publications Squad. Scotland Yard, headquarters of London’s metropolitan police service, was in turn asked to submit a report to the Crown Prosecution Service to determine whether the album—cited for its violent imagery, foul language, and misogyny—should be prosecuted under Britain’s obscenity laws. The album’s confiscation was reported in a variety of British popular culture magazines throughout June 1991 and cleverly in lampooned in the June 15, 1991, edition of New Musical Express in an article called “Niggers without Albums.” Critic Michael Leonard described the album’s songs as “pitiful aural dramas ” and lamented the cartoonish character of the group’s “reality” messages: “But like the boy who cried wolf, NWA are the ‘gangstas’ who swear and shoot ‘bitches’ too often, and you end up ignoring them—it’s like some sort of ‘gangsta’ cartoon. . . . Real life? Well, maybe—but is this stuff sanctioned merely because NWA happen to be Blacks from South Central LA?”37 An even more cynical stance was taken by Richard Slater, who wrote that “the only guarantee about this is that NWA will make stacks of cash. Whether they are good, bad, or indifferent matters not a jot. They have employed a cheap trick which has worked. . . . All they are doing is tapping a market hungry for some form of controlled controversy and rebellion. Rock music has been doing it since the era began.”38 An article in Blues & Soul reported a similar assessment of NWA’s motives in recording such an obscene album and criticized the group for “merely doing it to get rich, knowing full well that if they just made an ordinary rap album they would never be so popular and famous.”39 Backlash in the United States was manifest primarily in critics’ assaults and public outrage. Critics who lauded Straight Outta Compton were hard pressed to find redeeming qualities in Efil 4 Zaggin, whose songs center on murder and gang rape. And where the group’s debut album was applauded for its bold and important social statements, this one was panned for its tedious, gratuitous, and uninteresting use of four-letter words and puerile references to sexual acts. “Findum, Fuckum & Flee” is just plain silly, more reminiscent

12

The Words and Music of Ice Cube

of a gathering of pubescent boys regaling each other in crude sexual fantasies than of the angry exhortations one would expect of hardcore, nihilistic gangsta rappers. Other titles, including “One Less Bitch,” “I’d Rather Fuck You,” and “To Kill a Hooker” are equally sophomoric, with uninspired lyrics constructed around predictable profanity, oral sex, and acts of sexual violence. Hip-hop journalist dream hampton castigated NWA and the unimaginative recordings on Efil 4 Zaggin in a review for The Village Voice called “Niggaz, Pleaze. . . .” From the featured photo of NWA bearing the caption “four punk-ass mothafuckas” to her ad hominem assaults on the group’s members, the disdain is crystal clear: “I want to tell them if it were up to me, we would never hear from NWA again. Like all Black nationalists, I wish NWA would cease to be backward misogynist roadblocks to revolution.”40 By far the most notorious of censored and controversial rap was Ice-T’s “Cop Killer,” released in 1992. Although this recording does not belong to any species of rap music, gangsta or otherwise (musically, it is best classified as heavy metal), its performance by outspoken gangsta rapper Ice-T and his rock band, Body Count, made it an easy target for anti-rap activists. A hodgepodge of national public officials, associations, private citizens, and cultural critics voiced opinions about the song, among them Iran-Contra conspirator Oliver North, the National Rifle Association, former U.S. vice president Dan Quayle, and numerous police and sheriffs’ organizations. Here, the issue was neither misogyny nor obscenity but the assumed sanctioning of violent acts toward police officers. Indeed, the NRA, Quayle, and the attorney general of California considered the recording an explicit call to kill police officers and demanded that it be withdrawn from circulation. Although North and his supporters did not succeed in prosecuting Ice-T or charging his recording company, Time Warner, with sedition, they did succeed in suppressing Body Count, the album in which “Cop Killer” appears. Nonetheless, the fallout for Time Warner and Ice-T was considerable: death threats were sent to the recording company’s executives, Time Warner released Ice-T’s band from its contract, and “Cop Killer” was withdrawn from the album. Although “Cop Killer” has become known best for eliciting a swirl of debate on the First Amendment, in 1992 it was more media-significant for the attention it focused on police abuses—in particular the Rodney King beating, which occurred shortly after the release of “Cop Killer”—and on inner-city residents’ antipathy for police officers. No longer was the warfare between rap musicians and law enforcement groups strictly ideological; now, with the publicity and controversy over Ice-T’s song, the warfare was tangible, with names and incidents that were announced in print and on the air. This is ironic, of course, since the messages of Public Enemy, NWA, and Ice Cube that antedated “Cop Killer” were equally virulent and often targeted at officers of the law. Equally ironic was the praise lavished on Clint Eastwood’s revisionist western, Unforgiven, which won four Academy Awards in 1992

The Cultural Politics of Gangsta Rap

13

and was based on a subject similar to Ice-T’s “Cop Killer”: the killing of a corrupt agent of the law. By most standards, the text of “Cop Killer” is inflammatory. Ice-T describes the means by which the song’s “killer” will execute his deed (“I’m ’bout to bust some shots off ”) and the last line, “fuck the police,” is repeated again and again to illustrate the extent of his contempt. Ice-T wrote and spoke expansively about his song, Time Warner, and the American public’s response to the controversies. In his autobiography, The Ice Opinion, Ice-T said that “Cop Killer” was a landmark in American culture because it “injected black rage into white kids” through the medium of rock and roll.41 Important, too, are his comments about America’s introduction to a different portrayal of police officers: “For the first time in a long time, people outside of the ghettos were looking at the cops as the actual savages and criminals that some of them really are.”42 Of even greater significance, however, are his words on two other issues: (1) his feeling that the media deflected attention from the song’s real purpose—pointing out police brutality in inner cities—and focused, instead, on the First Amendment; and (2) the media’s designation of “Cop Killer” as a rap song. Ice-T wrote angrily about the shift in focus from the true—and only—intention of his song, saying that “everybody in the country gets mad at me and says I’m terrible. And predictably, America totally forgets about the cops who are on the street hurting people. . . . They [the media] managed to camouflage the issue of police brutality with me. They said, ‘Look how terrible Ice-T is! Look how terrible Warner Bros. is!”43 Anyone who listens to “Cop Killer” immediately recognizes its musical genre as heavy metal and not rap. Nevertheless, in 1992 the song was cast as a rap piece. According to Ice-T, the rationale was “to make it [the song] even more incendiary. Rap immediately conjures up scary images of Black Ghetto.”44 Moreover, the designation of “Cop Killer” as a rap song, sung by rappers, “conjured up niggers—rap, yeah, black rapper. ‘Rapper Ice-T’ created an immediate response.”45 The debates generated in 1992 by these three songs pushed critical listeners into two distinct camps, both focused more on the principles of First Amendment rights than on either the songs’ content or the singers who performed them. On one side we find those who, like journalist Jonathan Alter, believed that, “like tobacco executives, artists and record moguls who market death bear at least some responsibility for the consequences of their work.”46 Interestingly, supporters of this belief were found chiefly among “outsiders” to hip-hop culture—for example, adults over 40, as well as politicians, civic organizers, and leaders of conservative associations. On the other hand, “insiders” to hip-hop culture, including recording industry executives, were more likely to disavow the role of the government in regulating “obscene” and other “adult” material. According to Bryan Turner, Bill Adler, and Barry Weiss, all promoters of controversial rap artists, the government should have no role in regulating this or any other body of music, although they agreed

14

The Words and Music of Ice Cube

that record labels must bear the responsibility for what they market to the public.47 The bottom line for many supporters of performers’ rights in 1992 was drawn at legitimacy and authenticity and the belief that the music of 2 Live Crew, NWA, Ice-T, and others deserved to be heard as long as it was not merely sensationalist but an expression of honest and lived experiences.

2 Plenty Attitude: The NWA Years, 1988–1990 In chapter 1 I surveyed a variety of themes in rap in the late 1980s and early 1990s, among them police brutality, gangs, and misogyny, which touched directly on the recordings of Ice Cube’s early career. I turn my attention now to these early recordings—that is, the ones Ice Cube made with NWA and during his early years as a solo artist. Much of this music directly reflected the volatile social issues that young black men encountered at the time, and the anger apparent in many of the songs mirrors the performers’ rage. Although Ice Cube is the focal point in this section, chapter 2 also touches on the music of his contemporaries, including, especially, Eazy-E. As such, an important contextual basis for the music of Ice Cube unfolds as we explore the musical milieu in which Ice Cube existed.

NIGGAZ

WITH

ATTITUDE

Don’t quote me, boy, ’cause I ain’t said shit. —“Boyz n the Hood,” 1988 NWA was created in 1986 by Eric “Eazy-E” Wright, a street hustler from Compton. The group’s original members included, in addition to Ice Cube and Eazy-E, MC Ren (Lorenzo Patterson), Dr. Dre (Andre Young), DJ Yella (Antoine Carraby), Arabian Prince (Mik Lezan), and the D.O.C. (Tracy Curry). Arabian Prince and the D.O.C. were members of NWA for only two years, between 1986 and 1988, although both continued as ghostwriters. Diminutive in stature, standing at five feet six inches tall, Eazy-E had big ideas about how to break into the record business using money bankrolled

16

The Words and Music of Ice Cube

from criminal activities that included drug dealing, car theft, and burglary. His partnerships with veteran talent manager Jerry Heller and Memphisbased record distributor Johnny Phillips (nephew of Sam Phillips, the man who “discovered” Elvis Presley) resulted in profitable revenues for Ruthless Records, the independent label he co-founded in 1987 and that later was affiliated with three major record labels: Atlantic, Elektra/Asylum, and Priority records, the last a compilation label run by former K-Tel executives Bryan Turner and Mark Cerami, both famous for their soul-singing California raisins. According to hip-hop historian S. H. Fernando, Eazy-E was a “very shrewd and tight-lipped businessman . . . who evoked the image of a latterday Capone, sitting behind his huge desk, surrounded by black Lucite walls and facing a plush black couch and a deafening sound system, [with] his loaded .25 resting beside him on the desk.”1 Eazy-E gave voice to gang and street culture in Los Angeles by painting a musical graphic of his neighborhood’s harsh environment. Indeed, Eazy-E “sprayed the streets of Los Angeles with a new brand of nut-sack nihilism” in 1987 and in so doing “defined a new archetype, the defiantly hedonistic hip hop thugsta who believed that keeping it real and seeking fame and fortune were one and the same.”2 Because of this, Ruthless Records became the “prototype for rap’s fierce new grassroots entrepreneurialism.”3 In his music, Eazy-E and NWA collectively created a theme song for a nation of young soldiers scattered in the streets, looking for someone to fight for their cause and openly show the world their scars. . . . It was universal ghetto pain: the escapism of Black males drowning in 40 ounces of sorrow and fighting against forces that were pre-destined for their downfall. . . . It was as if a thousand brothers simultaneously stood up in front of one huge mirror, unclothed and naked except for the glocks, isolation, and urban angst that consumed their lives, and bared their souls to the world.4

When Eazy-E succumbed to AIDS at age 31 in 1995, news of his death rocked the world of hip-hop and elicited a spate of homages to rap’s perennial thugsta. Cultural critic Harry Allen wrote that Eazy-E’s “chief legacy will probably not be a musical or an artistic one” and that the one thing that made him memorable was “his absurd sense of humor—the bilious style that made Eazy, a short little man, carry on like a hip-hop Danny De Vito, or like a much slower version of Duckman.”5 He was eulogized variously as “one of the most important players in the development of hip-hop music,” “a new breed of ghetto griot who would do a drive-by on your mother just for fun,” and “a real visionary [who] made it possible for a lot of people to escape the economic prisons of the ghetto.”6 Although the members of NWA grew up in close proximity to one another (Ice Cube, in fact, lived four doors down from one of Dre’s cousins), their styles as performers were markedly different. As an ensemble, NWA was unique among gangsta rap groups, noted in particular for the members’ distinctive

Plenty Attitude

17

vocal styles. Ice Cube, the group’s chief writer, was the dominant vocal force who carried NWA with his full-bodied sound, while Eazy-E, NWA’s most readily recognized singer, was a curiosity with a squeaky, high-pitched voice that was ill suited to the ranting of a self-proclaimed violent felon. Ice Cube charted the direction of NWA’s early music. His own anger radiates throughout Straight Outta Compton, especially in the opening three songs, which contain the album’s most powerful social statements. The palpable hostility and frustration in each reflect Ice Cube’s feelings at that time: I was mad at everything. When I went to the schools in the Valley, going through those neighborhoods, seeing how different they were from mine, that angered me. The injustice of it, that’s what always got me—the injustice.7

The group’s roots in the struggling, working-class neighborhoods of Compton and South Central are manifest in NWA’s image and messages. Rampant unemployment, drug dealing and drug abuse, absentee fathers, teen pregnancy, police brutality, and a litany of other inner-city woes are chronicled in the group’s music and captured vividly in the harsh language and intentionality of NWA’s shock-value cultural aesthetic. NWA deified pushers, “played bitches, killed enemies, and assassinated police. . . . If the thing was protest, they would chuck the seduction and go straight for the fuck.”8 NWA’s use of street vernacular was a calculated ploy, intended to speak to audiences that either lived the lives the group did or fantasized about a hardscrabble ghetto lifestyle. The group was very much aware of the power of language in their music. According to Ice Cube, “[NWA] knew the value of language, especially profanity. We weren’t that sophisticated, but we knew the power it had.”9 Eazy-E expressed these sentiments more succinctly: “If you want to get your point across, you gotta cuss.”10 Dre wanted the group to have a readily recognized identity, based in large measure on its shocking language and its “ideology be damned” aesthetic: “I wanted to make people go: ‘Oh shit, I can’t believe he’s saying that shit.’ Everybody trying to do this Black power and shit, so I was like, let’s give them an alternative. Nigger nigger nigger nigger fuck this, fuck that, bitch bitch bitch bitch suck my dick, all this kind of shit, you know what I’m saying?”11 This shock-value aesthetic extended as well to Eazy-E’s naming of the group and was coincident with his insistence on independence, which was manifest in his conscious decision not to sign with a major label: We came up with a name to shock ya. You couldn’t really tell us what to do and what not to do. We never did anything we didn’t want to do. We did what everybody else was scared to do, like “Fuck the Police.”. . . I am the president, owner, everything; no partners. . . . We just wanted to do something new and different and talk about what we wanted to talk about, like dick sucking . . . people say, well you can’t talk about dick sucking, or this or that in order to get this deal. I be like fuck the deal. . . . That’s why we never signed with any major label. We

18

The Words and Music of Ice Cube wanted to do some shit that would just shock everybody, that we could relate to, and obviously everybody else could relate to.12

NWA coined the phrase “reality rap,” a term that reified black male expressions of anger and angst in the late 1980s. If no one else was speaking for urban black men, NWA was, and in voices that were defiantly unapologetic. The issue of “reality,” for obvious reasons, is subjective and complex. For some social critics and cultural historians, reality within hip-hop is rooted in rap’s lyrical content and street-based narratives; as such, reality in rap becomes more than “just music,” as it is “situated within the lived contexts of black expressivity and contemporary cultural identity formation.”13 For the rappers, however, the issue was not an academic matter of semantics that needed to be argued and framed as scholarly discourse. Eazy-E observed, “It all goes back to that bottom line—reality. The kids from the streets don’t want preaching or messages. They want what they can identify with. They want to hear about the reality of their situation, not fairy tales. They don’t care if it’s ugly. They just want reality.”14 Even more to the point are Ice Cube’s reflections on rap and reality: “We don’t tell no fiction, so NWA can’t get any harder unless the streets get harder. If somebody blows up a house and we see it, we’ll tell you about it.”15 To a certain degree, NWA’s claim of speaking for the silent and silenced marked the beginning of hip-hop’s obsession with reality rap: “From now on, rappers had to represent—to scream for the unheard and otherwise speak the unspeakable. Life on the hair-trigger margin needed to be described in its passionate complexity, painted in bold strokes, framed in wide angles, targeted with laser precision.”16 In advancing a style of rap unique to the West Coast, NWA continued a tradition in music having a distinctly “California style” that dates back to at least the early 1960s. From the upbeat, “let’s have fun” music of the Beach Boys, to the psychedelic, drug-inspired offerings of Janis Joplin and the Jefferson Airplane, to the hard-driving, thumping pulsations of the West Coast’s gangsta rappers of the late 1980s and early 1990s, the California sound has been remarkable for its hedonistic and selfindulgent worldview, as well as for its disdain for authority. NWA took these conventions a step further, however; through its portrayals of the Los Angeles neighborhoods of South Central and Compton and lowrider culture, the group created new images for an area better known for its palm trees and sunny, blue skies than for its slums, gangs, and violence. The brilliant savvy of Eazy-E and Priority Records ensured that youthful consumers inclined toward rebellion would find the explicitness of their product irresistible. NWA’s caustic messages and publicity-driven social pronouncements were carefully contrived to excite young Americans of various races, ethnicities, and classes. Not surprisingly, these statements and commercial gimmicks were also calculated to offend a diversity of older adult listeners. Black youth from a range of backgrounds, but in particular young men

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whose upbringing was similar to that of the group, eagerly embraced NWA’s ideas, confident that “their homeboys” were speaking for them. Young white adults from middle-class and privileged backgrounds composed a significant portion of NWA’s market, attracted to the group for its assumed nihilism and countercultural attitudes—or, perhaps, for the stereotypical images of black men downing 40s, disrespecting black women, and killing other black men. In fact, by the early 1990s, white consumers made up the market base for roughly 65 percent of hardcore rap.17 Hip-hop historian Jeff Chang attributes gangsta rap’s appeal to white youth as being rooted in “its claims to street authenticity, its teen rebellion, its extension of urban stereotype, and its individualist ‘get mine’ credo.”18 According to Bryan Turner, a Priority Records executive, “white kids in the Valley picked it up and they decided they wanted to live vicariously through this music.”19 In 1989, Ice Cube contended that, although “white kids don’t live in the ghetto, they want to know what’s going on.”20 Eazy-E said that white kids “like listening to that ‘I don’t give a fuck’ attitude, the Guns N’ Roses attitude. They buy something like 70 per cent of our stuff. They wanna really learn what’s going on in different parts of the neighborhoods, they wanna be down, just like I want to be down, too.”21 This “white flight” to gangsta rap in the late 1980s and early 1990s paralleled the zeal with which white youth embraced early rock and roll in the 1950s, much of which was “black” and revolutionary in its flagrant sexuality, and, in the 1960s, Berry Gordy’s Motown sound. In both instances, America’s fascination with “ghetto blackness” left little room “for versatility in the sphere of black commercial culture” as media, “caught up in the criminal chic of the Ruthless label, were bent on pigeonholing artists” as hardened gangstas.22

PUBLIC OUTCRY

AGAINST

NWA

It is easy to discuss the backlash against NWA, if for no other reason than there was such an abundance of it. NWA had far more detractors—including the Christian right, the FBI, police departments from coast to coast, babyboomer demagogues, and hip-hop progressives—than supporters. In 1989, the year following the release of the group’s now-infamous recording Straight Outta Compton, “right-wing backlash against NWA was in full effect.”23 Fueled in large measure by the popularity of NWA and other gangsta rap groups in the late 1980s and early 1990s, conservative social organizations such as the Parents’ Music Resource Center, a powerful, bipartisan lobby of Washington wives, decried the explicitness of all hardcore music, including heavy metal, on the grounds that the music and its themes were anathema to traditional family values. In addition to the FBI’s condemnation of NWA, part of which included a letter written by the agency’s assistant director to Priority Records, the Fraternal Order of Police, which at the time had more than 200,000 members, declared a boycott of NWA and other performers

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The Words and Music of Ice Cube

who advocated violence against police officers.24 More damning and damaging than these denouncements were the very public attacks by African American civic and political leaders—many of whom believed that the music presented a distorted image of the black community and, in addition, was a springboard for launching black youth into lives of crime—as well as those by hip-hop journalists and other supporters of hip-hop culture. Community and college radio DJs in Los Angeles refused to play NWA’s music, believing that doing so would be contradictory to the Afrocentric space on the air they were trying to create, and journalists, including those who wrote for blackowned publications, decried the group’s representations of women and its unabashed homophobia. At the heart of these harangues was concern over the ambiguous intersection between the “reality” of NWA’s music and the social consequences of the group’s messages. If, as journalist Jonathan Gold wrote, “reality rap” was a phrase that “guilty white liberals find a convenient term when explaining why they like [gangsta rap] so much,” the term was viewed less dispassionately by black civic leaders, who at once deplored the stereotypical and demeaning portrayals of black culture in NWA’s music and were loath to romanticize and trivialize the concept of “reality rap” and its implications for urban black youth.25

EAZY DUZ IT —AGAIN AND AGAIN “Eazy Duz It,” the title tune from the album of the same name, is “fully gangsta flavored.” This is the quintessential gangsta rap; indeed, it is almost a caricature of West Coast rap of the early 1990s, as it is by turns homophobic, misogynist, and gratuitously violent. A little girl opens the piece, touting Eazy-E’s status as a neighborhood thug. She is unable to continue, however, as Eazy interrupts, telling her: “Bitch, shut the fuck up.” Following the playing of a catchy and rhythmic bass line, Eazy jumps into the heart of this rap, which he begins by asserting, “Well, I’m Eazy-E, I got bitches galore.” We quickly learn that he is a “hardcore villain” who collects from his women, totes a gat, and feels terrific because his pockets are fat. The chorus, stated three times, reinforces the image that Eazy is a gangsta having fun who never leaves his home without carrying a weapon. The tune is laden with the aural mainstays of gangsta rap, including gunshots, and references to crack cocaine, homicide, and money. Other noteworthy tracks include “Boyz n the Hood,” written by Ice Cube. Although the piece was viewed to have done “little to advance [gangsta rap] aesthetically,” it is important in offering “a new hardcore funky model for masculine identification in hip-hop.”26 In addition, in referencing Compton, the piece gives a geographical face to the new genre of gangsta rap. Much has been written about space and place in NWA’s music. According to cultural historian Murray Forman, “spatialities of the hood” are a key

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feature of gangsta rap, even more important than the accounts of criminal activity contained in the music’s lyrics.27 This identification of space or, said another way, this localization, conceives the “ghetto landscape as a generalized abstract construct . . . [and] also introduces a localized nuance that conveys a certain proximity, effectively capturing a narrowed sense of place through which young thugs and their potential crime victims move in tandem.”28 The irony of this staking out of a cultural identity, also known as “mapping,” is that it led to a stereotyped paradigm of gangsta behaviors that were quickly exploited by hungry, young entrepreneurs.29 The introduction of Compton, within the first few lines of text, establishes a spatial context, as we understand the gangsta imagery—from the gang signs Eazy-E mentions to the MAC-10 he carries—to be part of this particular location and lifestyle. The group’s unique imprimatur is further reinforced through self-references that include “new shit by NWA” and the naming of the group’s signature tune, “Gangsta, Gangsta.” Once these trademarks are announced, the piece gives way to recounting a tale containing now-familiar staples of the gangsta idiom, which, as I noted in chapter 1, center on drinking and cruising the streets in a decked-out ’64 Impala. The chorus reinforces the “music as street reality” credo of gangsta rap with the words “ ’cause the boyz in the hood are always hard . . . don’t quote me boy, ’cause I ain’t said shit.” “No More?s,” also from the Eazy Duz It album and also written by Ice Cube, is similar to “Boyz n the Hood” in its spinning out a gangsta lifestyle. This piece begins as an interview between Eazy-E and a female journalist. Asked to talk about his childhood, Eazy explains that he was “ruthless,” ran with a gang, specialized in “gankin” (loosely, to steal from or con), and had no respect for rules and regulations. He also wants us to know that he is a “pimp, mack daddy, looking for the dollar,” and that in this sense, women are little more than means to a pecuniary end. Importantly, he reminds us, referencing the chorus from “Eazy Duz It,” that he was (and is) “a gangsta having fun.” Despite (or because of) these pronouncements of a criminal lifestyle, there is abundant humor, seen especially in the mock interview portions. When asked if he had ever been involved in an armed robbery, Eazy responds, with no emotion, “You mean a 211?” The verses that follow weave a tale of Eazy’s various exploits as a thief and a thug. The song ends with an affirmation of the spatial significance of Compton (referred to here as “the C-P-T”) and the authority of NWA.

STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON Released twice in the 1980s, in 1988 and 1989, and subsequently rereleased in 2002, Straight Outta Compton was the groundbreaking recording in the gangsta rap genre, described variously as a “work of revolutionary genius, a painful scream from the bleak streets of black America,” and, more commonly, as “reprehensible trash with no redeeming value and alternately

22

The Words and Music of Ice Cube

condemned and touted for its gleeful, celebratory hedonism . . . misogyny and violence and dark-as-night nihilism.”30 It was the first album to achieve double platinum sales status without significant support on the airwaves; in addition, it was named to several “greatest of all time” lists, including those compiled by Spin and The Source magazines and by the TV network VH1. The album was produced by Dr. Dre and Yella and contains 13 tracks, the majority of which were co-written by Ice Cube and MC Ren. Ice Cube, Ren, and Eazy-E are the main vocalists. Many songs feature samples from earlier music, among them those by funk bands (Ohio Players, Sly and the Family Stone, and Funkadelic) and by soul singers Wilson Pickett and James Brown. With its proud and bold reference to Compton in the album’s title, one would expect repeated obeisance to the neighborhood in this album. Instead, Compton functions as a regional backdrop to the album’s songs, which provide little insight to the area’s cultural mores and shed little light on the socioeconomic realities of everyday life. Indeed, as Forman contends, Compton does not emerge as a clearly defined space in these songs, as they are devoid of detailed spatial descriptions of landmarks and environment.31 In this sense, Compton becomes more an idea than a tangible reality, existing as a bookmark, of sorts, to some vaguely defined home turf. Although the songs do not contain the kind of place-specific description found in “My Kind of Town (Chicago Is),” or “New York, New York,” they succeed in providing the listener with a clear sense of the urban realities of a California neighborhood far removed from the storied glamour of Los Angeles and Hollywood. More important, in referring to and naming Compton, which was not nearly as well known in 1988 as the New York boroughs of Bronx, Brooklyn, or Queens, NWA trumpeted a West Coast presence in rap. “Fuck Tha Police” is the most important and most controversial song in the collection. Written by Ice Cube in collaboration with MC Ren, this piece, like Ice-T’s “Cop Killer,” outraged listeners across cohort groups. It begins with a mock court scene in which “Judge Dre” presides over three cases in which the prosecuting attorneys are Ice Cube, MC Ren, and Eazy “muthafuckin’ ” E. Despite the explosive content of the lyrics, NWA’s humor is readily apparent. Before beginning his testimony, Dre advises the first complainant, Ice Cube, to take the oath, “so help your black ass.” Cube proceeds with a scathing indictment of police behaviors in which he, posing as a fed-up yet bodacious teenager, berates police officers for harassing young black men. The issues of racial profiling and racial harassment are established immediately with Ice Cube’s words “young nigga got it bad ’cuz I’m brown.” Equally significant is Ice Cube’s rage at police stereotypes of black teenagers, who are assumed to be—and then vilified as—drug-dealing thugs. Ice Cube is aggressive throughout. The most poignant and hostile remarks of Ice Cube’s testimony are reserved for black police officers, who behave especially badly when they are partnered with a white officer. Cube’s opening statement concludes

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with a reference to Compton, again cited as “the C-P-T,” before he promises a “bloodbath”—a full-scale war on Los Angeles’s police force. Seen in the ensemble, this anti-police vitriol produced the desired effect: to cement the group’s image as dangerous and ruthless menaces hell-bent on direct confrontation with officers of the law. Ren steps up next to testify, having been summoned by Judge Dre to speak to the jury about this “fucked-up incident.” His testimony is more threat and swagger than political or social comment, and his statement is peppered with references to the arsenal of weapons at his disposal and his prowess in using them. Indeed, his first words, “fuck the police and Ren said it with authority,” lay the groundwork for the ensuing bravado. The song’s title is then repeated four times, after which Eazy-E is asked to give his thoughts on police intimidation. The unspecified weapons that Ren mentions are given names in Eazy’s testimony as he threatens to blast with an Uzi or an AK. Eazy’s section ends with another restatement of the song’s title, after which a verdict is meted out to the offending policeman, who is abused in a torrent of racial epithets. Enraged and frustrated, the white policeman responds similarly, unleashing his own freshet of racial expletives that culminates in the words, “Fuck you, you black motherfucker!” The best-known of the public condemnations of this song came from Milt Ahlerich, an FBI assistant director, who in a letter to Priority Records and its subsidiary, Ruthless Records, expressed his department’s concern over increasing violence toward police officers and the role that “Fuck Tha Police” played in it. Not surprisingly, this response from the nation’s foremost law enforcement agency fueled NWA’s popularity and made the group even more appealing to rebellious youth: A song recorded by the rap group NWA on their album entitled Straight Outta Compton encourages violence against and disrespect for the law enforcement officer and has been brought to my attention. I understand your company recorded and distributed this album, and I am writing to share my thoughts and concerns with you. Advocating violence and assault is wrong, and we in the law enforcement community take exception to such action. Violence crime, a major problem in our country, reached an unprecedented high in 1988. Seventy-eight law enforcement officers were feloniously slain in the line of duty during 1988, four more than in 1987. Law enforcement officers dedicate their lives to the protection of our citizens, and recordings such as the one from NWA are both discouraging and degrading to these brave, dedicated officers. Music plays a significant role in society, and I wanted you to be aware of the FBI’s position relative to this song and its message. I believe my views reflect the opinion of the entire law enforcement community.32

“Straight Outta Compton,” also written primarily by Ice Cube, contains the staples of early gangsta rap: fierce loyalty to one’s ’hood, references to guns, and derogation of women. The piece is in three verses, each featuring

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The Words and Music of Ice Cube

Ice Cube, MC Ren, or Eazy-E. Although all three verses mention Compton, the first centers the neighborhood as being the reason for the song. Ice Cube begins by stating boldly that he is “straight outta Compton.” Soon after, he affirms that he is “down with the capital C-P-T” and ends his verse by reminding us that he is “comin’ straight outta Compton.” The chorus, in which “city of Compton” is stated and restated, further cements the importance of locality, as does the bridge between the first and second verses in which Eazy-E asks Ren to “tell ’em where you from.” The answer, of course, is “straight outta Compton.” In the first verse, Ice Cube establishes himself—and the other members of NWA—as a bad ass, much in the tradition of fabled badmen Stackolee and Dolemite. NWA emerges, intentionally, as a gang of lawless, violent, and hypersexual predators with criminal records “like Charles Manson.” The main point of Ice Cube’s words in this verse is to convince the listener that he will butt heads with anyone bad enough to take him on. References to guns and gun imagery abound: he tells us that an “AK-47 is the tool,” that he is in possession of a sawed-off shotgun, and that all he has to do is pull the trigger and bodies are carted away. In describing himself as being “crazy as fuck,” Ice Cube wants us to understand that he cannot be reasoned with and that attempts to negotiate are a waste of time. Ren, “another crazy ass nigga,” sings verse two. A self-proclaimed villain (a favorite self-descriptor in NWA’s music) whose reputation is based on the number of murders he commits, Ren also treats women with contempt, referring to them as either “bitch” or “dirty-ass ho.” Eazy-E sings the third and final verse, in which we find the song’s most explosive lyrics and most violent imagery. There is a certain irony and incongruity in hearing Eazy-E, in his high-pitched voice, tell us that he is a “brotha that’ll smother your mother and make your sister think I love her.” Nevertheless, Eazy-E emerges as the most ruthless of NWA’s members, a nihilistic villain with no moral conscience whose sole mission in life, he says, is to raise hell. In addition to “Gangsta, Gangsta,” which was discussed in the previous chapter, four other songs on this album merit discussion: “I Ain’t Tha One,” “8 Ball,” “Express Yourself,” and “Dopeman.” Ice Cube was the sole writer for each and the solo performer on “I Ain’t Tha One.” Like many of Ice Cube’s songs, particularly those written in the post-NWA years, these songs are stories that either contain a social message or have a moral. “Dopeman” is about dealing and using crack cocaine; “8 Ball” is largely about boozing and cruising; and “I Ain’t Tha One,” one of Ice Cube’s most humorous and engaging early songs, is about scheming and gold-digging women. In “Dopeman,” Ice Cube weaves a tale about the crack business in Compton. Eazy-E was reputedly the inspiration for this song because, as he said, “ ‘Dopeman’ was about me because that’s what I was at the time.”33 Ice Cube introduces us to a parade of characters, all villains or victims in some respect. The dope dealer cares only about the wad of money in his pocket and

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preys on the “niggas” and “bitches” in his neighborhood. He delights in the addictions of young women who perform oral sex in exchange for drugs, and he anxiously awaits the first and fifteenth days of the month, when his clients receive their checks from the state. In the second verse, Ice Cube speaks directly to young women addicted to crack. He berates the women for subjecting themselves to the dealers’ physical abuse and for tolerating infidelity. Here, both the dealer and user are villains who, we are made to believe, are well suited for one another. In “8 Ball,” Ice Cube spins a yarn about drinking a favorite beverage, Olde English 800 (aka 8 Ball), while cruising the streets of South Central Los Angeles. We get a fuller picture of the neighborhoods in this song, as Ice Cube refers specifically to the east side south of Compton, Slauson, and Crenshaw, the latter both a district of Los Angeles and a principal thoroughfare, Crenshaw Boulevard, made famous in the movie Boyz N the Hood. The song, sung by Eazy-E, is in four verses, each concluding with the words “Eazy-E’s fucked up and got the 8 ball rolling.” Every verse, and virtually every line, refers to drinking. In verse one, Eazy-E sings about the 40-ounce drink in his lap; in verse two, Eazy goes shopping for liquor; and in verse four, Eazy, bent on making mischief, entreats a friend to share his drink. Verse three is the most descriptive of the lot, with references to police code 502 (code for driving under the influence), Olde English 800, bitches and hos, and assorted acts of violence: “Olde English 800 ’cause that’s my brand. Fuck the police and a 502.” “Express Yourself ” is one of the most important tracks on the album. Written by Ice Cube and sung by Dr. Dre, this piece contains some of Ice Cube’s most socially charged texts from his early years. It is in three verses and samples a song of the same name by Charles Wright and the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band. Ice Cube’s poetic voice is at once defiant and authoritative as he proclaims himself, through Dre, to be a master rhymer who understands the quirks and duplicities of the rap business. In the first verse, Ice Cube affirms a no-drugs position, and he chides other rappers for lacking rhyming skills and not knowing enough about the craft of composing a first-rate rap. In verses two and three, which are centered on reality in rap, we get a sense of Ice Cube’s personal politics. He continues to speak against drugs, and he admonishes rappers who betray their own beliefs in order to make a popular album. Ice Cube tells us that his way of expressing himself means staying true to his own convictions and writing rhymes that are more social commentary than popular entertainment: “It’s crazy to see people be what society wants them to be, but not me. . . . Forget about the ghetto and rap for the pop charts.” Ice Cube’s humor shines through in “I Ain’t Tha One.” In this urban rendition of the classic “them” versus “us” look at gender (in this instance, how men and women view relationships differently), Ice Cube warns his homies about scheming and conniving women whose only interest in men is money. Ice Cube playfully, yet firmly, asserts that he will not be used by acquisitive

26

The Words and Music of Ice Cube

women who see in him a means to become financially secure, saying in no uncertain terms that he will not finance their trips to the beauty parlor and nail salon. Because he “thinks with his ding-a-ling” and is “only down for screwin’,” his relationships with women are based exclusively on his own sexual gratification. Again in three verses, this piece contains conversations between Ice Cube and his “girlfriend” and the girlfriend and another girl that function as interludes. In the introduction, the young woman tells Ice Cube she needs some money to get her hair and nails done. His response leads directly to the first verse, which begins, “Look, I’m a tell you like this, I ain’t tha one.” Ice Cube doles out advice immediately, telling his homies to play it cool and not fall prey to women’s machinations. His statement that women just use men for their money is reinforced in the first interlude, in which one woman tells another to use men for all the money she can get. In the second verse, Ice Cube reiterates his criticism of money-grubbing women, this time adding that he, too, has a mission in the dating scene: going straight for the sexual encounter without giving anything in return. His words here are amusing and to the point as he tells us that he’s a “ruthless N-I-double-G A” who will not bring flowers to his date or take her to an expensive restaurant because, we are reminded, Ice Cube’s only objective is having sex with cute girls with sexy big behinds. The women’s perspective is given in the second interlude, with the friends this time saying that a man’s looks are secondary to his deep pockets. In the third and final verse, an exasperated Ice Cube warns women that he will get a gun if that is what it takes for his message to be taken seriously.

3 Early Solo Successes: 1990–1993 Ice Cube left NWA in early 1990, citing financial reasons (“I wasn’t getting paid”) as the primary motivation for his departure. He adamantly opposed Jerry Heller’s management of the group, saying, “Heller stepped into the picture and everyone got cheated.”1 In addition, Ice Cube criticized Heller for making “all the fucked-up decisions” while getting “all the fucking money.”2 Heller viewed Ice Cube’s departure differently. In his eyes, “the real reason that Ice Cube left NWA was that he was incredibly jealous of the notoriety and success of Eazy-E. He wanted to be Eazy-E. . . . Eazy-E is a major star and a successful businessman. Ice Cube isn’t.”3 Heller’s opinions notwithstanding, Ice Cube said, “Breaking up with NWA was the best decision of my life. It was like, are you gonna leave with your manhood? I wanted to leave with something.”4 The years immediately following the successes of Ice Cube’s work with NWA, between 1988 and 1990, saw the production of several significant and much-anticipated recordings that solidly established his reputation as one of the most important political rappers of the early 1990s. Ice Cube released five powerful recordings between 1990 and 1993—AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted (1990), Kill at Will (1990), Death Certificate (1991), The Predator (1992), and Lethal Injection (1993). In addition, he made his film debut at this time, playing the character Doughboy in the critically acclaimed movie by John Singleton, Boyz N the Hood (1991). In both Ice Cube’s early solo recordings and his early work as an actor, we see the volatile social climate of America’s cities in the early 1990s depicted.

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The Words and Music of Ice Cube

ICE CUBE’S STYLE In an interview in Vibe magazine, Ice Cube told journalist Heidi Siegmund Cuda that rhyming is fundamental to his music. Of particular significance, he likened his approach to writing lyrics to storytelling and screenwriting: “You write three verses, you write three acts. First act, you get to know the characters. Second act, you put ’em in a situation. Third act, you get ’em out of it.”5 The most noteworthy feature of Ice Cube’s music through 1993 (indeed, through the end of the 1990s) was the subject matter. Like other political rappers of the late 1980s and early 1990s, such as Public Enemy, Ice-T, KRS-One, and Rakim, Ice Cube focused on topics such as poverty, police brutality, racism, and drug abuse. As such, Ice Cube chronicled a range of urban issues, seen from the vantage point of a young black man whose perspective and experiences are intended to mirror those of his audience. His lyrics are usually in the first person, where he assumes the role of the protagonist, whether or not his own life’s events coincide with those being told. Examples of this abound, particularly in his most controversial and poignant songs, which include “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted,” “Dead Homiez,” and “My Summer Vacation.” Given the caustic nature of the subjects of Ice Cube’s music, it should not surprise that the lyrics are frequently peppered with salty and, to some, offensive, vernacular. Profanity, a staple in all gangsta rap, appears in virtually all of Ice Cube’s music and is as much a natural part of and a complement to his songs as is moaning and wailing in the blues and the acoustic guitar in folk ballads. Ice Cube routinely refers to women as “bitches” and to black men as “niggas,” and, in generic discussions, he uses the word “motherfuckers” to indicate any group of unspecified people. On occasion, particularly in Death Certificate and The Predator, Ice Cube uses the term “devil” to describe white people. These are conventions of much gangsta rap, and, while illustrative of Ice Cube’s mindset, point more to a prevailing code of customary jargon than to any specific political or social statement that Ice Cube intended. The bragging and swagger found in the music of these early years, particularly that which simultaneously degrades women and exults in male physical and sexual domination of women, might be understood as exaggerated, postpubescent fantasies that should not be taken literally.

AMERIKKKA’S MOST WANTED Ice Cube’s solo debut album, AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted, was originally released in 1990, on the heels of his bitter split from NWA. Produced by the Bomb Squad, which included Chuck D of Public Enemy, this album established Ice Cube as one of rap’s foremost lyricists. At a time when West Coast rap was attempting to dismantle the dominance of East Coast rap in the market base, it is worth noting that this album joins Ice Cube, at the time

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the most hardcore rapper in the West, and Public Enemy, the most hardcore group in the East. The nature of the recording is evident in the title, a tongue-in-cheek allusion to the television show America’s Most Wanted, on which crimes are reenacted on screen and viewers are urged to provide information about those sought. Ice Cube added his own commentary to this popular program—which was castigated for perpetuating stereotypes about the criminality of African American men—by intentionally misspelling “America” with three Ks and, in so doing, creating a visual parallel between the television show and the Ku Klux Klan, the most nefarious hate group in the United States. The recording was a blockbuster success, achieving platinum status within three months of its release and top ratings from several popular music magazines, including a “five mics” rating from The Source. In addition, the album was selected as one of the top rap albums of all time in Vibe, The Source, and Spin magazines; it reached the #19 mark on the Billboard 200 in 1990; and, also in 1990, topped off at #6 in the top R & B and Hip-Hop albums category. Ice Cube’s sardonic criticism of American sociopolitics, and, more narrowly focused, his commentary on the hardships of life in South Central Los Angeles, seen in its fledgling stage in Straight Outta Compton, is more fully fleshed in AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted. Indeed, the attacks on U.S. social and political systems that are hallmarks of all of Ice Cube’s music become clarion calls for activism and change in this album. In this sense, the recording is the West Coast counterpart to Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (Def Jam/Columbia Records, 1988) and Fear of a Black Planet (Def Jam/Columbia Records, 1990), both celebrated for their scathing statements on race relations and their indictments of police abuse of black people in the nation’s inner cities. Of the 16 tracks in AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted, 4, in addition to the title track, are important as social commentary of the late 1980s: “The Nigga Ya Love to Hate”; “Once Upon a Time in the Projects”; “Endangered Species”; and “It’s a Man’s World.” Three others, “Get Off My Dick and Tell Yo Bitch to Come Here,” “You Can’t Fade Me,” and “Who’s the Mack?,” are interesting for different reasons. The music of “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted” is vintage 1980s rap: scratching, samples from recordings of other musicians, and a high-energy, bassdriven rhythm that has a distinctive, aerobics-exercise feel. In the first three verses, Ice Cube establishes himself as a hard and hardened gangbanger. These lines are centered almost exclusively on the gangsta lifestyle and Ice Cube’s response to law enforcement officers who get in his way. We also learn of his commitment to his rap group, Da Lench Mob, proclaimed by Ice Cube to be the leading gangsta rap group. We find predictable gangsta bravado and grandstanding woven throughout these three verses, crystallized here in the words “I’m a nigga with a ‘S’ on his chest, so get the Kryptonite ’cause I’m a rip tonight.” The most important lyrics are found in the final verse. Here, Ice Cube criticizes a racist criminal justice system where people

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The Words and Music of Ice Cube

of color are disproportionately arrested and convicted of crimes. In particular, he condemns the disparities in prison sentences meted out for black-on-white crime and black-on-black crime, telling us that black men can always expect to pay dearly for actions perpetrated against whites. Ice Cube spins a disturbing and ironic yarn about the consequences of being with the wrong girl at the wrong time in “Once Upon a Time in the Projects.” The piece is written in the first person and performed as a long, continuous verse with neither breaks nor chorus. Characteristic of virtually all of Ice Cube’s lyrics, most of the lines are grouped as rhymed or nearly rhymed couplets. Also characteristic of Ice Cube’s music is the use of humor to address a situation that is not in the least amusing. In this twisted urban fairy tale that spoofs ghetto life, Ice Cube takes his cue from children’s literature and begins with an implied reference to days of yore. We are quickly jolted to the urban and gangsta realities of Ice Cube’s “fantasy world” through his depiction of his friend’s mother. The mom in this ghetto saga walks around with a joint in her mouth, deals cocaine from her apartment, complains about the amount of her check from the county, and answers her front door armed with a 12-gauge Mossberg rifle. Ice Cube continues his saga by telling of the police raid that ensues and of being arrested and taken away in a paddy wagon. He attributes his fate to his unwise and untimely involvement and concludes, as he often does, with a moral, in this case, stay away from girls who live in housing projects. If part of Ice Cube’s dominion in the late 1990s was predicated on his ability to rap, we find wonderful illustrations of his skills here. As one example, the words “first he tried to wrap me up, slap me up, rough me up, they couldn’t do it so they cuffed me up” are delivered with a wonderful sense of syncopation and flow and are the perfect complement to the repetition and natural rhythm of the words. Controversy reigns supreme in “The Nigga Ya Love to Hate.” Addressed to unspecified figures of authority across racial lines, this three-verse rap calls attention to the plight of young black men who live and die dangerously and violently. Musically, this piece is similar to “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted” in its high-energy, ostinato-based rhythm.6 There are background noises of police sirens and pager alarms, but the focal point is Ice Cube’s voice; everything else is subsidiary and intended to function as backdrop to the sound of his singsong and the power of his words. Cultural critic Joan Morgan wrote that in this piece Ice Cube emerges as the “quintessential Black Phoenix whom even the fires and electric chairs of white racist oppression could not destroy.”7 Ice Cube chides outsiders who do not understand his lifestyle yet generalize about the people in his community. In particular, he criticizes social systems that perpetuate criminal activity among black men, the penal systems that incarcerate these men, and the limited educational opportunities afforded men like him. In the second verse, Ice Cube portrays himself as a hardened “thugsta” who seeks to avenge past and present injustices against black men. He refers to himself as a “killa cap peeler” and boasts that his

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ruthless behavior makes him someone to be feared. He addresses his homies’ substandard living conditions with the words “I hate when niggas gotta live low” and gives a nod to men residing in two well-known prisons, San Quentin on the West Coast and Rikers Island on the East Coast. In the third verse, Ice Cube ridicules icons of black culture, including the long-running dance show Soul Train and actor/talk show host Arsenio Hall and sniggers at the idea that he should be a role model. “Endangered Species (Tales from the Darkside)” contains some of Ice Cube’s most strident social commentary from this early period of songwriting. Once again, outsiders to street and gang culture are rebuked for passing judgment on a lifestyle at variance with mainstream values and traditions. The rap begins with a mock news report in which a journalist informs us that black teenagers are the most recent additions to the endangered species list and that the government has not taken steps to preserve them. Ice Cube enters and begins a series of stories about life in neighborhoods familiar to him. These “tales” revolve around a central theme—that young black men are on the brink of extinction due to gang violence and American apathy to ghetto warfare—and they include references to drug-related violence, domestic and foreign relations, and responses by well-intentioned liberals to the woes of inner cities. In the first verse, Ice Cube rails against the police and shows his dismay over laws that do little to protect young black men. He voices his defiance by saying he plays “Fuck Tha Police,” a reference to the NWA song, in his car. Verses one and two (as well as two and three) are separated by the chorus “a young nigga got it bad ’cause I’m brown,” another reference to “Fuck Tha Police.” Although the second verse begins with a criticism of social programs that are more concerned with foreign than domestic aid, it is centered on the gangsta lifestyle. For example, Ice Cube tells us that one of his friends was murdered in a cocaine deal and that his crew vows to retaliate. The imagery of 9 mm weapons, shotguns, and the “pop pop pop” sound they make is disturbing, and Ice Cube reminds us in the concluding lines that this “tale from the darkside” is all too real: that young black men die violent deaths that count for little outside—or inside—their neighborhood. The final verse restates the ghetto warfare theme, with Ice Cube again noting that a young black man’s life is expendable. In “It’s a Man’s World,” Ice Cube teams up with female rapper Yo-Yo. A contemporary version of the eponymous classic by James Brown (1965), this duet is a battle of the sexes, with both rappers trying to outdo the other as MCs while asserting the superiority of their gender. Not surprisingly, Ice Cube, once again thinking with his “ding-a-ling” (as we saw in “I Ain’t Tha One”), avows that women are good only for sex and that he is strictly a onenight-stand man who does not want a woman hanging around afterward. Yo-Yo responds in the second verse by saying that she is not a whore and that “in the 9–0,” a reference to the year 1990, men had better start seeing women as more than sexual objects. In verses three and four, Ice Cube and

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Yo-Yo give their views on the role of women in hip-hop. Yo-Yo contends that she brings a new dimension to hip-hop and suggests that Ice Cube’s days as a rapper are numbered. The banter back and forth continues throughout the remaining verses. Ice Cube states boldly that were it not for his influence in shaping Yo-Yo’s career, she would still be pregnant and barefoot; Yo-Yo retaliates by telling Ice Cube that he has lost his flow. The paraphrased sample from James Brown’s record is interspersed, appearing here as “this is a man’s world, thank you very much” stated by Ice Cube, followed by Yo-Yo’s response, “but it wouldn’t be a damn thing without a woman’s touch.” The two trade insults for a bit, with Yo-Yo denigrating Ice Cube’s masculinity and Ice Cube stating that he will not be the money behind her trips to the hairdresser. The final minutes of the rap find Ice Cube acquiescing but not fully convinced that Yo-Yo is his equal. Ice Cube’s last words, “or a big butt,” stated jokingly in response to Yo-Yo’s insistence that a woman’s touch is essential to everything, might be seen as a reinforcement of his view of women, generally, and, particularly, his vision of women’s place in the rap business. The music here, as in the majority of the songs on AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted, is clearly ancillary to the text. The repetitive and rhythmic bass provides the foundation, and, while catchy enough to make listeners want to get up and move, the accompaniment contains nothing that is compelling from a purely musical standpoint. In “Get Off My Dick and Tell Yo Bitch to Come Here,” Ice Cube speaks out against male groupies. In fact, the song’s title is a metaphor for his feelings that men should not be autograph hounds who loiter after concerts hoping to catch a glimpse of a superstar. In Ice Cube’s eyes, only women should make up a cohort of fans, as they, and not men, are able to provide the quid pro quo relationship (in this case, quick sex in exchange for an audience with a rap star) he seeks. The language is relentlessly crude, with men being the sole objects of his wrath. Flavor Flav of Public Enemy begins the piece, warning men to “Stay off his dick!” (best paraphrased as “leave him alone”). When Ice Cube enters, he tells men that he is neither signing autographs for them nor doling out free t-shirts. In the second verse of this three-verse song, Ice Cube makes it clear that he does not want to be pursued by any man with a camera, t-shirt, pad, and pen and that his only interest in male fans is the possibility of having sex with their girlfriends. The piece ends with a final rant in which Ice Cube affirms his heterosexuality, again saying he cannot tolerate groupie boys and warning men, for one final time, to stay far away. “You Can’t Fade Me” is an angry warning to women who “get themselves pregnant” in order to take financial advantage of a well-heeled celebrity father. As in many of his songs, Ice Cube tells a story that is filled with description, asks questions, and sermonizes. The protagonist once again, Ice Cube is in this song the man accused of impregnating a woman who is two months away from giving birth. He is by turns dumbfounded and livid when he learns this bad news, alleging that the neighborhood tramp had been involved with

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many other men. His thoughts quickly turn dark (he contemplates kicking the woman in the stomach) as he envisions a bleak future in court and paying child support. In the next verse, Ice Cube gives the listener the background of his one and only encounter with his accuser. He tells us that he worked hard to avoid having his friends see him with her because “the girl had the pit bull face.” In addition, because he was afraid his friends would ridicule him if he took the girl to a motel, their sexual encounter took place in the back seat of an Impala. Several months later, following the birth of the baby, Ice Cube is relieved to see that it is a dead ringer for his next-door-neighbor and delighted that the blood tests confirm that he is not the father. The song ends with the exculpated Ice Cube reveling in his innocence and vowing to never again get used—or, in the jargon of this song, faded. “Who’s the Mack” is a stern warning to women to beware of no-good, hustling men who pride themselves on being “gangsta macks.” The music is relaxed and jazzy—the perfect antidote to the pulsating rhythms of the album’s other tracks and an interesting complement to the lyrics of this piece. Although this piece pales when compared to the hard-hitting social statements of “The Nigga Ya Love to Hate” and “Endangered Species,” it is significant in own right as it forces listeners to take a close look at their behavior. In storytelling form characteristic of many of his songs, Ice Cube castigates both genders, derogating men as wearers of big hats who drive big, rundown cars and deriding women for being “dumb bitches” who are “selling butt” but not getting a cut of the money. Women are warned against being used and prostituted by sad sacks whose only interest in them is as a source of income. In the second verse, Ice Cube takes a hard and harsh look at the men who use women, describing this particular “mack type” as unemployed, shabbily attired, hungry, and physically abusive. As proof of his authority on the subject of “macking,” Ice Cube tells us in the third and final verse, “I know the game so I watch it unfold,” and he makes us understand the elements of the game, which invariably center on the schemes and hustles of no-good men and the women who, wittingly or not, become men’s pawns. In a slightly ironic closing, Ice Cube lets us know emphatically that he is above these trite machinations because he is “just a straight-up N I double G A” and not a run-of-the-mill macker.

KILL AT WILL Kill at Will was released in December 1990, shortly after AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted. This seven-track EP (extended play) reached the #34 position on Billboard 200 in 1991 and the #5 position for top R & B/hip-hop recordings. It is among Ice Cube’s best work, and it established him, as a solo performer, among the most important rappers in the domain of political and socially conscious hip-hop. Most of the songs center on social problems in inner-city ghettos, including, in particular, black-on-black violence. “Dead

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Homiez,” “The Product,” and “Jackin’ for Beats,” are the most noteworthy songs on the recording. “Jackin’ for Beats” is a chest-thumping affirmation of the Lench Mob’s presence in the rap world. Ice Cube declares that he and his crew (T-Bone, J.D., and Shorty) have the best beats and that other rappers had better be on the lookout because the Lench Mob is poised to steal their music. Not only will the Lench Mob “gank” competitors’ music, but the group will improve it, giving it an inimitable gangsta flavor. No group is exempt from the humiliation of Ice Cube’s merciless ganking because, in his words, “suckers can’t fade Ice Cube.” Ice Cube chronicles the life of a black man from the moment of conception through the age of majority in “The Product.” Although we initially sense that Ice Cube is relaying the events of his own life (in the first verse he refers to his date of birth, June 15, 1969), we soon understand that the story told might apply to any urban black man under the age of 30. Sadly, yet predictably, the song centers on the neglect, low standards, and inevitable incarceration that are too often the sum and substance of black men’s adolescent lives. Ironically, Ice Cube uses a sample from “You Can Make It If You Try” by Sly and the Family Stone as the foundation for the interludes that interrupt the four verses. In these interludes, we get a real sense of the young man’s bleak future as he is told “ghetto ass nigga, you ain’t shit and you ain’t gon’ never be shit” and, by his mother, we assume, that he needs to get a job if he intends to remain in her house. Each of the verses describes a dismal and hopeless life with little chance for betterment. Ice Cube presages the direction of his boyhood and future delinquency in the first verse as he refers to his nine months in utero as being “on the lockdown.” In the second verse, we learn of Ice Cube’s (or, more likely, his “any black man protagonist”) trials in school and his subsequent life on the street as “the neighborhood jacker.” Ice Cube’s criticism of educational disparities in the United States between white and nonwhite students is captured well in his caustic language: “’Cause I’m sittin’ in history, learnin’ about a sucker who didn’t give a fuck about me.” With a well-placed reference to his first solo recording, AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted, Ice Cube asks if he is “the nigga you love, or the one you love to hate” and concludes the second verse with the kind of imagery we associate with his perception of the gangsta lifestyle. His own remorse is evident as he tells us that he is sorry for the wrongs he committed and that, with a baby on the way, he is trying to live responsibly. Unfortunately, these good thoughts come too late in a life already peppered with criminal acts, as the song’s subject is sent to jail, which Ice Cube refers to as a “concrete ho house,” for 11 years. He recounts the horrors of prison life, tells his baby boy that he regrets not being around, and blames the system for allowing black men to get caught up in “the production” and to spend their young adulthood behind bars.

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“Dead Homiez” is a moving tribute to the families of young men who lost their lives through urban street violence. It also serves as a warning to other young men not to get caught up in a lifestyle that often leads to senseless murder. The song exists on three levels, in which Ice Cube describes the murder of a friend, reacts to the funeral and the family’s grief, and decries the violence. The imagery in each of the three verses is stark and makes us feel the tragedy. In the first verse, Ice Cube laments a homie’s death. Though grieving the loss of his friend, he contemplates revenge. He wisely decides against this, realizing that his best course of action is not to retaliate but to grab a 40 and pay his respects to the family. Ice Cube’s descriptions of the murdered boy’s mother’s screams, his visceral reaction to the murder, and his dismay at the ironies of gangsta funerals (he says that funerals are the only time black people get to ride in a limousine) paint the dire portrait he intends. The second verse contains the most poignant imagery in the song and it is in many respects the song’s denouement. Here, Ice Cube describes the murder and the funeral, preaches a bit on the importance of keeping a level head, and thanks his father for teaching him well. Textually, the final verse is anticlimactic, given the power of the preceding verse; Ice Cube gives a commentary on the pitfalls of the thug life and summarizes the friendships he had with murdered buddies. In this sense, verse three is at once Ice Cube’s dolefully nostalgic look at his youth and a warning to young gangbangers from a peer who understands all too well the dangers of the violent gangsta life. The video of “Dead Homiez,” also produced by Priority Records in 1990, is a stark, graphic complement to the recording. Filmed entirely in black and white, the video begins with shots of the funeral procession, the grieving family, and the church where the services will be held. Everything, with the exception of the close-ups of Ice Cube, is filmed in slow motion. As such, the video exists in two distinct, yet intertwined, parts: the funeral itself, filmed in slow motion, which consists of quick, unrelated shots of the congregants (including the grieving, hooded thug friends), family, church choir, and minister, and the real-time, close-up shots of Ice Cube offering words of advice. Ice Cube’s role is that of the wise counselor, one who has attended too many funerals for murdered young men and whose mission is implore other young men to take time to think about their actions and to reflect on their purpose in life. Because he stares directly into the camera (and, by consequence, at us, the viewer), Ice Cube’s warnings become even more urgent. In June 1990, shortly following the release of AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted and just before the release of Kill at Will, Ice Cube expressed his views on black culture and rap music. These words, which appear under the title “Black Culture Still Getting a Bum Rap,” are wonderfully illustrative of Ice Cube’s ideas, at this nascent stage in his career, about the dual standards imposed on rap and other popular music. Moreover, they provide a window into one of

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the landmark controversies in hip-hip in the early 1990s—the debates surrounding the censorship of 2 Live Crew: Chuck D of Public Enemy has called rap the black network we never had, and I believe it’s true. Rap is the number-one selling form of music today. Rap has brought black kids a new sense of pride. Rap has brought black kids and white kids closer together. Thanks to rap, white kids are gaining a better understanding and a new respect for black culture. Rap has done nothing but bring people together. So, what’s the problem? It’s the people who don’t understand the music or the culture that are creating problems. 2 Live Crew has been around since the mid-eighties, but as long as black kids were buying their records, nobody said a thing about obscenity. As soon as white kids in the suburbs started buying them, and MTV started playing them, now suddenly we’ve got a controversy. That hypocrisy makes me mad. As for me, I’ve been fighting my whole life. This is just one more obstacle, one more example of society trying to hold us back and steal the soul. No two rappers are alike in that we all have different ways of getting our points of view across, different ways of helping young people get it together. But we’re all together in soul. The title track on my new album, AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted, has a few lines that go: “As long as I was robbin’ my own kind the policeman paid me no mind. Then I started robbin’ the white folks. Now I’m in the pen with soap on a rope.”8

Through these words, Ice Cube is portrayed on his own terms: as hip-hop’s vigilant spokesman, one who understands, from an insider’s perspective, the discrimination that rappers face and that results, in large measure, from the hypocrisy and duplicity of the mass media, recording industry, and watchdog consumer groups. Because he was convinced (in 1990) that his role was to help young people become better informed about black history and contemporary social issues, Ice Cube viewed rap as the perfect vehicle for uniting black and white youth, and he passionately defended performers’ rights to present these topics as they saw fit.

DEATH CERTIFICATE Ice Cube’s second full-length solo recording, Death Certificate was more controversial than either of his earlier albums. Virtually each of the 20 tracks is in some way incendiary, touching on topics that include race, racial profiling, drug dealing, and the black community and lambasting a variety of well-known politicians and social leaders. The recording consists of two racially charged sides: the “death side,” which criticizes racist U.S. policies that contribute to inequalities in black Americans’ economic and social state, and the “life side,” which exhorts black Americans to take responsibility for their lot in life. The album, aptly described by cultural historian Michael Eric

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Dyson as “brilliant and disturbing,”9 was acclaimed widely on music charts and ratings, despite (indeed, perhaps because of ) its caustic and unapologetic attacks on life in the United States. It was selected as one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time in The Source and Vibe magazines, rated #8 on MTV’s greatest hip-hop albums list, and it reached the #2 chart position on the Billboard 200 ranking in 1991. Nearly half of the tracks—“Black Korea,” “Bird in the Hand,” “Horny Lil’ Devil,” “Alive on Arrival,” “Color Blind,” “Steady Mobbin’,” “The Wrong Nigga to Fuck Wit,” “I Wanna Kill Sam,” “My Summer Vacation,” and “Us”—contain noteworthy commentaries on black/white relations, black/black relations, and, more generally, life in America’s urban slums. “No Vaseline” is significant in its own right, as it excoriates Ice Cube’s erstwhile associates in NWA. Because it was so controversial, Death Certificate was the object of much criticism, denounced by a variety of civil rights groups, including the Urban League of Los Angeles, the Guardian Angels, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Cultural historian John Leland was swift in his condemnation. Noting that “in the dearth of strong black leaders, rap turns young men into leaders often before they’re ready,” Leland attacked the venomous diatribes of young rappers, calling Ice Cube a “racist demagogue” who, having penned the hate-filled messages of Death Certificate, was “clearly in over his head.”10 Not surprisingly, Ice Cube was called on frequently to defend or to explain his motives in recording such provocative and intentionally inflammatory music. Ice Cube spoke about this recording in his interviews with hiphop historian Brian Cross in October 1991 and again in November 1992. In the second of these meetings, Ice Cube said, “Death Certificate had a political agenda to it with certain topics and issues” and that it was “strategically put together.”11 Part of the agenda certainly was linked to Ice Cube’s new affiliation with the Nation of Islam and his support of a volume published by the Nation, The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews, in which European Jews are blamed for financing the slave trade.12 In response to allegations that the songs were racist and anti-Semitic, Ice Cube stated that he did not have “time for this bullshit, know what I’m saying? I ain’t got time to be fuckin’ anti-Semitic, anti-this, anti-that, anti-Korean. I ain’t got time for that shit. I’m too busy bein’ pro-black, you know what I’m saying?”13 Moreover, Ice Cube said that his lyrics were an apt portrayal of the feelings of people just like him who live in urban areas: “What people need to do is pay heed to the frustration. We’re pissed off, and there ain’t no nice way to say it.”14 Ice Cube was also taken to task by Korean and Korean American organizations. Shortly after the release of “Black Korea,” a Harvard University student, Anthony Choe, wrote an article in Yisei magazine, the biannual publication of Harvard’s Korean American undergraduate student body. Although Choe acknowledged Ice Cube’s right to address what he perceived to be a legitimate manifestation of the black community’s frustrations, he believed that the message conveyed is “not completely accurate, even in his

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[Ice Cube’s] own estimation.”15 Indeed, Choe criticized Ice Cube for deliberately miscommunicating information and making unfair generalizations for greater impact. In this sense, according to Choe, Ice Cube’s lyrics “are not only degrading, but they project as general truths what he [Ice Cube] admits are isolated incidents. Rather than fostering knowledge and concern, they incite undue anger and suspicion.”16 For these and other reasons, “Black Korea” is among the most provocative songs on Death Certificate. The song was inspired by the fatal shooting in 1991 of 15-year-old Latasha Harlins by Soon Ja Du, owner of a convenience and liquor store in South Central. Du had accused Harlins of stealing a bottle of orange juice by concealing it in her backpack. Security videotapes from the store revealed that Harlins had in fact walked up to the counter, prepared to pay for the juice. When Du grabbed the backpack, Harlins responded by striking her; Du, in turn, fired a .38-caliber pistol as the teenager walked out of the store. Du was sentenced to probation for the murder. “Black Korea” captures the festering resentment and frustrations of many black residents and illustrates the tensions between blacks and Koreans in South Central. Ice Cube was not alone in expressing these issues; film producer Spike Lee addressed racial and ethnic conflicts in Do the Right Thing (1989) and looked at relationships between Korean shopowners and their black clientele. “Black Korea” focuses specifically on the lack of respect accorded black customers by Korean storeowners in South Central and the perception that black customers are shoplifters who must be followed up and down store aisles to make sure they do not steal. Although the song is short, in one verse only and lasting just under a minute, the lyrics pack a punch. Ice Cube uses racial epithets to refer to Korean merchants, including “Oriental one-penny counting motherfucker” and “little chop suey ass.” He calls for a national boycott of Korean shop owners and “raises the prospect of a racially vengeful conflagration” as he sings “pay respect to the black fist, or we’ll burn your store right down to a crisp.”17 The social issues on both sides are complicated. On the one hand, black residents of South Central bitterly resented the infiltration of non-black (largely Korean) merchants in their neighborhoods and the influx of mom-and-pop stores, most of which did not employ those who were not family members. This antipathy was heightened by proprietors’ overt distrust of their black patrons and the undisguised hostility that characterized transactions between consumer and owner. On the other hand, the merchants, according to Choe, based their businesses in South Central (and other urban ghettos) “not to take advantage of blacks, but because the low-priced land is often all that they can afford.” Korean merchants in these neighborhoods were “willing to work the long hours and take the risks inherent in operating a store in an environment of an above-average incident of crime and violence.”18 All of this was complicated still further by the socioeconomic realities of South Central in the early 1990s. Quinn echoes Choe, stating that “newly-arrived

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immigrant workers tend[ed] to accept lower wages and worse conditions than the native-born” and that the “prevailing social construction of Asians as a ‘model minority’ with blacks, as ever, the ‘racial villains,’ ” contributed to the layers of prejudice, racially based animosity, and mutual distrust.19 In the swirl of debate and controversy that accompanied “Black Korea,” including nearly 6,000 protests and boycotts nationwide from Korean American activists, the Korean American Grocers’ Association (KAGRO), and black consumers, Ice Cube found himself in the familiar position of having to explain and defend his views. He met with leaders of KAGRO, the most strident of the protest groups, several weeks after the release of Death Certificate and promised to discourage violence against storeowners as well as to continue working to bring black and Korean communities closer together. Ice Cube’s follow-up letter to the national president of KAGRO underscored these commitments: I explained some of the feelings and attitudes of Black people today [in “Black Korea”], and the problems and frustrations that we confront. And I clarified the intent of my album Death Certificate. It was not intended to offend anyone or to incite violence of any kind. It was not directed at all Korean Americans or at all Korean American store owners. I respect Korean Americans. It was directed at a few stores where my friends and I have had actual problems. Working together we can help solve these problems and build a bridge between our communities.20

Other songs on Death Certificate are similarly, if not equally, provocative. Virtually each is a polemical manifestation of Ice Cube’s commitments to the Nation of Islam and its black nationalist tenets. Ice Cube castigates everyone (except his Lench Mob and the Nation) in these songs, including white people, black people, homosexuals, gangbangers, drug dealers, women, U.S. politics and politicians, and his former associates Jerry Heller, Eazy-E, MC Ren, and Dr. Dre. He introduces the “death side” with “Funeral Lyrics,” a short piece in which he states “niggaz are in a state of emergency.” “Dead on Arrival” and “My Summer Vacation,” both on the “death side,” critique gangsta lifestyles. In this sense, each is Ice Cube’s contribution to “stop the violence” initiatives, as well as his unique appeal for help. “Dead on Arrival” is a young gangbanger’s deathbed recollection of a shootout with the police and his subsequent experiences in the trauma center of an understaffed urban hospital. The protagonist gets shot, runs away from the scene, passes out in the street, and, with blood on his sweatshirt, is transported to the county hospital, where, Ice Cube says, black men sometimes die over something as inconsequential as a little scratch. Despite the severity of his wounds, he is made to fill out admittance forms and, later, handcuffed and questioned about his gang affiliation. The response, which is characteristic of Ice Cube’s humor and self-referencing, recalls a line from “Once Upon a

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Time in the Projects”: “I don’t bang, I rock the good rhymes.” More time passes, with the protagonist still unseen by hospital staff and still handcuffed to the bed, with police continuing to question him. The story ends with the gangbanger’s death and his understanding all too well that his life might have been saved had there not been so many black bodies in the hospital. “My Summer Vacation” tells the story of “four gangbangers, professional crack slangers” who, frustrated with the sated drug-selling market in Los Angeles, decide to ply their trade in the potentially profitable neighborhoods of St. Louis. Convinced initially that they would have neither resistance nor competition from the dealers already established on the streets of East St. Louis and no interference from the local police, the four gangbangers from South Central are, to their surprise, quickly caught in a war of gang violence with their new rivals. Ice Cube’s text is interrupted briefly by a news report (a technique often found in his music) that announces the presence of L.A. gangs in St. Louis and the disturbing nationwide trend of drive-bys and other gang violence in Texas, Oklahoma, and Michigan. When Ice Cube resumes, he tells us that dealing in St. Louis has become too complicated and that he and his crew are going to pack up and head for Seattle. Unfortunately, the song’s protagonist is arrested, and the best his public defender can offer is a double life plea bargain that allows neither parole nor probation. The song ends with a summary-cum-moral, as we find in so much of Ice Cube’s music, in which Ice Cube laments his poor choices over the summer and realizes that he has little chance for successful rehabilitation. The “life side” of Death Certificate is full of advice to black people on bettering life in the black community—that is, the black community victimized by the urban woes addressed in gangsta rap. With “Black Korea,” these songs are among Ice Cube’s most powerful, as they contain some of his most urgent messages. “Color Blind” and “Us” stand at the forefront in this category, while “Horny Lil’ Devil” and “No Vaseline” are significant in their own respect. “Color Blind” is a fiery exhortation about the necessity of mutual understanding between rival gangs. Co-written by Ice Cube and hip-hop producer and gangsta rapper Sir Jinx with special performances by Compton-area gangsta rappers Kam, King Tee, and Coolio, this piece preaches intergang cooperation and urges neutrality. At first pass, it seems like just another gangsta piece with references to ubiquitous gangsta paraphernalia (gats and lowriders), being fully strapped and keeping a watchful eye in the rear view mirror to guard against being “jacked” by enemies. We soon discover that this song, like so many in Death Certificate, is a parable with an intentional, albeit clichéd message: here, that wearing the wrong color clothing could “get your mouth split.” Ice Cube drives this message home again and again, using words that resonate readily with his targeted audience. The second verse tells a story of a repeat offender’s incarcerations for gang-related activities. In verse three, we learn that the storyteller’s fellow inmates have more love

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for him than his own extended-family gang members, and, ultimately, that gang colors do not really matter. This important lock-up epiphany—that he is “colorblind”—is interrupted by the short verses that follow, in which the foolishness of gang ties and gang killings is described. The final two verses, sung by King Tee and Lench Mob member J-Dee, summarize the song’s messages. King Tee begins by saying that there are no safe streets in Compton because some of his friends wear red, while others wear blue. The song’s most poignant words are the last, uttered with palpable urgency and offered as advice by the streetwise J-Dee: “With blue and red bandanas on the street, if you slippin’, you’ll be six feet deep.” Ice Cube takes aim at several targets in “Horny Lil’ Devil.” With its unveiled references to white people as “devils,” this song reflects Ice Cube’s burgeoning devotion to the Nation of Islam’s dogma and to the precepts of its leader, Louis Farrakhan. Ice Cube uses the word “devil” 10 times to describe white men, whom he vilifies for their lustful intentions toward black women and condemns for their part in creating a race of light-skinned black people. The vitriolic stream of adjectives in the first lines—father of evil, hell born, demonic, savage, fierce, vicious, wild, tameless, barbaric, uncontrollable, obstinate, beast—sets the stage for the torrent of invective that follows. Ice Cube says he hates the devil passionately and that the “devil” “must be a F-A-G, tryin’ to fuck me out my land and my manhood.” The issue of homosexuality, a recurrent theme in Ice Cube’s early music, is broached in this piece, with Ice Cube calling the “devil” a “fuckin’ homo” and affirming that real black men are not gay. The piece ends especially violently, even for Ice Cube in his early years. In an effort to clean up his neighborhood, Ice Cube tells us that he is going to the corner store to “beat the Jap up” (and here we understand “Jap” to be a generic reference to any Asian) and to castrate and shoot the “devil” to death. “No Vaseline” is a quintessential “diss” rap. An extended harangue that attacks Ice Cube’s former associates from NWA, this song’s sole purpose is to vilify Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, MC Ren, and the group’s manager, Jerry Heller. Ice Cube heaps ad hominem insults on each, inflicting barbs that are homophobic and anti-Semitic. The first part of “No Vaseline” is directed generally at NWA. Here, Ice Cube criticizes the group’s members for succumbing to the temptations of the pocket and, once rich, for quickly moving straight out of Compton and “disgracing the C-P-T.” This move out of Compton, a metaphor for the group’s quick assimilation into white, mainstream culture, is especially damnable in Ice Cube’s eyes because, as a consequence, the group allows itself to be manipulated by a white manager and financial adviser. Although Ice Cube reserves his most venomous assaults for the second and third verses, he manages several well-placed barbs in this first section aimed at Dre and Eazy-E, whom he depicts as an acquisitive, backstabbing schemer. The second verse is focused largely on Eazy-E’s complicity in the financial ruin of the group at Heller’s hands. Ice Cube refers to Eazy-E as a “punk ass

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villain” and, in the first of two nasty attacks on Heller, refers to him as “the Jew” who broke up the group. The final verse contains Ice Cube’s most strident language, through which he abuses Eazy-E with particular zeal. Ice Cube defames Eazy-E—whom he identifies by his given name, Eric Wright— with a string of unsavory adjectives, including house nigga, maggot, faggot, punk, and half-pint bitch. The imagery is extraordinarily graphic here, as Ice Cube threatens to torch Eazy-E with gasoline and watch as it burns up his Jheri-curled hairstyle. Heller is again a target, referred to as the “white Jew” who is a master puppeteer in control of NWA’s finances. Interestingly, Eazy-E dismissed these attacks as being just “business. If it was personal you would know about it.”21 The verse ends, as do the others, with a reference to the group’s financial exploitation, stated in the song’s crude sexual vernacular as being “fucked with no Vaseline.” The undisputed crown jewel of Death Certificate is “Us.” In this piece we find the full range of Ice Cube’s talents as social commentator, focused this time on the shortcomings of black people. Jeff Chang has dubbed “Us” Ice Cube’s manifesto, which at once chastises the black community for “its disunity, materialism, violence, indolence and indulgence” and exposes the problems of the black community in such a way that rejects victimization “for an empowered critical agenda.”22 The beginning dialogue, which features a mother, her son, and the son’s older friend, sets the stage. The mother, who is trying to ascertain the whereabouts of her adolescent child, is the first to speak, asking, “Yo, where the fuck is that little boy at?” Stanley, the son, responds, “Fuck you, drunk-ass nigga.” The dialogue continues with a conversation between Stanley and his older friend. Here, Stanley enumerates the “bling” possessions he hopes to acquire by the time he reaches 14 years—a pimped-out car and “a big booty bitch to go with it”—despite his friend’s repeated admonitions to go to school and get a job. This leads directly into the first verse, in which Ice Cube points to three problems that contribute to black people’s woeful state: rampant jealousy; reliance on welfare money; and lack of black-owned businesses in black neighborhoods. In these critiques, Ice Cube views black people through the lens of racist white people, referring to blacks as porch monkeys with nappy hair and big lips who expect a handout from the government to provide for their large families. He contends that if black people cooperated more among themselves and were not so envious of each other’s prosperity, black enterprise might succeed and end the practice by outsiders (and he refers specifically to “Japs,” a code, as we have observed, for Asians of any stripe) of building businesses in black neighborhoods. Ice Cube ends this verse with a stern warning that black people should take a hard look at themselves before blaming outsiders. The self-criticism escalates in the second verse. Ice Cube lashes out at black dope dealers, claiming that they are no better than white people (referred to as “the Caucasians”) and police because they kill other black people. In addition, he accuses dope dealers of impeding opportunities for economic

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growth in the black community by using their money on foolish material possessions (he cites jewelry and cars—gold and Cadillacs—two stereotypical ghetto obsessions) instead of creating and supporting black businesses. He then uses syncopation marvelously—a hallmark of his style—to explain why many of his raps center on gang life: Ice Cube tells us that the 400 tears he shed for his 400 peers who died last year alone from gang-related crimes are the reason that his lyrics are fraught with gang-related rhymes. The rhythmic punch he gives to each of these words underscores the tragedy and urgency of this message. The verse ends with Ice Cube pointedly telling black people that they—neither white people nor Asians—are to blame for their problems. In these lines, arguably the best in the entire song, Ice Cube chides black people with racist epithets as he derides them for their failures: “But don’t point the finger, you jigaboo; take a look at yourself, you dumb nigga, you.” There is banter throughout each of the three verses, with a running commentary (of sorts) on Ice Cube’s words. While most of this is monosyllabic (“right,” “shit,” “yup”), some extends the points made by Ice Cube or, on occasion, adds a new dimension. As an example, after Ice Cube addresses some black people’s refusal to accept responsibility for their own behavior, blaming everything on either the police or white people, the “commentator” asks why a sole miscreant can ruin a good show for 22,000 concertgoers. The third, and final, verse centers on the duplicity of black people’s public posturing and actual behavior. Ice Cube criticizes black people for drinking, using drugs, maintaining a poor diet, and abusing their families while simultaneously affirming love and peace for their black brothers and sisters. This verse also contains the curious words “still busting up a chiffarobe.” It is an odd, antiquated phrase, one that we would not expect to find in gangsta rap. In Harper Lee’s classic To Kill a Mockingbird, convicted rapist Tom Robinson is lured into the home of Mayella Ewell to help her bust up an old chiffarobe. The word is so little known that when Atticus Finch asks Mayella what it is that she had asked Robinson to chop up, she has to explain it: “A chiffarobe, a old dresser full of drawers on one side.” Ice Cube’s use of the phrase to describe his lot in life, a victimized black man in the late twentieth century, in the same terms as those used to describe a hapless and victimized black man some 50 years earlier is striking. In the final lines, Ice Cube admits that he knows his words (his “little summary”) will fall on deaf ears, but he beseeches black people to take a good look in the mirror and realize, in the end, that “nobody gives a fuck about. . . .” The final “us” is not stated by Ice Cube but it is obviously the final word in the song. As I observed earlier, the polemics of these messages are in many instances linked to Ice Cube’s involvement with the Nation of Islam. Juan M. FloydThomas explores the dichotomous nature of Ice Cube’s religion and career as a gangsta rapper in a provocative article entitled “A Jihad of Words: The Evolution of African American Islam and Contemporary Hip-Hop.”23 In it, Floyd-Thomas discusses Ice Cube’s “quasi-religious/quasi-political position”

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as the “prophet of rage,” and argues that Death Certificate is the “musical transliteration of Farrakhan and the NOI’s ideological platform.”24 By consequence, says Floyd-Thomas, the album’s messages are a tacit exhortation for listeners of all races and backgrounds to “dive into the dissonant recesses of the black psyche.”25 As we shall observe in the chapters that follow, Ice Cube has been criticized for the inconsistencies perceived between the dogma of his religious beliefs, his career as a gangsta rapper, and his interests in film as an actor, writer, and producer.

BOYZ N THE HOOD The film Boyz N the Hood, directed by John Singleton, launched Ice Cube’s acting career. Riding on the heels of Spike Lee’s successful movies of the midto late 1980s, She’s Gotta Have It (1986) and Do the Right Thing (1989), as well as Mario van Peeble’s New Jack City (1991), this brilliant “ghetto drama” depicts life in gang-ridden South Central and the travails of three neighborhood friends, played by Ice Cube, Cuba Gooding, Jr., and Morris Chestnut. Singleton, who was born in South Central in 1968 (Ice Cube was born in 1969), was a student majoring in film writing at the University of Southern California when he conceived the idea for the film. When Singleton approached Ice Cube about being in the film, whose script was being considered by Columbia Pictures, Cube “didn’t pay him much attention” because he “wasn’t thinking about acting.”26 He told Margena A. Christian of Jet magazine, “I’m like, man, please. Me, act? That was, like, boring. I couldn’t equate the two. That somebody would want me to be in a movie. It was just beyond me. We were ten or fifteen miles from Hollywood, but it never struck me that I could do a movie. That Hollywood would even want me here.”27 Christian wrote that Ice Cube was “even angry with Hollywood’s portrayal of blacks,” citing his participation, in 1990, with Chuck D and Big Daddy Kane, in Public Enemy’s song “Burn, Hollywood, Burn,” a song about Hollywood’s exploitation of blacks.28 According to Ice Cube, “Back then when I said burn, Hollywood, burn, it was more like throw a Molotov cocktail at the studios and burn them down. As I got into Hollywood and saw what needed to be done, I saw ‘Burn, Hollywood, Burn’ more like a trailblazer.”29 Despite Ice Cube’s ambivalence, in 1991, about a career on the screen, Singleton pursued him. The reasons were several: (1) Ice Cube was the right age and appropriately “street tough” to play the part; and (2) he had written “Boyz n the Hood,” which became the movie’s title song. Doughboy, the character Ice Cube plays, is the less-favored son of a single mother whose hopes rest on her athletic and clean-cut son. Doughboy is well aware of his place in the family hierarchy; his actions reveal his acceptance of his lowly status, and he grows up to be the hoodlum that he was expected to become. Doughboy, the adolescent, is in and out of juvenile hall, and, as a

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young adult, he is unable to resist the temptations of street life. Doughboy is a “frowning, cursing, malicious gargoyle” who spends most of his time drinking 40s and cruising the streets looking for trouble.30 Ice Cube’s portrayal is phenomenal, as his facial expressions and body language capture both a young black man’s angst and his misdirected machismo. According to Ice Cube’s biographer Joel McIver, Ice Cube took to the part easily, making us feel Doughboy’s pain and the hopelessness of his situation. When called on to “lay a string of obscenities on his homeboys, he does so with a grim stare, grinding out the words through clenched teeth” or with an “insouciant, almost charming smirk.”31 Especially memorable is Ice Cube’s poignant delivery of the film’s best-remembered lines, which come at the end of the film, following the murder of his half-brother. In them, Ice Cube speaks to the desperate situation in his neighborhood and the apparent indifference of outsiders: “Turned on the TV this morning. Had this shit on about how we’re living in a violent world. Showed all these foreign places. How foreigners live and all. I started thinking, man. Either they don’t know, don’t show, or don’t care about what’s going on in the ’hood.”

THE PREDATOR Ice Cube’s third full-length solo recording was released within months of the controversial Rodney King trial in 1992 and the riots that ensued in Los Angeles. As such, The Predator is an evocative social landscape of the most important issues confronting Ice Cube’s constituency—black urban dwellers—that illuminates racial tensions and police brutality in Los Angeles in the early 1990s. Robert Hilburn, a writer for the Los Angeles Times, called the album “the first post-Rodney King/LA riots collection from the most powerful rap voice in the hood.”32 Journalist and cultural critic Christopher John Farley wrote that the album “is pure testosterone, straight up, no chaser.”33 These sentiments are echoed by Joel McIver, who wrote, “Future civilizations will be able to gauge the mood of black America” from listening to this recording and “[The Predator] reveals a simple truth: that the record was born, shaped and evolved from the flames that engulfed Los Angeles in that strange, violent week in April and May 1992.”34 Despite the album’s overt political agenda, Ice Cube said in an interview just months before its release that he “just wanted to make a hip-hop album” and that one of the album’s primary goals was to “say ‘hi’ to the bad guy.”35 Cultural critic Danyel Smith was less sanguine about the album’s truths and goals. In her review, she wrote that, while Ice Cube’s coolness and “predatory” nature are illustrated amply, “his soul, the vulnerability that took him out of the myth of ‘South Central’ and placed him smack in the middle of real South Central Los Angeles—that sad, mad soul has become more and more obscure.”36 Her assertion that the music of The Predator is vapid and predictable and,

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worse, that Ice Cube wasted an opportunity to continue to speak for his constituency is even more damning: Ice Cube has shut us out. In no song on The Predator can we see into his mind (let alone his heart), and it was this opportunity to feel what broils the insides of young, urban African American men that made Cube so intense. . . . You used to be able to reach around and find Ice Cube in there, underneath all that heavy bitch-ho-dick regalia. But this wham-bam album reads like a gangsta’s manifesto—common and tinny. . . . Cube knows how to touch souls even if it means scaring them with violence, shocking them with hate, surprising them with candor: You touch other souls by delving into your own. On The Predator, Cube doesn’t do that. He keeps his soul safely inside himself—and that makes for hollow, unfulfilling music.37

The Predator debuted on both R&B and rap charts at #1 and, with more than 3 million copies sold, it is Ice Cube’s most commercially popular recording. The album contains 16 tracks, including several brief intros to longer numbers. Three of the tracks, “Wicked,” “It Was a Good Day,” and “Check Yo Self,” were also released as singles. All three rose quickly on the charts, with the last-named two reaching the top 10 on R&B and hip-hop singles charts. The most commercially popular single track, “It Was A Good Day”—a soulful, jazzy number described as giving “one long sideways wink at the listener”—reached the #15 position on Billboard Hot 100 in 1993.38 The lyrics of many songs reflect Ice Cube’s embrace of Islam; in fact, Ice Cube wears a kufi, a round skullcap worn by many Muslims, on the cover of the album. References to “devils” abound, although it is not clear whether every reference is to a “white devil.” In the acknowledgements that accompany the CD sleeve, Ice Cube writes: Ice Cube wishes to acknowledge white America’s continued commitment to the silence and oppression of black men (W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Stokley Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, The Honorable Elijah Muhammed, the Honorable Louis Farrakhan, Malcolm X and all the other brothers that were labeled enemies of the state). Ice Cube wishes to acknowledge the failure of the public school system to teach all of its students about the major contributions made by our African American scientists, artists, scholars and leaders (with all due respect for your lectures on the peanut). Without the role of state funded education in the conspiracy, the Predator album might not have been made. Ice Cube wishes to acknowledge America’s cops for their systematic and brutal killings of brothers all over the country (most of their stories never made it to the camera). These actions committed by the police have provided me with some of the material for this album.

In the title track, “The Predator,” Ice Cube boldly announces that he is the “neighborhood nigga with the third album.” While not as socially or politically significant as other tracks on the album, this one adds another

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component to Ice Cube’s public persona: he tells us that in addition to being a rapper and a “macker,” he is also an actor. With this self-definition, Ice Cube lets us know that he is more multidimensional than the stereotypical gangsta rapper, that he will not be pigeonholed, and that his interests extend beyond the confines of hip-hop. In “Wicked,” which was released as a single in 1992, Ice Cube again defines himself. The self-description this time combines racial pride with gangsta bravado, both intended to ensure that listeners understand that his demeanor as an angry black man must be taken as seriously as the words of his songs: “Nappy head, nappy chest, nappy chin, never seen with a happy grin.” Although there are a few activist moments in this piece (for example, Ice Cube says that April 29, the day of the L.A. riots, empowered his people), “Wicked” is essentially about the funk side of Ice Cube’s music, attested to by the samples from the Ohio Players and from Sly and the Family Stone, two of the greatest funk bands of all time. “We Had to Tear This Motherfucker Up” is a fiery indictment of the policemen acquitted in the Rodney King trial and the jury that acquitted them. It is clear that the focal point of the piece is the text: the accompaniment is spare, composed largely of a drum machine and other percussion. The piece begins with clips from several broadcast reports about the verdict and the riots that ensued. Two lines are repeated for emphasis (“the jury found that they were all not guilty, not guilty”); these lead into the first of Ice Cube’s verses, in which he imagines the fates, if left in his hands, of the exonerated policemen, referred to as “filthy devils.” He then names three of the LAPD officers (Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind, and Stacey Koon) and states that he cannot trust “a cracker” in a blue uniform. In true gangsta bravado, he says that he will cut Powell’s throat, shoot Koon in the face, and “introduce his ass to the AK-40 dick.” As is his custom, Ice Cube self-quotes. In the first verse, he includes a paraphrase from “Once Upon a Time in the Projects” as he comes to “pay a little visit” to a member of the jury. Shortly thereafter, in detailing the fate of Koon, Ice Cube promises to “run him up with a broom”—an eerily prophetic reference to the brutal assault on Abner Louima by an officer of the New York Police Department, in 1997. The first verse ends with another self-quote, “wrong nigga to fuck with,” which is stated repeatedly after the remaining verses. The second verse is noteworthy for Ice Cube’s defiantly unapologetic defense of his anti-Semitic remarks in Death Certificate: “Regret it? Nope. Said it? Yep.” In verse three, Ice Cube gives his spin on the “art” of looting, imploring looters to leave black businesses alone and to set their sights instead on white-owned stores like Foot Locker. He advises colleagues to be “ready for Darryl” (Darryl Gates, chief of the Los Angeles Police Department), with “the Mossberg with the double-eyed buckshot,” and he issues a stern warning that anyone intent on committing crimes had better be prepared to do the time. The piece ends with several statements of “wrong nigga

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to fuck with” and a news statement announcing the not-guilty verdicts for Koon, Powell, Wind, and Theodore Briseno, also an officer in the LAPD. “Who Got the Camera?” is another King-inspired taunt. Here, Ice Cube weaves a tale about police abuse in which he encourages the abuse because he hopes some citizen will capture the brutality on film. In the first verse, Ice Cube is driving on the highway when he realizes policemen are following him. Believing that Ice Cube has just committed a robbery because the suspect resembled him, the police force storyteller Ice Cube from his car. Hoping to be caught on videotape, Ice Cube sings, “When I stepped out the car they slammed me. Goddamn y’all, who got the camera?” In the second verse, Ice Cube gives us a graphic account of the police abuse levied against him; he is hit with a taser, put in a chokehold, and hit in the face. The final verse presents a hodgepodge of images in which the policemen continue their abuse and Ice Cube contemplates the revenge he might have meted out had the stakes been fair. The offending police officers, sings Ice Cube, would be victims of “a big fat 187” (police radio code for homicide) if they were unarmed—or, better yet, if Ice Cube were armed. Ice Cube ends the piece with an ironic reference to David Duke, the notorious white supremacist and former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, as he proclaims this to be the name of the officer who called him a spook. References to leaders and iconic social activists abound in “When Will They Shoot?” Among those cited are David Duke of the Ku Klux Klan, Hitler, JFK, Louis Farrakhan, Darryl Gates, Nat Turner, Black Panther founder Huey Newton, and Malcolm X. Like other tracks on this album, this one reflects Ice Cube’s allegiance to the Nation of Islam. In the first verse, Ice Cube lists the numerous ways in which the United States violates black people’s rights, including his suggestion that Uncle Sam is Hitler without an oven. In another reference to David Duke, Ice Cube alludes to white people’s racist voting practices, accusing “devils” of black genocide by introducing crack into black neighborhoods and profiting from residents’ addictions. As is his custom, Ice Cube again includes fragments from his own work: here, he says Uncle Sam is trying to fuck him “with no Vaseline, just a match and a little bit of gasoline.” The verse ends with popular and cultural references: Ice Cube alludes to Naughty by Nature’s “O.P.P.,” and he again avers his loyalty to Islam in citing Minister Farrakhan and Compton Mosque 54. Verses two and three contain further references to Ice Cube’s own music as he mentions Death Certificate, AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted, and Kill at Will. Although not named specifically, David Duke is suggested in Ice Cube’s warning about members of the Ku Klux Klan who wear three-piece suits. The song ends with Ice Cube declaring his admiration of black leaders Nat Turner, Huey Newton, Malcolm X, and Louis Farrakhan. “Check Yo Self,” which was released as a single in 1993, features New York rappers Das EFX. As we have seen throughout his recordings of the early 1990s, Ice Cube makes ad hominem attacks on other performers and

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rants against money-grubbing women. The victims of Ice Cube’s vitriol in the first verse are House of Pain, an Irish-American hip-hop group whose eponymous album debuted in 1992, and rapper MC Hammer. Ice Cube tells us that he is “not a sucker, sitting in a House of Pain. . . . I’ll cut ya.” Later, citing the words from one of Hammer’s best-known songs, Ice Cube says, “you say ‘you can’t touch this’ and I wouldn’t touch ya; in fact, motherfuck ya.” In verse two, Ice Cube announces that he has a “new style,” a reference in obeisance to James Brown’s famous proclamation that signaled his conversion to funk in 1965 with his single “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag.” Most of the third and final verse is an extended rant directed at disreputable women. Ice Cube begins by accusing these “bitches” of spreading disease through the neighborhood and says that they get no respect from him. The moral here, although not as explicit as in some of his songs, is that everyone needs to be on guard, making sure that individual lifestyles and behaviors do not lead to personal or widespread devastation. Unequivocally the best piece of The Predator, “It Was a Good Day” stands out primarily because it was the antipode of everything Ice Cube had recorded through 1992. In this sense, the track, which was released as a single in 1993, is an antidote to the relentless themes of gangsta rap. This is not to say that “It Was a Good Day” does not contain gangsta themes or that it is not written in what we understand to be gangsta vernacular. In this case, while the images of gangsta rap are omnipresent, they are presented in a unique way that, for a refreshing change, is positive, optimistic, and, until the end, genuinely sanguine. The tone is set immediately with the first words as Ice Cube thanks God for letting him wake up to another day. This upbeat beginning continues with the next lines, as Ice Cube says that the good start to this day is unusual for several reasons: no neighborhood dogs are barking, the air is free of the ubiquitous Los Angeles smog, and, even better, his mother has fixed a pork-free breakfast. After making plans to get together with a girl he has lusted after for a while, Ice Cube goes out to play basketball with his buddies. En route, he is astonished to find that everything is going well; in fact, he marvels at not having seen a single carjacker. The first verse concludes with Ice Cube reflecting on his skills on the courts. The ironic optimism continues in the second verse, with Ice Cube expressing his appreciation for being ignored by the police as he runs through an intersection and by a group of rivals. Ice Cube continues his carefree day by playing craps and dominoes with friends, underscoring the day’s serendipity in the verse’s final statement: “Plus nobody I know got killed in South Central L.A.” The third verse begins with Ice Cube recounting his good fortune with a girl he has wanted to have sex with since twelfth grade. He drives her home at two in the morning, has a snack at a local Fat Burger, is delighted not to see the bright lights of a police helicopter scouring his neighborhood for criminal activity, and muses, in half surprise, that today he “didn’t even have to use [his] AK.” He repeats the line “it was a good day,”

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but then pauses and throws in a surprise ending, one that makes us know that none of the day’s felicity was real: “What the fuck am I thinking about?” The music video of “It Was a Good Day” was released by Priority Records in 1993. In the five-minute video, we spend the day with Ice Cube, accompanying him as he starts his day at 9:47 A.M. and ends it at 2:33 A.M. The images are a perfect visual complement to the lyrics: we follow along as Ice Cube dresses for the day, cruises the streets in a metallic green lowrider, evades the police, shoots hoops and plays dominoes with his buddies, observes a mother placing flowers in a cemetery, and has sex in a motel with an old crush. When Ice Cube returns to his home, he immediately senses that all is not right. The whirring of police helicopters overhead confirms this; Ice Cube soon finds that he is surrounded by an army of policemen, including a SWAT (Specialized Weapons and Tactics) unit, with assault weapons trained on him. The mystery of the final lines of The Predator’s “It Was a Good Day” is solved in the music video: clearly, this was an illusion and not a good day after all.

LETHAL INJECTION Ice Cube’s fourth full-length album was released in 1993. Like its predecessors, Lethal Injection was recorded with Priority Records and was a commercial hit, reaching the #5 chart position on the Billboard 200 and #1 for top R&B/ Hip Hop albums. Two tracks, “You Know How We Do It” and “Bop Gun (One Nation),” both released as singles in 1994, were huge successes and are stylistically similar to the G-funk sound of Doggystyle (Death Row Records, 1993), Snoop Dogg’s blockbuster debut album. “Bop Gun,” in particular, was enormously popular. Featuring George Clinton of the 1970s funk band Funkadelic and sampling the Funkadelic song “One Nation under a Groove,” “Bop Gun” was the quintessential party and danceall-night song, noteworthy especially for its pulsating rhythms and lyrics that encourage “hardcore funkateers” and other revelers to submit to the mindfreeing influence of the bop gun. Despite its popular appeal, both the album and Ice Cube were criticized. Cultural critic Touré was among the most unforgiving in his condemnation, denouncing Ice Cube as a once-important social critic who “no longer sparks national debate.”39 Asking if any rapper has “ever fallen off as hard as Cube,” Touré said that “the focus of Cube’s nickname ‘The Nigga Ya Love to Hate’ [has shifted] from white people hating him for being a political thorn to black people hating him for being a crap-music-making prick.”40 He then alleged that Ice Cube’s fall from grace was attributable, at least in part, to his conversion from angry gangsta rapper to multimedia darling: “Mr. Stay True to the Game has, like the Fresh Prince [actor Will Smith] and Queen Latifah before him, chosen to become a multimedia hip hopper at the expense of his music.”41 These sentiments echoed those of Christopher John Farley. In his review of The Predator, Farley made a connection between the role-playing inherent in

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both rapping and acting: “Some of rap is about acting, role playing. That’s probably one reason why so many rappers are going into movies . . . although [Ice Cube] may play a criminal in movies and in his music, it’s a front.”42 Although the sociopolitical statements in Lethal Injection may not be as bold as those found in Ice Cube’s earlier albums and although it was criticized for kowtowing to the gangsta aesthetic, the album contains several noteworthy tracks. Of these, “When I Get to Heaven,” “Cave Bitch,” and “Lil’ Ass Gee” are particularly significant. The album’s other tracks are a curious hodgepodge of important messages and trite, thoroughly predictable gangsta rants. “Ghetto Bird” and “You Know How We Do It” are examples of the latter. Although our appetite is whetted at the beginning of “Ghetto Bird” for a hard-hitting harangue on police intimidation as Ice Cube announces, “Why oh why must you swoop through the hood like everybody from the hood is up to no good,” the piece quickly devolves into a watered-down complaint with little substance that ends benignly with “motherfuck you and your punk-ass ghetto bird.” The whole point of “You Know How We Do It” is to affirm Ice Cube’s pride in his West Side roots. As such, it is a patchwork of names and places associated with the West Side, all held together with the refrain “comin’ from the West Side, nothin’ but the West Side.” “Cave Bitch” is a scathing indictment and denigration of white women who seek the company of rich and famous black men. Ice Cube ridicules white women’s physical features, all the while affirming his preference for “dark meat” in sexual partners. The introduction, spoken by Khalid Muhammad of the Nation of Islam, sets the tone: “No stringy haired, blonde hair, blue eyed, pale skinned, buttermilk complexion . . . ironing board backside, straight up and down.” In the verses that follow, Ice Cube lashes out against white women who follow him from show to show, waiting at his backstage door in hopes of scoring a one-night stand. Race and the thorny issue of black male/white female relationships are at the heart of this song, with Ice Cube evoking the image and memory of Emmett Till, a black 14-year-old who was brutally murdered and lynched in 1955 for allegedly treating a white woman with disrespect. He cautions black men against having sexual alliances with white women, since these are likely to result in charges of rape once white fathers learn the color of their daughters’ partners’ skin. Ice Cube ends the song ends with a final affirmation of his preference for black women and his disinterest in all manner of pale-as-snow “cave bitches”. The final, spoken lines of “Lil’ Ass Gee” encapsulate perfectly the song’s main messages. Delivered with minimal accompaniment to underscore their importance, Ice Cube’s words here are those of a sage elder whose intention is to issue a strong warning to pubescent, wannabe hardcore gangsters (“G” or “gee” in hip-hop vernacular). Ice Cube heaps verbal abuses on the subjects of this song, insulting the “lil’ gees” in various and imaginative ways. In the first verse, he refers to the young gangsta as a “wild little nigga . . . 12 years old . . . a straight killer, a fool,” as well as a “doped-out, insane-in-the-brain

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little nigga servin’ ’caine.” He bewails the dangerous and too-quick transition between childhood play and “manhood,” singing that the boy “use to have the G.I. Joe with the Kung-Fu grip, Now he’s straight Blood or Crip.” The “camp” that Ice Cube mentions in verse two is not the overnight summer camp that many children anticipate during their vacation from school; by contrast, this camp is a juvenile correctional facility—the first step toward an adulthood spent “in the system.” In the final verse, Ice Cube speaks as one who has learned life’s lessons the hard way and tells his young confrères that life “ain’t about bein’ hard” and that crimes committed as an adolescent are neither forgotten nor forgiven. “What Can I Do?” chronicles a gangsta’s rise and precipitous fall in the world of dope dealing. It is also a chilling commentary on justice and the penal system in the United States as seen through the eyes of a small-time hustler. In a characteristically gangsta style of song writing, Ice Cube tells the story of a high school dropout who proudly boasts that he infests his neighborhood with crack cocaine and has a lot of “bitches.” Finding the market in Los Angeles incompatible with his professional and financial aspirations, the dealer moves to greener pastures in Minnesota, where he quickly establishes himself as a kingpin. The small fortune he amasses enables him to buy a house next to Prince, drive around in a Mercedes-Benz, and watch the Twins play ball at the Metrodome. Unfortunately, yet predictably, his fabulous lifestyle ends suddenly, the result of a police wiretap on his mobile phone. The dealer is indicted, his belongings are repossessed, and he is sentenced to 36 months—during which time he “never picked up a book” but beefed up his biceps to 16 inches. In the third verse, Ice Cube relates the hapless dealer’s postprison experiences; he is forced to “start from scratch” and wonders where he will find employment. Sentiments of hopelessness dominate here, with the dealer relating his dismal experiences as he realizes that he is “just a dumb-ass G” with no college degree, a baby on the way, and no obvious means of paying his bills. The verse ends as the dealer gets “all dressed up in polyester” to work at a McDonalds. Ice Cube closes “What Can I Do?” with scorching commentary on “the white man’s” sense of justice. In these spoken words, Ice Cube underscores his perception of inequities in American criminal justice: “The white man has broke every law known to man to establish AmeriKKKa. But he’ll put you in the state penitentiary, he’ll put you in the federal penitentiary for breaking these same laws.” The song ends with an enumeration of offenses that “the white man” has committed and been convicted of, including drug using, drug selling, armed robbery, rape, conspiracy to commit murder, sodomy of the black man, perjury, kidnapping, smuggling, grand theft, and premeditated, cold-blooded murder. In this sense, the song serves two purposes: the song’s three verses warn aspiring hoodlums of the pitfalls of gangsta life from an insider’s perspective and the concluding “outro” highlights disparities in the justice system for white and black offenders.

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With its flute interludes and extended postlude, “When I Get to Heaven” is reminiscent of the soft, jazzy sounds on “It Was a Good Day.” As such, the music—even the tone of Ice Cube’s voice, which is relaxed and almost mellow—is in stark opposition to the subject of the lyrics. One of Ice Cube’s most controversial songs, “When I Get to Heaven” scoffs at Christians and Christianity. Although black people’s piety is ridiculed in several of Ice Cube’s songs, black Christians and the Christian church are derided with particular gusto in this introspective piece. The first lines set the stage for the mocking that follows. Ice Cube rebukes the black preacher for eating pork (he tells the preacher that he is unable to hear him “with a mouth full of pigs feet”) and belittles him for being blessed “with the Father, Son, Spirit, and the Holy Ghost” while the residents of his church community are “comatose, looking for survival.” In the next section, Ice Cube comments on race and Christianity, citing the relationship between slavery and the Christian Church. He then points the finger at black churchgoers, mocking the overemphasis in some black churches on wearing and being seen in expensive clothing. Ice Cube ends the first verse, as he does verses two and three, with a refrain that reflects his views on white Christians: “And they won’t call me a nigga when I get to heaven.” The second verse asks white Christians if they are reading the same Bible as black Christians, since their interpretations of the scriptures are at such variance with black interpretations. Ice Cube also questions the practice of the tithe, asking preachers whether he will be allowed inside the church if he does not tithe regularly. The final verse continues its attacks on the inconsistencies Ice Cube perceives between the doctrines of Christianity and men’s actual deeds in the name of Christianity. Referring to the Ku Klux Klan-related bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, that killed four black girls in 1963, Ice Cube says, “The same white man that put me in the slammer, he bombed a church in Alabama.” The concluding couplets conjure up images of the Nation of Islam, with its references to bow ties and Levis, and inform us that someday soon black people will reject the tenets of Christianity in favor of a religion that will respect them. The final, spoken words belong to Minister Louis Farrakhan and are targeted at black people who are reluctant to act decisively. Recalling in spirit the admonition made by The Last Poets nearly a quarter of a century earlier in “Niggers Are Scared of Revolution” (1970), Farrakhan chastens black people who find convenient excuses for backing down from a struggle. As we have noted elsewhere, this use of unaccompanied spoken dialogue at the end of a song to reemphasize a song’s most important messages is a hallmark of Ice Cube’s music.

MISCELLANY Ice Cube’s recorded output between 1990 and 1993 included two other noteworthy works, both collaborative: in 1992 he was executive producer

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of Guerillas in Da Mist (Priority Records), the debut album of the nowdefunct rap group Da Lench Mob; in 1993, Ice Cube, along with Ice-T, worked with Tupac on the album Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. Active for a short while only, between 1990 and 1994, Da Lench Mob fanned the flames of political rap with its incendiary commentaries on East Coast/ West Coast rap, black/white relations, and sociopolitics in the United States. In particular, “Buck Tha Devil” contains inflammatory lyrics in which “niggas” are told to “pop that devil in his ass” and “beat the shit out of a devil.” References to white people as devils are omnipresent, as are allusions to the Nation of Islam: “Armageddon is a confrontation, that’s the information comin’ from the Nation . . . gotta let ’em know the devil’s a conniver.” Two other songs, “Fuck You and Your Heroes” and “Freedom Got an A.K.,” contain similarly venomous lyrics. In the former, Da Lench Mob hurls ad hominem attacks on a host of popular icons, including the Beatles, baseball legend Babe Ruth, actor Rock Hudson, entertainer Madonna, Las Vegas showman Liberace, and actress Marilyn Monroe. In this sense, the song is reminiscent of Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power,” in which white public figures are denounced and those who lionize them are ridiculed. In “Freedom Got an A.K.” the group rejects the ideals of nonviolence of the 1960s civil rights movement and says that using an AK-47 assault rifle is the most efficacious route to freedom. Da Lench Mob cites H. Rap Brown, a leader in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Black Panther Party, and urges listeners to rally behind the “eye for an eye” tactics Brown espoused. The group fell on hard times in 1993, as one group member, J-Dee, was sentenced to life in prison for murder and subsequently dropped by Priority. Da Lench Mob released a second album, Planet of Da Apes (1994), but disbanded shortly thereafter. Ice Cube’s collaboration with Tupac and Ice-T on “Last Wordz” from Tupac’s Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. was a landmark and celebrated affair. Written by Ice Cube, Ice-T, and Tupac (along with lyricist/producer Bobby “Bobcat” Ervin), this piece is a rhythmic affirmation of the West Coast style. Ice Cube, Ice-T, and Tupac each rap a verse that tells listeners that they are hardcore gangstas whose main mission is to address the concerns of their people. Despite its predictable gangsta puffery, this piece contains important messages on black unity and the need for young gangbangers to stop killing each other. Tupac, who has the “last wordz,” makes a special plea for peace in the neighborhoods: “United we stand, divided we fall. They can shoot one nigga but they can’t take us all.”

AN INTERVIEW WITH ANGELA DAVIS As Ice Cube’s celebrity grew throughout the early 1990s, he was frequently interviewed in popular culture magazines and in broadcast media. In 1991, publicist Leyla Turkkan paired Ice Cube, whom she considered to be an emerging voice of political rap and the black radical tradition, with legendary

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political and social activist Angela Davis, renowned for her role in the Black Panthers in the 1960s. The interview took place in Ice Cube’s Street Knowledge offices in Los Angeles, where Davis and Ice Cube centered their conversation on four topics: rap and the older generation, race, gangs, and gender.43 Despite Ice Cube’s increasing notoriety as a musical spokesman for black urban youth, Davis was only slightly familiar with his music; in fact, she had heard only “Us” and “My Summer Vacation” from the soon-to-be-released Death Certificate and, at the time of the interview, had no knowledge of “Black Korea,” the album’s most controversial track. When Davis asked Ice Cube his feelings about the older generation, the 22-year-old rapper responded: “When I look at older people, I don’t think they feel that they can learn from the younger generation. I try and tell my mother things that she just doesn’t want to hear sometimes.”44 Ice Cube’s comments on the older generation’s response to gangs similarly reflected the generation divide: “We’re at a point where I hear people like Darryl Gates saying, ‘We’ve got to have a war on gangs.’ And I see a lot of black parents clapping and saying: ‘Oh yes, we have to have a war on gangs.’ But when young men with baseball caps and T-shirts are considered gangs, what you doing is clapping for a war against your children.”45 The most poignant part of the conversation centered on race and gender, reflecting Ice Cube’s allegiance to the Nation of Islam and the rhetoric of Louis Farrakhan: What you have is black people wanting to be like white people, not realizing that white people want to be like black people. So the best thing to do is to eliminate that type of thinking. You need black men who are not looking up to the white man, who are not trying to be like the white man. . . . You have people who fight for integration, but I’d say we need to fight for equal rights. In the schools, they want equal books; they don’t want no torn books. That was more important than fighting to sit at the same counter and eat. I think it’s more healthy if we sit over there, just as long as we have good food.46

Understanding well the role of women in Farrakhan’s Nation and concerned that Ice Cube’s responses to her questions centered almost exclusively on black men, Angela Davis asked Ice Cube pointed questions about the relationship between men and women in the black community: Davis: What about the women? You keep talking about black men. I’d like to hear you say black men and black women. Ice Cube: Black people. Davis: I think that you often exclude your sisters from your thought process. We’re never going to get anywhere if we’re not together. Ice Cube: Of course. But the black man is down. Davis: Well, the black woman’s down, too.

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The Words and Music of Ice Cube Ice Cube: But the black woman can’t look up to the black man until we get up. Davis: Well, why should the black woman look up to the black man? Why can’t we look at each other as equals? Ice Cube: If we look at each other on an equal level, what you’re going to have is a divide. It’s going to be divided. Davis: As I told you, I teach at the San Francisco County Jail. Many of the women there have been arrested in connection with drugs. But they are invisible to most people. People talk about the drug problem without mentioning the fact that the majority of crack users in our community are women. So when we talk about progress in the community, we have to talk about the sisters as well as the brothers. Ice Cube: The sisters have held up the community. Davis: When you refer to “the black man” I would like to hear something explicit about black women. That will convince me that you’re thinking about your sisters as well as your brothers. Ice Cube: I think about everybody.47

A contemplative Ice Cube as Doughboy in Boyz N the Hood, the film that jumpstarted his career in acting. Courtesy of Photofest.

As Boyz N the Hood’s Doughboy. Courtesy of Photofest.

Ice Cube’s shaved head signaled both a clean break from early alliances, particularly that with NWA, and a new image. This photo coincides with the release of Death Certificate in 1991. Courtesy of Photofest.

Another shot from the early 1990s, this photo dates from the release of Lethal Injection in 1993. Courtesy of Photofest.

Ice Cube and comedian Chris Tucker in Friday, a blockbuster success written by Ice Cube and DJ Pooh. Courtesy of Photofest.

As videographer Danny Rich in Anaconda, Ice Cube and co-star Jennifer Lopez were menaced by a forty-foot snake in the Amazon jungle. Courtesy of Photofest.

Friday after Next, the third film in Ice Cube’s Friday series. Pictured with Ice Cube is comedian Mike Epps. Courtesy of Photofest.

As the patient, supportive, and longsuffering Nick Persons in Are We There Yet? Ice Cube is seen here with cast members Nia Long, Philip Daniel Bolden, and Aleisha Allen. Courtesy of Photofest.

Ice Cube reprised his role as Nick Persons in Are We Done Yet? Here, he enjoys a fatherly moment with stepson Kevin (Philip Daniel Bolden). Courtesy of Photofest.

Ice Cube in Three Kings with Mark Wahlberg and George Clooney. Courtesy of Photofest.

4 Collaborations and a New Direction: 1994–1998 The years 1994–1998 were productive for Ice Cube, as he continued his work as a solo performer, established himself in the music industry as a producer, developed the careers of aspiring rap musicians, and, of particular importance, honed his talents as a film actor. Every year of this period was marked by at least one significant undertaking, including the 1995 release of the commercially popular film Friday; the creation, in 1996, of the rap group Westside Connection and the release of the group’s first album, Bow Down; the 1997 film Anaconda; and, in 1998, War and Peace, Volume 1 (The War Disc), Ice Cube’s highly anticipated solo album. Because of his popularity in the middle 1990s, Ice Cube was highly sought after for interviews on hip-hop culture and black youth. Of those that appeared between 1994 and 1998, four are noteworthy: “Generation Rap,” an interview in the New York Times Magazine with Ice Cube and pre-rap maverick Abiodun Oyewole; Rap, Race, and Equality, a documentary on rap that features Ice Cube and a who’s who list of hip-hop luminaries; “Don of the Westside,” an interview in The Source; and “Bow Down,” an interview in XXL.

FRIDAY Written by Ice Cube and screenwriter/director DJ Pooh (aka Mark Jordan) and released in April 1995, shortly after the death of Eazy-E, in March of the same year, Friday was a box office hit whose popularity achieved cult status in some circles in the years following its release. The film chronicles a day in the life of two friends, Craig and Smokey, played by Ice Cube and actor/ comedian Chris Tucker, who spend most of the day sitting on Craig’s front

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porch and watching the events in their neighborhood unfold before them. Friday recalls in spirit Ice Cube’s blockbuster song “It Was a Good Day” in that it is devoid of the violence depicted with caricature regularity in gangsta rap and gangsta music videos. Set in the neighborhoods of South Central Los Angeles, with the footage showing the small, pastel-colored houses with steel outer doors and shallow front porches that distinguished the vicinity in the early 1990s, the setting is visually reminiscent of that in Boyz N the Hood. Despite the comparable landscape, the two films are markedly different; in fact, in the introduction to Friday that appears in DVD formats, Ice Cube says that his film shows another side to life in the ’hood. As such, Friday, a comedy, is a lighthearted, late-twentieth-century tribute to urban neighborhoods, urban lifestyles, and, certainly, black character actors—in some respects, it is the counterpart to Bill Cosby’s and Sidney Poitier’s classics of the 1970s, Uptown Saturday Night (1974) and Let’s Do It Again (1975). Seated in a swivel chair behind a large desk and wearing a black leather jacket, an earnest Ice Cube observed: It’s a film that we put together, dear to our hearts. Just something that we really wanted to do for the neighborhood. We had all those images, you know, Boyz N the Hood, Menace II Society, showing how we grew up. This right here, we’re showing how we grew up from a whole other light. It ain’t all bad in the ’hood and that’s what Friday brings and that’s what Friday shows everybody: that we had good times growing up in the neighborhood.1

For audiences accustomed to the scowling and ranting Ice Cube of AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted and The Predator, his almost-genial portrayal of Friday’s Craig is disarming. In place of the trademark furrowed brow and snarling sneer, we often find a smile on Ice Cube’s face as he plays a compassionate and good-humored character. In this film, as in later films, Ice Cube evinces a real flair for comedy that belies his grave demeanor. Indeed, Ice Cube told journalist Ira Robbins, “I like to do projects like Friday and stuff like that to kind of show the other side of who I am, because I’m not serious 24 hours a day. I have a sense of humor; it comes out every now and then.”2 In Friday, Ice Cube is a perfect foil to the slapstick and exaggerated comedy of Chris Tucker. His approach to acting appears almost effortless in Friday, as if Craig were an extension or carefree alter ego of an Ice Cube that audiences do not find in his recordings of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The storyline behind Friday is simple, designed as comic relief to the omnipresent violence and mayhem of gangsta rap in the mid-1990s. In this sense, the film functions like those made in the 1930s, when audiences watched Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance and sing away the cares of post-Depression America, giving hope to down-and-out audiences who could only fantasize about “putting on the Ritz.” Although the plot is ostensibly about drugs (Chris Tucker’s character is always rolling a joint; in fact, the character has smoked all of the marijuana he was supposed to sell for neighborhood kingpin

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Deebo, and he proudly proclaims, “ain’t nothing wrong with smoking weed. Weed is from the earth.”), there are so many synchronous subplots that the drug theme is downplayed. This, coupled with the stellar cast—a veritable who’s who of black performers popular as comedians and actors from the 1970s through the early 2000s, including Nia Long, Anna Maria Horsford, Bernie Mac, LaWanda Page, Regina King, John Witherspoon, Faizon Love, and Tommy “Tiny” Lister—is enough to divert one’s attention from the primary plot. Indeed, the use of marijuana is a byproduct in Friday, carrying none of the didactic messages found in other films released in 1995, such as Clockers and New Jersey Drive. If any sermonizing exists in the film, it takes the form of warning against dealing in drugs, since small-time dealers might come up against an adversary as formidable as Deebo, the film’s antihero. The music video to Friday is the perfect complement to the film. Although it is clearly intended as a house party video, it has enough gangsta elements to make it an edgy party video. The video’s footage goes back and forth between the primary setting in what we presume to be the bedroom of Ice Cube’s character, Craig, as well as party scenes and street scenes. Throughout, we find the iconography associated with South Central hip-hop: lowriders, pretty girls with big butts, and members of the LAPD. In the opening scene (set in Craig’s bedroom, which is furnished with little more than tires, a TV, and weights), Ice Cube, with his trademark scowl, tells us “it’s Friday night, so everything’s poppin’.” The scene switches to the party setting, with happy dancers moving to Ice Cube’s music. Later, Ice Cube asks if we have heard about the latest Westside killing and tells us that his Westside Connection partner, Mack 10, had just been in court. The tone is lightened, a bit, by clips from the movie that include Chris Tucker, Nia Long, and Tiny Lister, as well as through the catchy hook, “oh yeah, throw your neighborhood in the air, if you don’t care.” In the final iterations of the hook, Ice Cube changes the lyrics to throw the east side/south side/north side in the air, to remind us that the Westside rules.

WESTSIDE CONNECTION—BOW DOWN “Whoever said gangster rap is dead apparently didn’t inform Ice Cube. As the central figure in this L.A. supermob, which also includes Cube’s protégés Mack 10 and WC (of WC and the Maad Circle), the ‘Nigga Ya Love to Hate’ is steadily becoming the ‘Nigga Ya Hate to Love.’ ” With these words, Vibe journalist Eric Berman began a review of Bow Down that applauded the album’s infectious “smooth-ass bass and eerily perilous grooves” but criticized it for sparking no debate, raising no controversy, and offering no insight into the intricacies and brutality of gangbanging.3 Westside Connection was created in 1996, at the height of the infamous East Coast-West Coast hip-hop rivalry. Consisting of Ice Cube and rappers Mack 10 and WC, the group had highly public feuds with several rappers and rap groups, including Cypress

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Hill and Common. In fact, Bow Down, their first and most commercially viable album, was for the most part a harangue against other—mostly East Coast—rap groups. This album achieved platinum status and reached the #1 position on the R&B/hip-hop charts by the end of 1996. The eponymous single from Bow Down reached #21 on the singles chart in 1996. It is a marvelous example of “diss rap,” in which East Coast rappers (indeed, all rappers from areas other than the west side of South Central) are told that Westside Connection runs everything west of the Mississippi. The hook affirms the group’s dominion as other rappers are told that they must “bow down” in deference to Westside Connection’s greatness. The numerous allusions to West Coast and Westside culture reify the group’s raison d’être (for example, “three wheeling” along the byways of South Central), thereby uniting the group’s spoken word and the visual image. Although all three members of Westside Connection have solo parts, Ice Cube emerges as the dominant voice. He begins the piece, singing “the world is mine, nigga get back,” and ends with a final affirmation of west side—any west side— superiority. Along the way, Ice Cube tells us that he is the “motherfuckin’ don, big fish in a small pond” and that everyone (federal officers as well as rival gangstas) should “bow down” in his presence. In the final verse, WC makes a definitive statement about Westside Connection’s preeminence and the group’s ability to outrap the competition. “All the Critics in New York” is another example of “diss rap.” Here, Westside Connection blasts East Coast rappers, fans of East Coast rap, and the naysayers who denigrate the West Coast style. The piece begins by quoting the opening lines of Stevie Wonder’s “Living for the City” (“New York City, skyscrapers and everything”), then moves quickly into a barrage of insults against East Coast rap. Ice Cube sings the first and third verses, in which he dismisses the notion that East Coast rappers are on par with Westside Connection and rebukes his rivals for not being reciprocal in their support of West Coast music. Mack 10 adds a distinctively West Coast flavor to the lyrics that follow by giving us a visual picture of the Westside realities that inspire the group’s music, bragging that his “peeps play for keeps, deep crews pay dues by murder ones and twos . . . we bustin’ clips like bananas, sportin’ colored bandanas.” When Ice Cube returns, the focus is on the West Coast’s role as originators and chief architects of gangsta rap. He criticizes New York rappers for attempting to monopolize the hip-hop market but quickly disabuses them of this notion, since he has “been writing gangsta shit since ’83, when [East Coast rappers] was still scared to use profanity.” The remaining verses are variations on these themes, with Ice Cube offering a concluding statement that summarily dismisses icons of East Coast popular culture. Most of the other tracks on Bow Down are cut from a similar cloth. In “3 Time Felons,” Westside Connection affirms a predilection for associating with hardened criminals. The group insults politician and antirap activist C. Delores Tucker along the way, referring to her as “that bitch Delores Tucker.” Rappers of every stripe, regardless of affiliation, are denigrated in

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“Cross ’Em Out and Put a K.” Drawing on the visual pun in the title (the final letters are intended to be read as AK, the assault weapon), this piece, like so many of its ilk, glorifies guns and is flush with violent imagery. The “spatialities of the hood” (in this case, South Central) are “mapped,” to use the terminology of historians Eithne Quinn and Murray Forman, in references to specific neighborhoods. In the second verse, Ice Cube refers to himself as “a Westside crook” and names two of the area’s most infamous gangs as he brags about his hardcore persona: “Colors and dips, bitches and chips, nigga.” In addition to voicing contempt for all rap other than its own, Westside Connection takes a slam at female rappers, telling them to “shut your mouth and get naked” and making it clear that women will never have a place in their music. Ultimately, this piece is about territory, respect, control, and Westside Connection’s dominion over its competition.

ANACONDA Far removed from the streets of South Central, the settings for Boyz N the Hood and Friday, Ice Cube finds himself, in Anaconda, on a boat deep in the Amazon jungle in search of a lost tribe. He plays Danny Rich, a videographer from Los Angeles, who is thwarted in his efforts to film an elusive tribe of primitive peoples by Jon Voight, who plays a deranged snake hunter, and by a 40-foot, man-eating anaconda. Although Ice Cube shares top billing with his co-stars, Jennifer Lopez and Voight, his script is spare and his lines are thoroughly forgettable. This is particularly true in the film’s first 15 minutes, in which Ice Cube speaks primarily in monosyllables. When he speaks in full sentences, his contribution to the film’s dialogue is a mélange of hooey, including “that man gotta be crazy” and, his first words, “well, today is a good day.” There are some moments of true inspiration, however, including an insider’s joke that occurs as Danny Rich listens to his music of choice on board the boat: “Foe Life,” written by Ice Cube and performed by Westside Connection member Mack 10. We are reminded further that Danny Rich is a cinematic extension of Ice Cube’s rap star personality by his wardrobe (a baseball cap worn backwards or a bandana) and his manner of expressing himself. Toward the end of the film, Ice Cube angrily calls the anaconda a “bitch” as he stabs it with an enormous pick. This choice of moniker is interesting in that it is one of only a few instances of profanity in the PG-13-rated movie. Despite the banality of the film’s script and the camp quality of this “monster flick,” Anaconda provided Ice Cube with an outlet to stretch his versatility as an actor.

“WE BE CLUBBIN’ ” In 1998, Ice Cube recorded “We Be Clubbin’,” a piece used in the soundtrack of The Players Club (New Line). The film is an Ice Cube production through and through: it was written by and directed by Ice Cube and

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featured Ice Cube as an actor. Although a significant milestone in Ice Cube’s oeuvre outside the rap business, the film is unremarkable, despite a cast that includes Bernie Mac, Jamie Foxx, and rapper Luke Skywalker of 2 Live Crew. By contrast, “We Be Clubbin’,” the film’s feature single, is noteworthy as a genre-specific piece—house party music—that contains some of the best elements of Ice Cube’s signature musical style. The music is full of the energy, vitality, and forward motion that we would expect from a tune intended to get people in the mood dancing all night at their favorite club. Ice Cube captures the mood he seeks through his words, evoking a visual landscape of a crowded dance floor and trouble lurking in every corner. For example, in the first verse Ice Cube describes the club in this song as being jammed packed with people who don’t know how to act, and he tells his buddy to light up a joint. Ice Cube expounds the delights of hardcore clubbing, and he gives a shout out to clubbers nationwide as he exhorts his homeboys and homegirls in Los Angeles, the Bay area, Chicago, St. Louis, Miami, New York, Detroit, Houston, Denver, Dallas, Atlanta, D.C., and Memphis to dance, drink (or smoke), and be merry. The chorus, repeated twice, reinforces the frenetic— and weapon-free—aesthetic of the clubbin’ lifestyle: “We ain’t dumpin’, we just bumpin’ and bangin’ like it ain’t nothing wrong.”

WAR AND PEACE, VOL. 1 (THE WAR DISC) War and Peace, Vol. 1 (The War Disc), was Ice Cube’s fifth full-length solo recording. Awaited with great anticipation following the five-year lapse since the 1993 release of Lethal Injection, War and Peace is an 18-track disc that looks at street life from a variety of perspectives, both fatalist and optimist. According to Ice Cube, the disc is “about life and living. Every day is a struggle. Today might be cool, but tomorrow might be a horror for yourself.”4 Hip-hop journalist Cheo Hodari Coker considered the album a dismal failure. In his review for Vibe, Coker recalled, with a sense of melancholy, Ice Cube’s earlier recordings, where “every song had an agenda, and a point, and you listened even when you didn’t agree.”5 He criticized the lackluster songs of War and Peace and bewailed the “Ice Cube as gangsta” role-playing that predominates the album, hinting that Ice Cube’s multiple interests might be at part responsible. In his eyes, the Ice Cube of The War Disc was a mere shadow of his former, more powerfully aggressive self: Remember Ice Cube? Not the director. Not the screenwriter. Not the Westside Connection slogan-throwing-gangster-clown. Not even O’Shea Jackson, devoted husband and father of three. I mean Ice Cube. The nigga you love to hate. The first rapper to flow in Panavision. The St. Ides Premium-swigging, Jheri-curled gangsta. The bald-headed T-shirt and khakied revolutionary who gave a point-by-point prediction of the 1992 Los Angeles Rebellion with 1991’s “The Wrong Nigga to Fuck Wit”. The man who fought a verbal fair one

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with NWA on 1991’s “No Vaseline”—the most ruthless dis record this side of Tupac’s 1996 “Hit ’Em Up”—and won. . . . Cube turned stomach butterflies into killer bees, insults into arrows, frustration into rage, niggas with activators into niggaz with attitudez. Cube, even on the lesser solo productions like 1992’s The Predator and 1993’s Lethal Injection, was still a dangerous rhyme animal. . . . War & Peace, Vol. I (The War Disc), Ice Cube’s first solo album in five years, lacks the juice, pulp, and flavor of even his more anemic efforts. Zillionaire Cube is only a shadowy figurine of what ye good olde Ice Cube was. War’s Ice Cube puts all of his chips on halfway-decent hooks but lets the meat of his best songs—raw but clever lyrics—rot.6

Five of the tracks feature guest artists, including rappers K-Mac, Mack 10, Mr. Short Khop, and alternative metal group Korn. Most of the tracks are reminiscent in content and style of Ice Cube’s previous solo recordings; that is, they show Ice Cube’s mastery at storytelling and painting a compelling landscape of black street culture in late-twentieth-century Los Angeles. Three tracks—“Ghetto Vet,” “3 Strikes You In,” and “Penitentiary”—contain important messages about young black men and the struggles they face; two others, “Greed” and “The Curse of Money,” give a gangsta’s perspective on fame and fortune. “Ghetto Vet” is among the strongest songs on the disc. This is a powerful warning to anarchic gangbangers, dedicated to “every nigga that done took one for the ’hood,” in which Ice Cube tells the dismal tale of an inner-city veteran of gang wars and gang violence. The story begins, with Ice Cube and guest rappers Mack 10 and Mr. Short Khop playing the role of the ghetto vet, with bold statements from the hardened gangbangers who tell us that when they start shooting, victims run and hide and that when bullets from their guns hit neighborhood residents, they respond with an air of insouciance. Then, mixing gangsta bravado with black “dozens” style humor and hyperbole, the protagonist brags that he can “dance under water and not get wet.” The story takes a dark turn in the verses that follow, beginning with the unprovoked gun attack on the gangbanger by two young boys—junior G’s, no doubt—riding a bicycle, who leave their victim lying in their own blood. When the wounded gangbanger arrives at the Martin Luther King/Charles Drew Medical Center in South Central, he has no feeling in his legs and is told by a staff doctor that he will probably never walk again. In the final verse, Ice Cube paints a graphic and bleak life for this “young ghetto nigga in a wheelchair,” hoping his words will deter young gangbangers from committing similarly thoughtless deeds. Calling for a Gangsta Authority in place of the Veteran’s Authority (a G-A instead of a V-A), Ice Cube’s character acknowledges the “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” nature of his predicament: he still hangs out on the same corner, in the same ’hood, wearing a bandana—tied to his wheelchair instead of wrapped around his head. The dire aspect of the gangbanger’s situation is depicted graphically in Ice Cube’s words about his dependence on others and his inability to control

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his most basic bodily functions. Ice Cube ends the song by expressing regret over becoming a ghetto vet. This didactic closure, found in so many of Ice Cube’s songs, is intended to reinforce the main points and leave the listener with an unequivocal final statement. “3 Strikes You In” is one of a trio of songs grouped thematically around young black men’s criminal behavior and the consequences of this behavior. Of the 18 tracks on War and Peace, this trio—“Penitentiary,” “Extradition,” and “3 Strikes You In”—is the bleakest and, by consequence, most compelling. In “3 Strikes You In,” we find Ice Cube at his best, his gifts as a lyricist in full array as he combines baseball lingo and puns in the vernacular to tell a story about black men and the U.S. judicial system. He combines sports terms that are known to most Americans with insiders’ jokes in a way that renders the song accessible to a range of listeners. This is the point, of course: to reach a diverse audience by using familiar language and iconic figures in popular culture. The first verse is an artful mélange of sports jargon and street slang. The narrator, an ill-fated prisoner, uses language commonly associated with sports commentators (bottom of the ninth, up at the plate) to describe his destiny. He cleverly intermixes this with street slang to describe his situation more fully, telling us that his mother is seated in section eight (a reference to the federal housing program for low-income individuals and families), and, with a count of 0 and 2, he is on the verge of striking out. Following a chorus of “one-two-three strikes you in,” Ice Cube criticizes a criminal justice system that condemns a felon to a life sentence on the third conviction. He laments the disproportionate number of black men—his homies—on trial and the court’s expectation of recidivism among black men and, again using baseball lingo, intimates that the sentences meted out to black men by white authorities are suspect: “Whitey, that left hand punk, is on the mound and he comin’ with that off-speed junk.” Baseball fans will smile at the reference to former New York Yankees pitcher Whitey Ford, a leftie, while others, perhaps more numerous among Ice Cube’s targeted audience, will understand “whitey” to be a generic, racial epithet often used derisively to indicate a white person in a position of authority. In the verses that follow, Ice Cube alleges that L.A. police officers want young black men to be convicted so that they can claim the coveted Cy Young award, given annually to the best pitcher in baseball. Along the way, he likens his street savvy to the athletic skills of baseball legends Satchel Paige and Jackie Robinson. In his final metaphorical use of baseball to describe black men’s fates, Ice Cube chides officers of the court as he gives a new twist to “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” a song familiar to every American sports enthusiast. Here, he pledges allegiance to his homeboys, saying that if they don’t win, it’s a shame. The song ends not with further references to baseball but with a series of 10 rhetorical statements that are grounded in black church traditions. Each is begun as a conditional clause (for example, “if I die tonight” and “if they lock me up”) and concludes with the words “you know who did it.”

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In “Penitentiary,” Ice Cube again addresses black men and the judicial system. Centered on the inevitability of black men’s incarceration, this song looks at the inconsistencies between the gangsta’s tough exterior and his introspective interior, the latter being uncharacteristically doleful and tinged with remorse. Ice Cube opens with gangsta swagger, affirming that black men are always victims of bad endings in the penal and justice systems. He immediately recants, in part, as he seems to draw the blame for black men’s ill fate away from the lawmakers and to place it in the hands of his confrères, as he prays for calmer, less violent days in urban neighborhoods. In the section that follows, Ice Cube shows us a vulnerability rarely seen in his depictions of men. Lamenting the bad deal his lawyer and judge made over his destiny, one that resulted in a life sentence, the narrator cries in his cell, aware that he will never be more than a “convicted Negro” and “speaker of the [prison] house” whose world is confined to a single mile. The chorus reinforces the dichotomous nature of the song: on the one hand it implies, with resignation, that a prison sentence is axiomatic for black men, and on the other hand it delivers a strong warning to young men, beseeching them to lead lives free of criminal activity. “Greed” begins with a bold first statement that establishes Ice Cube as a no-nonsense, acquisitive hustler. This song is a gangsta’s vision of the American dream, of living large and having a piece of the American pie, South Central style. Once again referring to himself as the “biggest fish,” Ice Cube tells us that he is well aware of the power that derives from affluence. Because of his talents and his business acumen, he is the “trillionaire” who owns a mansion and a yacht, the one “closin’ escrow,” the one spending a fortune at the mall, and the one parking an expensive car at a luxurious Marriott. In this pre-bling deification of wealth, Ice Cube extols the power of the purse in the song’s choruses (“Greed, greed, when you get your hands on it, wanna fawn it, wanna dance on it; everybody want it”), naming the top hip-hop conglomerates (among them Death Row, Ruthless, Priority, and Def Jam) and ending with a flourish in which he boasts about having $20 bills on his Benz. The counterpart to “Greed” is “The Curse of Money.” Here, Ice Cube expounds the pitfalls of fame and fortune and condemns the external trappings of financial success, such as expensive clothes, big cars, and lavish vacations. This is a strong warning to rappers who aspire to lifestyles worthy of the storied rich and famous; indeed, Ice Cube says that “fantasies of a life stress free, full of orgies in the Florida Keys” are quickly tempered by professional and personal perturbation, all born of money. Ice Cube even suggests that money is a demon that brings out the worst in human behavior, pitting friends against one another and testing true friendships, especially when celebrities begin to lose their popular appeal. Ice Cube reins us in a bit from this tale of the woes of fortune by reminding us that “in ’98 don’t shit come free, not even hard rhymes that’s describing hard times.” These are important words, as they divert our attention from the pecuniary aspects of

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the rap business. Of equal significance, these words remind us that Ice Cube is a political rapper whose primary mission is to chronicle the struggles of the black underclass in Los Angeles. An ancillary theme in this piece is how fortune wreaks havoc in relationships as those with shallow pockets work hard to curry favor with those who have deep pockets. Ice Cube castigates so-called friends who laugh at all of his jokes, saying that “yes men” with little money try to please those who have a lot. Ice Cube ends this song with an ironic twist (“I’m cursed! But I love it”), suggesting that the positive aspects of life in the fast lane outweigh the negative.

INTERVIEWS, 1994 –1998 “Generation Rap” (Interview in the New York Times Magazine, 1994) In 1994, on the heels of the release of Lethal Injection, journalist Sheila Rule of the New York Times conducted an interview with Ice Cube and iconic protest musician Abiodun Oyewole. Titled “Generation Rap,” this important interview explores the genesis and evolution of rap over a 20-year period— from the early 1970s, when Oyewole and his Last Poets were making names for themselves as political activists in music, to the early 1990s, when Ice Cube was establishing himself as the voice for a different generation of disenfranchised youth. At the time of the interview, Oyewole was 46 and Ice Cube was 24. As such, Oyewole emerges as the mature sage, while Ice Cube appears impetuous and not yet fully formed. The interview comprises three distinct sections: the importance of language in rap; the cultural aesthetics of gangsta rap; and rap’s responsibilities to the black community. Ice Cube on Language in Rap As Oyewole and Ice Cube discuss the approaches to reaching different audiences, including social leaders and rappers separated by generations, Ice Cube remarks, “You got the older generation of so-called leaders want to come talk to us, want to sit down and rap to us. But it’s no dialogue there. They always let the small things or small differences interfere with the bigger picture. If I use the word ‘bitch,’ to me it’s just language.” Oyewole replies, “Language does control. Language sets us up for a whole bunch of things. Language incites us. That’s why when we used words like ‘bitch’ in the Last Poets, we made it clear that those words were used not loosely, but specifically to talk about a particular character in the community, not everybody.” Ice Cube, whose understanding of rhetoric and the power of words differs significantly, counters: But I can’t go to the Japanese talking Chinese. I have to speak the language of the street to get their ear. See, the teacher, the preacher, the politician won’t talk to the kids. So that’s why they won’t listen to them. You got to

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talk in their language and guide them to the place, and that’s exactly what we’re doing. When I talk about a certain problem in the community, I’m not talking about everybody; I’m talking about people I call suckers. I call them Negroes. . . . Malcolm X said, “Throw a rock in a pack of dogs and the only one hollers is the one that gets hit.” So If you see yourself in my lyrics, then you got to change what you’re doing . . . it’s not like we’re going this negative route to go a positive route.7

Ice Cube on Gangsta Rap Ice Cube’s profound respect for Public Enemy’s Chuck D is apparent in these words. In addition to crediting his predecessor with setting things in motion in political or “conscious” rap, Ice Cube’s words on the dissemination of information pertinent to his listening constituency recall Chuck D’s comments on rap being black people’s CNN. Throughout Ice Cube’s career as a rapper, but particularly in the early and middle 1990s, lyrics mattered above all else: because he considered rap to be the only viable means of communication for black youth, his ability to connect with his audience was his primary goal. Me, I don’t consider myself a gangsta rapper. . . . I consider myself reality because I could give you the gangsta stuff, and I could also give you the knowledge at the same time. What is happening in so-called gangsta rap is starting to look like a comic book to many kids. The consciousness is starting to seep into the music. Chuck D set in motion the same things that you all set in motion. Trying to build it back up. And you have gangsta rap, which is the negative image of all that, and the negative things that are happening is at the peak. A lot of rappers don’t know nothing but what they know. And people are trying to clump us all together. . . . We’re the only people who can distribute information without going through any channels.8

Ice Cube’s comment that “a lot of rappers don’t know nothing but what they know” is misleading—at least with respect to his own level of engagement with the world outside of rap. Although he admits in this interview to not being much of a book person, his lyrics throughout the middle 1990s evince a profound understanding of political and social spheres well outside the domain of South Central Los Angeles. Ice Cube on Civic Responsibility and Black Empowerment In this part of the conversation, Ice Cube and Oyewole debate the means necessary to achieve quality education for black children in public schools. Ice Cube observes, “our so-called leaders are trying to make the public school better instead of trying to build our own schools.” While both agree that black people need to empower themselves, they disagree on the tactics. Oyewole argues for an inclusive approach, one that seeks collaborations across racial lines: “the bottom line is, I do know that at this point in

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time if we don’t make some serious collaborations to try to develop some programs and activities to save our people, we’re full of it.” By contrast, Ice Cube argues in favor of black people working on behalf of black people, with no intervention from nonblacks. His final words on this subject, like so much of his rhetoric from this period, reflect the influence of the Nation of Islam: One thing I believe we need to do, we got to separate. We have to say, “OK, white folks. You want to help us? You go to your community and break down the walls.” You handle yours, we’ll handle ours. I’m telling you, the only way we can achieve this, man, is to separate. That’s the only way we can achieve it. We have too many outside influences.9

Interview in Documentary Rap, Race and Equality (1994) Ice Cube is one of several rappers, rap moguls, cultural historians, and laymen interviewed in this superb documentary focused on the intersection of rap and race through the mid-1990s. Joining Ice Cube in this 58-minute documentary are rappers KRS-One, Ice-T, Chuck D, Queen Latifah, and Rakim; entrepreneurs Russell Simmons and Ralph McDaniels; music critic Jon Pareles; and cultural historians Tricia Rose and Molefi Asante. Excerpts from a variety of music videos, including Ice-T’s “G-Style,” Naughty By Nature’s “Hip Hop Hooray,” Public Enemy’s “Can’t Truss It,” and KRSOne’s “My Philosophy,” are interspersed between the interviews. The scholarly and often effusive discourse of Pareles, a music critic for the New York Times, and Rose, a cultural studies historian, provides an interesting complement to the direct and often terse interview style of Ice Cube. Attired in a long-sleeved black shirt with the words “Power” and “Respect” printed across the front and wearing a black baseball cap bearing the word “Black Top,” Ice Cube is interviewed eight separate times in Rap, Race and Equality on topics that include rap as a network for the black community and black pride. His demeanor is relaxed, and his answers reflect the serious thought the rapper, 25 years old at the time of the interviews, had given the subject of rap and race. His black nationalist leaning is apparent throughout the interviews, as is his pride in his heritage. I present Ice Cube’s interviews in the order in which they occur in the documentary. Interview 1: Rap music is definitely a network. It’s definitely a place where we can get our views out, our anger, our frustration, our protest to a broader audience. Now we got, you know, filmmakers: John Singleton, Matty Rich, people like Spike Lee . . . they’re young black kids from the street and they can also give their perspective on what’s going on to a broader audience.” Interview 2: We got a new way of thinking in this country. Black kids got a new way of thinking. We ain’t going out. We can’t—I can’t—even comprehend

Collaborations and a New Direction what my mother and father went through in the South, you know what I’m saying? I can’t even comprehend it, how they went through that. But that was good for us to see. It was good for us to so-called get our rights and be socalled equals in this country. But we can see, no matter, we still don’t fit in. Interview 3: When they listen to Ice Cube, they know Ice Cube will never bite his tongue; [he] will always say what he means and will take on anybody who challenges me in what I say. Interview 4: You see a person like Martin Luther King, a man who never in any of his protests ever raised his fist at anybody that hated him. A man who was always talking about peace. And they killed him. You know what I’m saying? What kind of signal does that teach me? What do I learn from that? I can come in peace. What they gonna do to me? Or I can come in fighting. Then it becomes not what they gonna do to me, [but] what I’m [going to] do to them. See what I’m saying? Everybody wants to put on a front about this country. Ain’t no fronting. Ain’t no future in that. It’s all about telling what time it is. The government, I mean, if I found Uncle Sam today I would probably kill him. Kill him. Because that’s what he’s done to us. That’s what he continues on doing. The police departments all over the country: a black man’s body really ain’t worth nothing. So, they get mad at me ’cause I say I ain’t dying. I ain’t going out on my knees. I’d rather go out standing up. Interview 5: The black community’s been shot [and] the only thing the white community has done is throw away the gun. We’re still lying there wounded. Bleeding. And they say, OK, we’re equal. Are we really equal, or do you still got your foot on my neck? Interview 6: Everything we find out about what we invented, what our culture was about, what religion we were before we was given Christianity . . . all those things, we still haven’t been taught in school. . . . What self esteem does it give me in being an effective man, when all I get to do is learn about other cultures? You know, what about my culture? Interview 7: We gotta learn how to love ourselves. We been taught for so long how to hate black. Black is wrong. We went from colored to Negro to this to that to that to that. We wanted to try to be everything but black. Let’s put it down on the table: we’re black people and we’ve done a lot for this world, this society. And we’ve got to expose that. We got to teach our kids that. So, in a sense, the parents have to go back to school. Not to the public school, but to the libraries. Read up about themselves, so then they can teach their kids. By teaching their kids to love themselves, they’re going to learn to love their brothers and they’re going to love their sisters. Then they’re gonna want to unite with them, then we’re gonna be able to do business with each other like everybody else in this country. Interview 8: The forefathers of this country and probably their uncles and fathers have viewed the black man and black woman one way because we don’t have a media outlet to share our views [about] the way we think [and] the reason why some of us act the way we act. With rap music, this is our outlet. This is to tell the whole world how we feel. What time it is with us.

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“Don of the Westside” (Article and Interview in The Source, 1996) In this long and extensive interview with Ice Cube, Selwyn Seyfu Hinds, former editor-in-chief of The Source magazine, covers a variety of issues, ranging from the infamous East Coast/ West Coast feuds to Ice Cube’s career in acting and his next steps in the recording studio. Ice Cube is featured on the cover of the issue, scowling, wearing all black, and giving the Westside hand gesture: thumb slightly concealed behind the palm, middle and ring fingers crossed, with index and pinky fingers extended to form the letter W. This important article also contains a sidebar component, written by Miles Marshall Lewis, in which several hip-hop luminaries (among them hip-hop journalist and activist Harry Allen, publicist Bill Adler, and rappers Onyx, LL Cool J, and Puff Daddy) comment on the bicoastal discord. Hinds begins his interview by lamenting the corporate state of hip-hop in the late 1990s and the “holy war” over commercialism in hip-hop versus the sanctity of the hip-hop nation. The early part of Hinds’s conversation with Ice Cube, whom he reveres as “an iconic figure for much of hip hop and a key player” in the East/West rivalry,10 centers on regional tensions and rivalries. Asked to comment on the current state of hip-hop, including the geographical feuds, Ice Cube replies with uncharacteristic volubility: You know hip-hop goes through its ups and downs. There’s always a phase when it’s lukewarm and then there’s a phase when a lot of new talent gives it a surge. Then you have people trying to follow the new talent. . . . I like when people come in with new styles and new flavors and bring it to the hip-hop nation. As far as the tension, I feel that us on the West coast feel like our backs are against the wall. We feel like we’ve done so much for hip-hop and we take so much abuse. And it’s to the point where the groups out here are just like, “Yo, it’s time for this shit to be over. Whatever is going to go down is going to go down.” That’s the feeling I get from the West coast. It’s about what we got to do to get some respect here. We sold platinum and we can rhyme with the best of them and we are not getting our due. So there is a lot of tension in the air. I think it’s good for hip-hop in a crazy way.11

Ice Cube is even more verbose as he explains the motivation behind his bodacious pronouncement, “Hip-hop started in the West; Ice Cube ballin’ through the East without a vest.”12 Anxious to clear the slate and set the record straight, Ice Cube says: My motivation was this: for me, hip-hop did start in the West, as far as what we are doing . . . It was just a metaphor to get all this on the table, in the air. I was sick of the back room conversations about the East coast/ West coast thing. I was sick of everybody being in their own little cliques having these conversations all through the hip-hop nation. No one really wanted to step forward and address it and nobody wanted to stay back and keep their mouth shut. Either you bring things to the head and let’s deal with it right now or everybody shut

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up and stop complaining. I just felt that with me being a Don as far as this kind of hip-hop goes—West coast gangsta, whatever you want to call it—I was like, fuck it, let’s set it off. I mean the disrespect had started coming from all areas, and it’s mostly not the big time groups. It’s mostly the small groups who are just large in NY or large on the East coast. They may not be getting the props they think they should be getting out this way, so they start throwing stones. The first time it started was “Fuck Compton.” Out of the blue for no reason, Tim Dog do a record, “Fuck Compton,” and the response [from the West] wasn’t what it should have been. So people felt that since they ain’t going to say nothing or do nothing, everybody can say what they want to say and do what they want to do. I just said fuck that, it’s time to put shit on a hold because even though nothing was specifically directed at Ice Cube, throw rocks in my direction long enough and pretty soon I’m gonna get hit with one of them. And I just wanted to nip the shit in the bud and just set it off as much as it’s gonna be set off. From that statement you have more talk about the East coast, West coast and all the shit is getting out in the open. And that’s why I made it.13

Following a series of questions focused on New Yorkers’ disrespect of West Coast rappers, Hinds asks Ice Cube if he considers the notion of a unified hip-hop nation too idealistic, to which he replies, in part, “There ain’t no unity. Everybody is jealous of the next man. We got that among people because we compete. Once you got that competition, it’s hard really to super duper unify.” This gives way to a pointed discussion about the quality of rap, in which Ice Cube answers Hinds’s question “Are there too many mediocre people in the market?” Ice Cube’s response points to the saturation of the rap industry, where too many people, all saying the same thing, are vying for popular notice. Of particular note are Ice Cube’s ideas on creativity in rap and the need for new rappers to present different perspectives in novel ways; especially interesting are his views on the ubiquity of sampling: Everybody sound the same, nobody’s being innovative at all in hip-hop. There are only a few people trying to take it to that next level. It’s not easy to do because the consumer wants what they’re used to hearing in a different way. They want the same shit, just package it different. But there’s some creative things we can do in hip-hop. And I think it’ll move on to the next stage. We need to be more original with the music. We need to cut out on the sampling, period. I think we need to just create the music ourself. The audience is ready for it. If you have a gang of samples in your shit now, or a gang of loops, then motherfuckers are not checking for it. People want something created from the bottom up. The audience is much more intelligent than it was when we first started doing music. You have a whole generation that grew up on the music and are sophisticated hip-hop consumers. You can’t pull no bullshit by them and you shouldn’t even try.14

Hinds also focuses on Ice Cube’s future and how he envisions negotiating his dual interests in film and music. At the time of this interview, Ice Cube had appeared in Boyz N the Hood and had co-written and starred in Friday.

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He was about to direct his first movie, Player’s Club, and he planned to continue to hone his skills as a screenwriter. Ice Cube’s views of Hollywood and the film industry are reflected in his answer to Hinds’s question “How do you feel about acting as a career?”: I like it. You know, I’m trying to get more power. I’m trying to find my way and work through that old ass system of motherfuckers acting and not getting paid. I don’t want that to happen ’cause I’m trying to find new ways to get around that shit. I’m trying to find new ways to get around the studio system so maybe I could blaze a trail for other people who got ideas who just really don’t want to go through that hassle. You know Hollywood’ll dissect it. I mean, with hip-hop, you get criticism after you do what you felt was fresh in your head. But in the movies, motherfuckers is dissecting it before you even see the film. So people are taking it apart and this ain’t good. I just don’t like that system because sometimes the creative process is just wasted because you have too many people with too many opinions and they pay people. I’m just trying to change some of the aspects of the movie thing so that young filmmakers won’t have to go through them.15

In the final question of the interview, Hinds asks Ice Cube about his next projects. Ice Cube affirms his West Coast heritage through the efforts of his new group, Westside Connection, and the importance of being autonomous. He also points to his need to continue to explore—and perfect—new terrain: [I need to] pay more attention to Ice Cube. I just got rid of my manager. I’m managing myself and I’m real excited about that because I won’t have anybody clouding my opinion on where I should be, what I should do. So I’m happy about that shit. . . . You know, I’ve been an octopus, into this, into that, a little dibble dabble here and there. I don’t want to do that anymore. I don’t want to try and do everything. I just want to find a couple things I’m real good at and expand.16

“Bow Down” (Article and Interview in XXL, 1998) In this article, named for the song Ice Cube recorded with Westside Connection in 1996, Scoop Jackson, former editor of XXL magazine, asks whether Ice Cube still matters in the late nineties. This is a bold and selfconsciously provocative question, intended to elicit immediate reaction from the reader. Jackson begins by affirming Ice Cube’s skills as a writer, mentioning him in the same breath as Ernest Hemingway, Richard Wright, and Toni Morrison, and lists the titles ascribed to Ice Cube: entertainer, rap star, hiphop icon, director, black messenger, ghetto griot, sell-out. The last, sell-out, is the basis of the article, as much of Jackson’s interview is centered on the “pimping” of Ice Cube’s career. In chronicling the reinventions of Ice Cube and his move from being the voice of angry black men to corporate mogul,

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Jackson asks us to consider Ice Cube’s commitment to rap and the Faustian deals implied in his transformations: “Back in L.A., the pimping of Cube’s career is about to stroke the apex. The interviews. The magazine covers. The in-store appearances. . . . O’Shea Jackson is about to be reintroduced to the world again.”17 Other topics addressed include Ice Cube’s metamorphoses, his views on the media, and his relevance to the next generation of rappers. Ice Cube on His Metamorphoses See, I don’t go over the same topics. That’s the problem that people have with Cube. They want me covering the same topics, talking about the same shit, over and over and over and over again. That ain’t gonna happen! You can listen to every record I’ve done, and I’ve never repeated the same line twice. And that’s the problem people have. . . . Some people want artists to stay exactly the same, but they themselves don’t. . . . I think if I kept doing records the same way, over and over—you talk about fall off ? I’d be outta here! Period. Nobody would want to have nothin’ to do with Cube. I done seen rappers who, no matter what they do now, people say shit is wack.18

Ice Cube’s words on “keeping it real” are surprising and exactly the opposite of those he expressed four years earlier in his interview with Sheila Rule, when he proclaimed that he was the embodiment of reality. It is also interesting to note Ice Cube’s contention that he never repeats the same line twice. As we have observed, one of the hallmarks of Ice Cube’s music is his penchant for self-quotation. Whether through repeated allusions to himself as a big fish in a pond of guppies or in telling us that he “ain’t the one,” repetition abounds in Ice Cube’s music. As a listener, we appreciate these gestures, as they connect us more fully to his words and link us to his progression as a storyteller from year to year, recording to recording. Ice Cube on Criticism from the Media These words from Ice Cube are among his most important in an interview of the middle and late 1990s. We find here his thoughts at the time on a range of subjects, including, especially, the toll making music has taken on him personally and professionally: I expect the white media to hit me for taking the point of view like Death Certificate, but I had these [so-called Black] magazines that was supposed to have my back, dissin’ me for the records I was doin’. The whole industry was coming down on me and didn’t no one have my back. And I was like, “Fuck, I ain’t ’bout to go down in muthafuckin’ flames and ain’t nobody got my back. Fuck that!” I said, “Let me stop making these records so fuckin’ personal.” I realized that don’t nobody care about my personal feelings on no record. . . . Plus, I had to stand up for my side of the fence! I was the only person that would stand for my side. The West Coast has been taking licks since hip hop began. . . . We, the West Coast, made it possible for a whole generation [of rappers] after us to

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The Words and Music of Ice Cube be free—to do whatever they want to do and say whatever they want on record. We’re responsible for that. We the foundation for all that. And I just wasn’t going to let people dis what we was doing and then cheer another variation of what we were doing. We called our shit “gangsta rap.” You can dis gangsta rap and then praise the Mafioso style? What the fuck is that? I just wasn’t gonna let that go down. And I was the only person that could do it. You know what I’m sayin’? I put a lot of my reputation on the line to go out for the West Coast. A lot on the line. And I lost a lot of fans by doing that.19

Ice Cube’s criticism of the black press for not supporting him is noteworthy, particularly because he considered himself a spokesperson for the black underclass in the late 1980s and 1990s. The dichotomous relationship between rappers and black journalists vexed and surprised Ice Cube and other performers who expected to find their ideas championed in magazines devoted to hip-hop culture. Equally significant in these words is Ice Cube’s explicit assertion that he and his West Coast colleagues (and here we must assume that, although unnamed, he means NWA) coined the term “gangsta rap.” Although cultural historians and journalists have disputed the origins of the moniker and often use quotation marks in referring to the genre (“gangsta” rap) to suggest that the term is equivocal, Ice Cube disambiguates this for us, laying claim to the style as well as the designation. In addition, Ice Cube takes credit for creating a venue for rappers to discourse freely, although he acknowledges the pitfalls in this “no holds barred” approach. His disappointment at being widely criticized for expressing his sincerest feelings on his recordings is palpable in this interview: he defends his past decisions, yet admits that perhaps no one really cared about hearing his intensely personal opinions on a recording. In this sense, Ice Cube might have been subjected to less criticism had he tempered personal sentiments that were patently conflagrative and adopted, as did the blues women of the 1920s, an “everyman’s” approach in which the feelings voiced were those of an unspecified protagonist who spoke for the masses. Ice Cube on Selling Out It ain’t no person in the world that’s gonna say what I said on record to try to make money. How does that work? How do you turn people off to make money?20

Ice Cube on “Does Ice Cube Matter?” When Jackson asks, “Does Ice Cube matter,” Ice Cube replies, “Matter to who?” Jackson’s answer: “To hip hop. If I said hip hop could do without you, what would you say?” Ice Cube responds: I’ll say that’s cool. I feel that I’ve surpassed hip hop. Hip hop don’t define me; hip hop don’t define what I’ve grown into. I rap. I produce. I write. I act. I direct. What do I care about this circle of muthafuckas who call themselves

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“true heads” who don’t like nothing that makes money? Everybody hate. . . . They love you when you broke, comin’ up strugglin’. But when you make it, everybody wants to see you come down. I just ain’t came down, and niggas is mad. They don’t see the bigger picture. They just see what’s in their world. They don’t see what my world is all about. There’s got to be adjustments made for me to make sure that I can capitalize on the position I’m putting myself in.21

In these final statements, Ice Cube defends his decisions to pursue a career path not limited exclusively to the world of hip-hop. These are bold declarations that at once affirm his independence as a creative artist and prepare us for the “new” Ice Cube of the twenty-first century.

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5 Actor, Producer, Director, Screenwriter, Lyricist, Rapper: 1999–2007 From 1999 through 2007, Ice Cube continued to produce work in a number of areas. In addition to continuing to build his career as a screen actor, he also explored new territories as a film producer, and, if this alone were not enough to occupy his time, he wrote the lyrics for and produced three more recordings. Between 1999 and 2003, Ice Cube’s creative output included seven important works: in 1999, he starred in the film Three Kings with actors George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg; in 2000, he starred in, wrote, and produced Next Friday, the sequel to the enormously popular film Friday that co-starred Chris Tucker, and he recorded the second volume of War and Peace, Vol. 2 (The Peace Disc); in 2002, a very productive year, Ice Cube starred in All about the Benjamins, Barbershop, and Friday after Next; and in 2003, he produced the second recording by Westside Connection, Terrorist Threats. Ice Cube devoted most of his creative output to work for the screen between 2004 and 2007. In 2004, he produced and starred in Barbershop 2: Back in Business, the sequel to Barbershop. He delved further into family film in 2005 and 2007 with Are We There Yet? and its sequel, Are We Done Yet? In 2006, Ice Cube recorded Laugh Now, Cry Later, his first solo album since the second volume of War and Peace. Ice Cube’s ascent in film, in a variety of capacities, is impressive. As an actor, Ice Cube had more than 20 credits to his name by 2007, including roles in several highly successful commercial films. As a director, producer, and writer, Ice Cube counted 15 credits by 2007. These accomplishments outside gangsta rap, the field many considered his artistic bread and butter, perplexed devoted fans, of whom many questioned Ice Cube’s commitment to the genre he created and popularized. Among them was journalist Heidi

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Siegmund Cuda, who, in 2002, explored Ice Cube’s diverse creative occupations in an article entitled “Who Stole the Soul?” Asked to comment on the differences between making recordings and making movies and why filmmaking had become his primary occupation, Ice Cube responded: There’s more freedom in music. You can show up in the studio and work when you want to, so the rebel in you runs free. With movies, I gotta be there before the sun comes up, shoot everything we have planned, and cover everybody. It’s having a plan and being prepared. But the finished product is so much sweeter. Most of my career I’ve been an audio person trying to create a vision. Here I can work with all the senses to create a complete vision all the way around.1

Journalist Blake French also interviewed Ice Cube in 2002. In his “All about Cube: A Conversation with Ice Cube and Mike Epps,” French talked with the rapper-cum-actor-cum-movie producer about his projects and goals. Ice Cube readily acknowledged that he has had to “kick in some doors” and that “there’s always a fight . . . and I welcome the fight.”2 The article begins with a statement by Ice Cube, in which he explains the reasons for his attraction to film production: “It’s about having some control of your own destiny, in a way. In Hollywood, you can become a guy who’s just waiting for the phone to ring all the time. It’s never how I’ve done it, never how I’ve handled my career. I wanted to have a company that was dedicated to putting together things that I’m interested in. Not only an acting level, but on a producer level . . . or whatever.”3 He also discussed the artistic differences between the film industry and the music business, and he touched on his temporary respite from rap: With the music world, I had more control. If I wanted to do an album, I could go in there and do it with my crew. Five, six people help me with the record. Here, you’ve got over a hundred people working on a movie. Sometimes it’s hard to convince them that your way is the right way when there’s a board full of people saying that you should go left . . . Music, in a way, is on the back burner. Right now it’s easy because I ain’t doing no music. I’m just doing movies.4

THREE KINGS In this mercurial film that takes place during the ceasefire in the U.S.–Iraq conflict of 1991, Ice Cube plays army staff sergeant Chief Elgin, a reservist who works as an airline baggage handler in Detroit. This is a meaty and challenging role, one that, unlike his role in either Boyz N the Hood or Friday, does not mimic Ice Cube’s off-screen identity. Although the title, Three Kings, is derived from one of the main characters’ singing “we three kings be stealing the gold,” a parody of the Christmas melody “We Three Kings of Orient Are,” the story line is more complex than a report on the heist of

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bullion stolen from Kuwait by Saddam Hussein; it also explores war propaganda, the choices we make, and the ramifications of human greed. The film also makes us painfully aware of the ravages of war. Through footage showing children screaming as they run through deserts littered with mines, prisoners being tortured, mothers murdered in front of their children, and even oil-covered pelicans, this antiwar film is a graphic testament to the stark realities of war’s duplicities and atrocities. The pairing of Ice Cube and Mark Wahlberg, aka early 1990s rapper “Marky Mark,” lends the film an upbeat energy that, despite its subject matter and location, was certain to resonate with MTV audiences of the late twentieth century. As staff sergeant Elgin, Ice Cube is a figure of authority and a straight man to Troy Barlow, the impetuous and hungry character played by Wahlberg. Ice Cube is not angry in this film; indeed, he portrays Elgin as a levelheaded soldier with a conscience who is respectful of the Iraqi people and empathic toward their plight. He refuses to allow his peers to use epithets such as “dune coon” and “sand nigger” when referring to the Iraqis (he does, however, allow “towel head” and “camel jockey”). In addition, Elgin is the first of the kings to try to help Iraqi villagers during the ransacking of Hussein’s bunkers, telling the others, “We can help these people first and then we’ll be on our way.” Ice Cube enhances his script by showing us the compassionate nature of his character through facial expressions and gestures. We see the brutality of the war reflected poignantly in Ice Cube’s eyes and in the way he observes the actions of both his comrades and the Iraqi soldiers. Of particular note is Ice Cube’s simmering yet controlled expression as he glimpses footage of the March 3, 1991, Rodney King beating on a television in an Iraqi bunker. Here, as elsewhere, Ice Cube emerges as a seasoned actor who portrays his character with nuance and subtlety. Musically speaking, we find in Three Kings a curious hodgepodge intended in large measure to appeal to hip audiences tuned in to popular music and culture. Background music includes—for no other reason, it seems, than the recognition factor that it affords to diverse audience members—“If You Leave Me Now” (1976) by Chicago and “I Get Around” (1964) by the Beach Boys. By startling contrast (and inexplicably), we hear the “Cum sancto spiritu” from the Gloria of Bach’s Mass in B Minor during a target practice scene. Another concession to popular culture of the late 1990s is found in the eye-popping “bling” of the stolen booty. According to David O. Russell, the film’s director, the film is a “weird combination” of the “insanity of consumer culture crashing into contemporary warfare.”5 Indeed, for viewers attuned to the music videos, popular culture magazines, and celebrity blogs of the late twentieth century, the visual smorgasbord of razzle-dazzle jewelry, luxury cars, and, especially, the Louis Vuitton bags that are used to transport the bullion in Three Kings is a reminder of the ubiquity of American acquisitiveness.

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An Intimate Look inside the Acting Process with Ice Cube In this special feature from the home video of Three Kings (Warner Bros., 2000), Ice Cube discusses his abilities as an actor and explains his successes on film. Shot during the filming of Three Kings, this short interview comprises one question (“Tell me what your technique is, how you get your head around doing these scenes?”) and one extended response. Despite its brevity, the interview affords us a tiny window into Ice Cube’s thinking on the craft of acting. When asked about his approach to acting, Ice Cube replies: “It’s like you either gotta have it or you don’t. You know what I’m saying? And I happen to have it. . . . I got everything that you need. I’m natural.” Of greater importance, we see the value Ice Cube places on facial expression and gesture. When Ice Cube frames his face with his hands and tells the journalist, “Hit me right here. And I’ll sell your movie,” we understand, in a way that may not have been possible hitherto, that Ice Cube’s ability to connect with his audience derives from more than an arched eyebrow or scowl. As the camera pans his expressive face, we see the little subtleties that he mentions etched in his eyes and see compassion that can quickly flair into rage.

NEXT FRIDAY In this film, the sequel to the box office hit Friday, Ice Cube marks his return to the screen in three capacities: as an actor, screenwriter, and producer. Next Friday is a Cube Vision Production, co-written with DJ Pooh, with whom Ice Cube collaborated on Friday. Although the film was not received as enthusiastically as its older brother and suffers from a script that is top-heavy with bathroom humor and other puerile comedy, Next Friday is nonetheless a significant rung on Ice Cube’s ladder of extra-rap endeavors. Next Friday opens in a haze of smoke that savvy viewers understand is not the product of a cigarette, pipe, or cigar. Following the introduction of the film as “a real nigga movie” and the announcer’s incredulity about Ice Cube’s status as a free man (“I thought that nigga was in jail”), we are reminded of the plots in Friday. Ice Cube, speaking again as the character Craig, tells us that Friday was a day he will never forget: it was the first time he got high, the first time he was shot at, and the first time he “kicked Deebo’s ass.” We know from the film’s beginning clips to expect neither sophisticated comedy nor riveting drama. Seated on a toilet and rolling a joint, Ice Cube sets the tone properly for the ensuing level of comedic and dramatic action. The plot is diffuse and cumbersome. The primary storyline revolves around Deebo’s escape from prison and Craig’s subsequent need to find safe haven with his Uncle Elroy in a neighborhood far removed from his own. Secondary storylines center on the bathroom humor of Craig’s father’s digestive problems, Craig’s cousin Day-Day’s attempts to avoid his ex-girlfriend

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and her hoodlum younger sister (played by rapper Lady of Rage), Craig and Day-Day’s attempts to steal their neighbors’ drug money in order to stave off a foreclosure on Uncle Elroy’s house, and Deebo’s escapades, hidden away in an animal control truck, as he pursues Craig in an orange prison jumpsuit. As the story begins, Craig leaves his Watts neighborhood to stay with his uncle Elroy and cousin Day-Day in Rancho Cucamungo, an atypical suburb that Ice Cube, as Craig, likens to a “fake-ass Brady Bunch” neighborhood. The script and visual images are infused with stereotypes of ghetto life. For example, Elroy’s house, which was paid for with lottery winnings, is situated between a house owned by a street-smart, foul-mouthed, middle-aged Asian woman named Ms. Ho and a house owned by a family of Mexican gangsters who run drugs. Elroy’s house is painted in a garish lavender with deep purple trim; the backyard “pool” is a deep, concrete hole containing several inches of stagnant water and discarded patio furniture, over which hangs laundry on a clothesline. Day-Day’s room is a veritable shrine to hip-hop culture that includes posters of rappers Mack 10 and Snoop Dogg, as well as the #8 yellow and purple jersey of L.A. Lakers icon Kobe Bryant. The caricatures of ghetto life continue with the depictions of Day-Day’s ex-girlfriend and Uncle Elroy’s live-in girlfriend (the former sells drugs, does hair, and babysits out of her house; the latter is a sex-crazed pot smoker) and in the ubiquitous use of profanity, the pet pit bulls owned by the Mexican neighbors, the pink stretch limousine owned by the proprietor of a local music store, the use of “nigga” as the salutation of choice, and, of course, the omnipresent haze of marijuana smoke. The soundtrack is an eclectic mélange of music from the 1970s to the late 1990s. We hear vintage rock and soul, including Rufus with Chaka Khan in their hit “Tell Me Something Good” and David Bowie singing his soulful blockbuster “Fame,” as well as an assortment of music from rappers: “You Can Do It,” by Ice Cube with Mack 10 and Ms. Toi; “Murder, Murder,” by Eminem; “Chin Check,” by NWA; and “Sex-O-Matic Venus Freak,” by Macy Gray. “Chin Check” is particularly significant, as it marked the reunion after nearly a decade of NWA. The “new NWA,” which featured Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, MC Ren, and Snoop Dogg in place of the late Eazy-E, performed for the first time on March 11, 2000. Asked why he used Next Friday to introduce the new group, Ice Cube said, “We was tired of talking about it and you know that was the perfect vehicle for that because it would get the exposure that it needed. It was the project that was right up to bat.”6

WAR AND PEACE, VOL. 2 (THE PEACE DISC) In this, the second volume of the War and Peace album, we find a veritable smorgasbord of tunes and messages. Some, like “Can You Bounce?,” do not show Ice Cube at his best, as they are reminiscent of the worst of

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Eazy-E; others, including “Until We Rich” and “Record Company Pimpin,” are inspired pieces that reflect a mature and introspective lyricist. In his review, Vibe journalist David Thigpen wrote that the album “has all of the bounce and bluster about OGs, weed, haters, and freaks found on Vol. I . . . but as The Peace Disc travels between gangster stylings and conscious rap, it seems unsure of where its heart is. . . . Ice Cube provides something for all of his fans, but at the price of continuity.”7 Interestingly, Thigpen’s review is not the featured review of the issue, as was the review of War and Peace, Vol. 1 (The War Disc), which appeared in the December 1998/January 1999 edition of Vibe. The review is brief, taking up only one-quarter of a page. As such, we get a sense that Ice Cube has been demoted—or, at the very least, bumped down a peg on the ladder of respect accorded top artists—the result, perhaps, of what some critics and fans perceived to be his diffuse projects, in film and in music, in the middle and late 1990s. “Until We Rich” is among the most positive, optimistic songs in Ice Cube’s oeuvre through 2000. A bold and powerful song—the antithesis to the shoot-’em-up model of much of his earlier music—this song is targeted at the “young thugs” and “young homies” whose lives are centered on guns, violence, and the (dangerously inaccurate) romantic portrayals of life in the ’hood in the broadcast media. Krayzie Bone, of the rap group Bone Thugsn-Harmony, is the featured artist in “Until We Rich.” The group’s signature approach to harmonizing is apparent throughout, as this song is far removed, stylistically, from the bass-driven rhythms of Ice Cube’s music of the 1990s. In place of the staccato, singsong vocal delivery and thumping bass characteristic of many of Ice Cube’s songs, we find here a mid-tempo, easy-flowing piece that is more melodic than rhythmic. In this reflective song, Ice Cube invites his listeners to get to know the real Ice Cube, telling them to look into his eyes to understand who he really is: a hustler making lots of money and living a crime-free life. He asserts himself, in a manner akin to that of Ma Rainey and the other blues women of the 1920s, as the spokesperson for his cohort group, and he proclaims himself to be the voice of authority, one whose messages are intended to be heard and heeded. Ice Cube immediately tells his listeners that they had better learn to live right and think positively. True to the peace theme of this volume, Ice Cube implores his young thugs to throw away the guns. Indeed, the message that recurs in this upbeat tune is “hey young thugs, the world is yours; the best thing in life is life.” In the final verse, the most significant of the song, Ice Cube expounds the reasons for this uncharacteristic message of hope. In particular, he explains the importance of education and looking to one’s elders for wise counsel, imploring adults to spend more time with their children. The verse closes with a final appeal about the dire need for young thugs to live peacefully and embrace life fully. Although Ice Cube’s lesson to his listeners that they, too, can “get what you don’t got” and become a filthy rich O.G. (original gangster) by living a straight, crime-free life is duplicitous

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at best, his intention is a noble one: to increase the peace and make wannabe thugstas think twice about the direction of their lives. “Record Company Pimpin’ ” is a stern warning to aspiring rap artists about the unsavory aspects of the recording industry. Rapped over a soft, jazzy background that includes a woman’s vocalization (on vowel sounds only), this piece enumerates the pitfalls of the rap business and the “death traps” that record executives lay to entice—and ensnare—unwitting young rappers. The piece begins with the voice of a young rapper begging an industry executive to “please listen to my demo.” This plea is repeated several times, after which Ice Cube explains the ways in which record companies exploit young black men anxious to sign a contract. Ice Cube illustrates the industry’s perfidy by alleging that executives steal potential clients’ music, leaving them with little more than a worthless contract. The next full verse is filled with words of warning. Speaking as the sage who in his early years experienced the shady dealings of recording companies, Ice Cube gives the details of his metamorphosis from beggar to mogul and exhorts his listeners to understand the rules of the game, including reading the fine print of contracts and having access to reputable legal counsel. Ice Cube restates and reaffirms his views in each of the choruses, the first of which repeats the words “no more record company pimpin’.” This gives way later to an expanded hook that drives home the urgency of Ice Cube’s warnings. As in many of Ice Cube’s songs, this one ends with an “outro” that contains a moral. In a paraphrase of the Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson hit country song in which mothers are warned to not let their babies grow up to be cowboys, Ice Cube warns mothers of would-be rappers to not let their children grow up to be rappers. His final words deliver a characteristically terse ultimatum: learn the business or “get fucked, simple as that.” “Hello” reunites Ice Cube with MC Ren and Dr. Dre, his former associates with NWA. This is a salty piece that expresses the veteran rappers’ outrage at being disrespected by young, upstart rappers. The piece begins with an unveiled reference to NWA, as Ice Cube intones and repeats the words “look at these niggas with attitudes.” Dre and Ren soon join in, singing the hook, whose words are the song’s focal point: “I started this gangsta shit, and this the motherfuckin’ thanks I get?” There are three verses in “Hello,” one sung by each former NWA member. Ice Cube and Ren’s verses contain little that is exceptional or unpredictable, as both are centered on bragging about sexual exploits and puerile displays of masculinity. By contrast, the verse Dre sings contains text that is significant. Dre tells the younger generation of rappers that he needs neither their respect nor their approval and that his reputation as an innovator in the gangsta rap business is beyond reproach. In response to critics’ concerns about his credibility as a true thug, Dre asks if he fell from grace, in some eyes, because he stopped carrying a weapon. He next chronicles his path from a hungry, unknown rapper to a multimillionaire and affirms his dominion in no uncertain terms, telling critics, quite frankly, that

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he neither cares about nor needs their respect. Musically, “Hello” is vintage stock. It has a great, funky bass line that makes it a good dance piece. Ice Cube emerges as the best rapper of the trio of reunited NWA members. His voice is angry and authoritative and well suited to his rapid-fire delivery of the lyrics. As we have observed in Ice Cube’s earlier music, his lines are often delivered with impeccable timing in which the rhythm of the words blends seamlessly with the syncopations of the instrumental rhythm. In “Hello,” we find this hallmark of his style on the words “incredible, heterosexual, credible, beg-a-ho, let it go, dick ain’t edible.” Although the words rhyme, more or less, Ice Cube’s delivery punctuates them and makes each all the more emphatic. “The Nigga of the Century” is another piece with a great dance beat. Part of Ice Cube’s “I’m the baddest” collection, this song touts the rapper’s reputation as king of the streets and demands that we, the listeners, remember him. Although the piece contains three distinct verses, like many others in Ice Cube’s oeuvre, the hook dominates. Here, Ice Cube shouts out that he is “the nigga of the century.” By way of partial explanation, he boasts that his name will be remembered in history; then, insecurity taking over momentarily, it seems, Ice Cube delivers a threat: “Niggas better mention me.” This text is interspersed with a counterstatement from an unnamed contrarian who shouts out, “c’mon, you think you bad? How bad are you?” The piece opens with Ice Cube asking a little boy what he wants to be when he grows up. The child, who sounds very young, says that he wants to be a thug. The first of the song’s three verses begins with Ice Cube bragging that he and his buddies are the “worsest,” intimidated by nothing and no one. Although this may appear, at first blush, to be empty swagger intended to bedazzle malleable youth, it is not; in fact, in the lines that follow, Ice Cube preaches against an idle and unproductive lifestyle. Parts of the song are retrospective, with Ice Cube looking back on his youth and offering advice to those who might be tempted to venture down destructive paths. The importance of education figures prominently here as Ice Cube laments the quality of teaching in urban public schools on the one hand and on the other wishes he had heeded his mother’s advice to fill out college applications. Ice Cube also steps out of his own biography momentarily to lament his wild ways that resulted in “his” whole life depending on the outcome of a trial. The lines “live how I got to live; give what I got to give. Teach my kids positive as well as the negative” are executed in a wonderfully rhythmic flow that punctuates their meaning while providing the perfect backdrop for dancing.

ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS All about the Benjamins is a fast-paced comedy centered in the streets, warehouses, and waterways of Miami, instead of the streets and alleys of South Central Los Angeles. This is Ice Cube’s second Cube Vision production and

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the fourth film (Friday, The Players Club, and Next Friday were the first) in which he assumed a trio of duties: as actor, screenwriter, and producer.8 The film’s running time—98 minutes—and farcical content are consistent with those of the Friday series. Ice Cube plays Bucum (pronounced “book ’em”), an ambitious, cornrow-wearing bounty hunter bent on opening his own business as a private investigator. There are two subplots, both of which feature Ice Cube prominently. In the first, Bucum is trying to bring in Reggie (comedian Michael Epps), a bumbling ex-con who has lost a lottery ticket worth $60 million. In the second (and overlapping) subplot, Bucum is hot on the trail of a gang of thieves who stole diamonds worth $20 million and murdered several accomplices along the way. There is not much dialogue of any note in this film, as the action occurs primarily in chase and shoot-’em-up scenes. In fact, when dialogue is present, it exists largely in expletives (“motherfucker” is the word of choice). Once all is said and done (or acted and directed), the “point” of this film is exactly what the title says: it’s “all about the benjamins,” or, to capitulate even further to popular jargon, it’s all about the “bling” and the luxurious lifestyle made possible by money. In this film, the “benjamins”—aka $100 bills or, more broadly, all money—popularized in Puff Daddy’s song of the same name are synonymous with the diamond booty and the winning lottery ticket and the promises for a happier life both pledge. Indeed, in his pursuit of the diamond thieves/murderers, Bucum tells Reggie, “I’m all about the benjamins, what you think?” As an actor, Ice Cube shines less luminously in this film than he did in Boyz N the Hood, Anaconda, Three Kings, and his Friday series. This is not an indictment of Ice Cube’s acting abilities, which are noteworthy, as I have noted in earlier chapters. Instead, the lack of range we find in Ice Cube, actor, in All about the Benjamins derives from the script and its focus on action-driven scenes rather than those that rely on dialogue. The music in this film is less important, too, than that in Ice Cube’s earlier productions. We hear snippets of several thematically linked songs, including Ice Cube’s “$100 Bill, Y’All” and Puffy’s “It’s All about the Benjamins,” but these add little to the unfolding of the movie’s story lines.

BARBERSHOP In many respects, Barbershop is Ice Cube’s finest film of the early years of the twenty-first century. Although Ice Cube did not write or direct this film, Barbershop, like the Friday films, is a Cube Vision production. Part of what accounts for the exceptional quality of this production is the stellar cast, which includes Cedric the Entertainer, Sean Patrick Thomas, rapper Eve, Anthony Anderson, and Michael Ealy. In addition, the music is more an integral part of Barbershop than in earlier Cube Vision productions, used to connect scenes and to serve as an aural backdrop. As such, the music of Barbershop becomes

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an “extra character” and an unseen, additional voice used synchronously to enhance spoken dialogue. There are two, distinct plots in Barbershop that converge at the end of the film. The first, and primary, plot is centered in the barbershop and focused on Calvin Palmer’s (the character played by Ice Cube) ambivalence about owning the family business and his decision to sell it in order to avoid foreclosure and finance the business of his dreams, a recording studio. The second plot is centered on the slapstick escapades of two bumbling, petty thieves (Anthony Anderson and Lahmard Tate) and an uncooperative ATM they have stolen from a convenience store but cannot open. The scenes set in the barbershop, which Calvin’s father had owned for 40 years and which is referred to by Calvin as “that damn shop,” sparkle with wonderful dialogue and fine acting that enliven the script. Cedric the Entertainer gives one of the strongest performances in Barbershop. As Eddie, an old-school barber who provides a vital link to black history and black family values, Cedric delivers his lines with humor, candor, and compassion. He exhorts his younger colleagues to respect tradition and the importance of hard work. In one of his many extended monologues, Eddie scolds his coworkers for devaluing the art of the barber: In my day, a barber was more than somebody who sit around all day in a Fubu shirt with his drawers all hanging out. In my day, the barber was a counselor, a fashion expert; he was a style coach, pimp—just general all-around hustler. But the problem with y’all cats today is you got no skill. No sense of history. And then, with a straight face, you got the nerve to want to be somebody. Want somebody to respect you. But it takes respect to get respect. . . . Everything we done, workeded [sic] for, flushed down the drain by someone who don’t know no better.

Later, in a scene between Eddie and Calvin focused on generational differences and divergent opinions on what really matters in life, Eddie explains the importance of the barbershop as a physical presence in black neighborhoods as he attempts, successfully, to convince Calvin not to sell the family business to pursue a selfish ambition: “This is the barbershop. The place where a black man means something. Cornerstone of the neighborhood. Our own country club.” These are powerful lines, intended to instill in viewers a sense of the importance of black community and black tradition. Eddie’s character also assumes the role of provocateur, challenging the iconic status of black heroes, leaders, and newsmakers. In a particularly stirring conversation, Eddie tells his co-workers that “there’s three things that black people need to tell the truth about: (1) Rodney King shoulda got his ass beat for driving drunk; (2) O. J. did it; and (3) Rosa Parks ain’t do nothing but sit her black ass down.” Three other actors—Michael Ealy as Ricky, Eve as Terri, and Sean Patrick Thomas as Jimmy—also deliver strong performances that add to the development of the film’s primary plot. Michael Ealy’s street-smart and twice-incarcerated

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Ricky is the perfect foil to Thomas’s arrogant, college-educated Jimmy. One of Barbershop’s most important exchanges occurs when Ricky admonishes his peers—and, by extension, the black community—for shirking responsibility and expecting a handout instead of working hard: “We don’t need reparations; we need restraint. Don’t go out and buy a Range Rover when you’re living with your mama. . . . And can we please, please teach our kids something other than the Chronic album! And black people, please be on time for something other than ‘free before 11’ at the club.” Although Eve does not have one of the film’s major roles, she shines nonetheless. Her delivery of the line “who drank my apple juice?” is a scene stealer and among the film’s most memorable moments. As Calvin, Ice Cube gives a convincing portrait of a conflicted young man caught in a maze of expectation, tradition, and personal interests. His facial expressions—in every respect his cash cow as an actor—convey the uncertainty his character feels about the shop and its destiny. In this film, as in his other movies, Ice Cube does not have an abundance of text; as a result, he reaches his viewers through physical gesture and vocal inflection, making us understand his character’s thoughts through his trademark raised eyebrow, a frown, or a nonchalant shrug of the shoulders.

FRIDAY AFTER NEXT This film is the third of Ice Cube’s Friday series. The three films were produced over the course of seven years (Friday, 1995; Next Friday, 2000; and Friday after Next, 2002) and were written (or co-written) by Ice Cube. Next Friday and Friday after Next are Cube Vision productions and are based on characters created by Ice Cube and rapper/screenwriter DJ Pooh. This most recent addition to the Friday series features many of the actors in the earlier films, including, in addition to Ice Cube, Mike Epps, Anna Maria Horsford, and John Witherspoon. Like the other films, Friday after Next is a short film, with a running time of 85 minutes. And, also like the other Friday films, all of the action takes place over the course of a single day. The main action takes place in two venues, a strip mall in Crenshaw and the apartment Ice Cube, as Craig, shares with his cousin Day-Day, played by Epps. The story line centers on the theft of Craig’s rent money by a “projects Santa Claus” and the cousins’ burlesque efforts to retrieve it. As the movie opens, we hear traditional Christmas carols sung by black performers (for example, “Silent Night” is performed by Motown’s Temptations and “Santa Baby” is sung by sultry songstress Eartha Kitt) and watch a sleeping Craig, clutching a basketball and dreaming of Christmas morning, and Day-Day, dreaming of an x-rated Christmas morning—and we get our first glimpse of the drunken Santa thief as he breaks into Craig’s apartment, helps himself to a sandwich, and steals the Christmas presents, as well as the stereo speaker that contains the rent money. Although the plot is transparent and

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not particularly interesting, the film is entertaining, if for no other reasons than its exaggerated, slice-of-life look at urban black culture, Crenshaw style. As examples, Craig describes the Santa thief as looking like rapper Ol’ Dirty Bastard in a Santa Claus suit; Pinky (from Next Friday), the successful owner of a local record store, sports a long, greasy Jheri-curl and is driven around in a chauffeured pink stretch limousine; the most important shops in the strip mall where Craig and Day-Day work as security guards are Holy Moly Donuts, Plaza Liquors, Pimp’s and Ho’s clothes store, a toy store called Toys in the Hood, and Bros. Bar-B-Q, the family restaurant owned and operated by Craig’s father, mother, grandmother, and uncle. The dialogue, mundane for the most part, contains two wonderful surprises. When Elroy is trying to talk his way out of a situation with the police, he says, “I started this bar-bq shit. Is this the motherfucking thanks I get?” This shoutout to the song “Hello,” which reunited Ice Cube with Dr. Dre and MC Ren of NWA two years earlier on War and Peace, Vol. 2 (2000), is an insiders’ joke sure to bring a smile to aficionados of gangsta rap. The second surprise centers on language. When a white policeman asks Day-Day if the Santa thief was a black guy, Day-Day replies, “No, this was a nigga that did this.” Ice Cube’s intentional distinction between “black” and “nigga” hearkens back to the 1994 interview with Abiodun Oyewole in the New York Times Magazine and shows us that the mature Ice Cube of Friday after Next, at age 33, understood very well the differences between the two terms. Musically, Friday after Next contains a mélange of genres and performers that spans several decades. Featured old school musicians from the 1950s and 1960s include Johnny Mathis, Eartha Kitt, and the Temptations, while musicians from the 1980s through the early 2000s include Wyclef Jean, Mary J. Blige, Tupac, and Westside Connection. Ice Cube includes his own tribute to the holiday theme of the film with “It’s the Holidaze,” a gangsta version of holiday party music, performed by Westside Connection.

WESTSIDE CONNECTION—TERRORIST THREATS This 14-track recording was released seven years after Westside Connection’s first album, Bow Down (1996). The group’s second and final recording, the album reached the #16 position on the Billboard 200. If little more, Terrorist Threats is a testament to a genre that was gasping for breath in 2003. The album contains nothing that had not already been done before (and better) in the early and middle 1990s when gangsta rap was novel and in its heyday. Most of the tracks, including “Potential Victims” and “Call 9–1–1,” recall too much of the uninspired music written 10 years earlier and do little to throw water on the face of a genre fighting for survival. “Gangsta Nation,” which features rapper Nate Dogg, was released as a single and is the album’s headliner. Other tracks include “Get Ignit,” “Terrorist Threats,” the title tune, and “Pimp the System,” which features Butch Cassidy.

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“Potential Victims” begins with a parody of the Pledge of Allegiance. Westside Connection offers its own twist on the national oath, vowing to pledge allegiance to the “rag of the united Westside Connection.” Like the majority of the songs on Terrorist Threats, this one is archetypical of the gangsta idiom, with its references to money, carnage, “niggas,” and guns. Indeed, the three members of the group are self-referenced as the “gangsta,” “killa,” and “dope dealer.” In the chorus, Ice Cube pays homage to the cohort base for Westside Connection, acknowledging his white-, light-, and dark-skinned “niggas.” Similarly, “Call 9–1–1” is another testament to the gangsta idiom, replete with bravado and toasting. From the opening lines, “this right here is considered a banger, delivered with anger, your life is in danger,” which recur as the song’s chorus, we know that references to guns and slugs will make up the bulk of the tune. Ice Cube puts a gangsta spin on the maxim “live by the sword, die by the sword,” replacing sword with gun; Mack 10 brags about emptying round after round of ammunition; and WC lets us know that nothing is safe anymore. The song’s most interesting text is found in the first verse, which is sung by Ice Cube. In this mélange of gangsta bravado and parody, Ice Cube belittles other, inferior rappers and takes a jab at those who flaunt their educations at prestigious universities and use big words, dismissing their years in the classroom, because, after all, he is still with their women. Moreover, he brags that his ability to use language is a god-given gift that cannot be studied or learned. And, in true gangsta style, he finds comfort in a good smoke, as he touts the pleasures of lighting up a joint. “Get Ignit” is a bass-driven piece that encourages listeners to party, party, party and create all manner of mischief. Ice Cube’s opening line, “security, y’all might as well throw me outta this bitch right now,” establishes the mood at the outset. We understand in these words that mayhem is the order of the day and that, indeed, the command to “get ignit” (“ignorant,” or to act like a fool) will result in ballyhoo, wild times and ruthless behavior. All three rappers extol the virtues of the gangsta lifestyle: Ice Cube raps about the rims on his car and the ladies who adore him; Mack 10 boasts about his drug connections; and WC tells us that he is an incorrigible product of the streets. WC’s closing words, “get it understood, I bang the hood,” reinforce the gangsta ideal of territory and turf ownership. “Gangsta Nation” is another bass-driven piece that exalts the gangsta lifestyle. In a style that seems to be an unintentional caricature of the gangsta idiom, this track is about life on the mean streets of South Central Los Angeles. Ice Cube lets us know that he is the “bangin’ bandana cri-mi-ni-minal, the ori-gi-nal” and WC gives a shoutout to his buddies who are either in jail or on probation. Featured artist Nate Dogg supplies the chorus, which centers on money-grubbing women and tough guys doing hard work on rough streets. There is not much more to this piece; in fact, by the time of its release in 2003, even the most die-hard gangsta rap fans had heard these

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sentiments again and again over beats that were indistinguishable from those in this “new” track. In “Pimp the System,” Westside Connection ridicules the business end of rap by exalting the group’s prowess at manipulating financial offices and officers. Corporate executives are demeaned as “bitches” and prostitutes whose sole job is to ensure that the group’s coffers are always filled. Ice Cube boasts that his prostitutes, the CEOs who manage his accounts and tend to his business affairs, wear three-piece suits; Mack 10 tells his vice presidents and presidents to “just cut a fucking check.” In the chorus, guest artist Butch Cassidy adds to our understanding of the “pimping” aesthetic by saying that Westside Connection will “trick the system” and be on top of the world because their “game is stronger” than that of the corporate lackeys who work on their behalf.

BARBERSHOP 2: BACK IN BUSINESS In Barbershop 2: Back in Business, Ice Cube resumes his role as Calvin Palmer, the proprietor, through family inheritance, of a neighborhood barbershop in business since 1958. Although based on characters created by Mark Brown and written by Don D. Scott, the film has Ice Cube’s voice in it, especially in the scenes that give obeisance to iconic figures in black history and popular culture. This film, like its predecessor, is an MGM and Cube Vision production that features an all-star cast, many drawn from the original Barbershop: Cedric the Entertainer (Eddie), rapper Eve (Terri), Sean Patrick Thomas (Jimmy), Michael Ealy (Ricky), and Troy Garity (Isaac). Kenan Thompson, well known for his role as Kenan in the 1990s comedy series Kenan and Kel, appears as an apprentice barber. Rap icon Queen Latifah makes a cameo appearance as Calvin’s ex-girlfriend, a beautician in the shop adjacent to Calvin’s shop. The film has primary and secondary plots. The primary plot centers on the gentrification of the barbershop’s inner-city Chicago neighborhood through the addition of a multitheater cineplex, a chain coffeehouse, and, of particular importance for Calvin’s business, a glitzy, state-of-the-art barbershop and beauty parlor franchise called “Nappy Cutz” that specializes in black hair. The secondary plot focuses on black urban experiences in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As such, this subtheme is significant for its references to and images of post-civil-rights-era black America. Barbershop 2 begins with images of black popular icons of the 1960s through early 2000s: sports legends Muhammad Ali and Arthur Ashe, basketball curiosity Dennis Rodman, and 1968 Olympic medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who bowed their heads and raised black gloves in a Black Power salute as the Star Spangled Banner played during the awards ceremony, as well as musicians Bob Marley, Prince, Michael Jackson through the years, Eminem, Stevie Wonder, Snoop Dogg, and, importantly, NWA. The film’s main theme, however, is

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the dichotomous intersection between corporate intrusion—in the name of neighborhood improvement—and the preservation of a sense of community in a neighborhood defined by common values. Calvin is again conflicted over doing the right thing with his shop: should he sell [out] or continue the family business? Help secure a struggling neighborhood or turn profiteer? Not surprisingly, he decides against selling his soul (and the shop) just to make a quick buck, because, as he tells the board of directors at a city council meeting, “I ain’t with that shit. That’s why I’m not selling out.” Musically speaking, the “music as dialogue” aspect of Barbershop is absent in Barbershop 2. Although there are excerpts from the work of hip-hop and rhythm and blues artists, including Eminem, Tupac, Mary J. Blige, and Outkast, music plays a much less central role in Barbershop 2 than in Barbershop. As such, music is coincidental instead of integral to the plot and the development of the characters. As in the first Barbershop, Eddie delivers the most provocative lines. He resignedly hails the infamous D.C. beltway sniper of 2002 as the “Jackie Robinson of crime for black folks,” saying that what he did was “white folks shit” that required planning and math. He also takes a swipe at George W. Bush, saying, “you can be a stupid white man and be elected president— twice.” Eve, as the quick-tempered barber Terri, is transformed into a woman at peace with herself and the world, thanks to an anger management exercise class for women whose mantra is “he ain’t shit.” Isaac, the white, wannabeblack barber, is a master cutter in Barbershop 2, while know-it-all, collegeeducated Jimmy has traded his shears for a briefcase and a job in the office of a corrupt alderman. Ice Cube’s portrayal of Calvin is much the same as in Barbershop: the low-key picture of a young black man trying hard to do the right thing by everyone—himself, his wife and his infant son, his community, his employees, and the memory of his father.

ARE WE THERE YET? This film signals a real turning point—a risky foray into the wholesome world of family entertainment—in Ice Cube’s work on screen. Everything about Ice Cube’s role as Nick Persons in this film and its sequel, Are We Done Yet?, is antithetical to his image, in the recording studio and on set, through 2007. With slapstick comedy the order of the day, the film’s plot and the acting on every level are geared to amusing the six- and seven-year-old set instead of the street-savvy audiences of the Barbershop and Friday series. The plot, such as it is, centers on Ice Cube’s attempt to woo an attractive, divorced mother of two bratty children. Nick, Ice Cube’s character, works in a sports collectibles store, wears sports jerseys, and lots of bling, including diamond studs in his ears; as the film opens, he is the very proud owner of a brand-new, shiny black Navigator SUV. His romantic interest, Suzanne, played by Nia Long (who also starred with Ice Cube in Boyz N the Hood

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and Friday) is a special-events coordinator who wears tailored business suits. Predictably, the children impede Ice Cube’s attempts (they trash his car en route to Vancouver and do everything they can to dissuade him from dating their mother); equally predictably, boy gets girl in the end, and the children discover that they are very fond of Nick, their nemesis, after all. Despite the lackluster script, the film does have its curiosities and highlights. For example, the memory of baseball legend and icon Satchel Paige is kept alive through his bobblehead “appearance” in the film as Nick’s smarttalking alter ego. Ice Cube said that he and director Brian Levant decided to spotlight Paige instead of a contemporary athlete because they wanted to “give this old dude some props. Hopefully the kids will look back and study what Satchel Paige was all about.”9 “Satch” helps Nick through difficult situations, warning him of obstacles and giving him sage advice on women and children. Even the film’s final line, “I love a happy ending,” belongs to “Satch.” Also worthy of note is the scene in which Nick tries to help Kevin, the son of his love interest, look tough by scowling and curling his upper lip. The result is a face that will certainly remind fans of the Ice Cube of old: the angry black man whose intimidating image became the calling card used in group publicity shots of NWA and Ice Cube’s solo recordings of the early 1990s. Equally interesting is the hodgepodge of music in the film. Excerpts from Aretha Franklin’s “Respect,” Nelly’s “Ride wit Me,” Prince’s “I Wanna Be Your Lover,” and 50 Cent’s “What Up, Gangsta?” are used to connect scenes and function as a backdrop to the action. The most noteworthy aspect of the film, however, in terms of Ice Cube’s participation in it, as both actor and producer, is its G rating—and the G here stands for “general audiences” and not “gangsta.” For die-hard fans accustomed to a rougher and tougher Ice Cube, the gentle, nurturing, and fatherly character of Nick is quite a jolt, yet understandable in the context of Ice Cube’s career trajectory and goals.

LAUGH NOW, CRY LATER Released by Ice Cube’s Lench Mob Records, instead of Priority Records, this album, his seventh solo recording, marked Ice Cube’s return to the recording studio following a six-year hiatus during which his primary occupation was his work in film. Indeed, shortly after Laugh Now was released, Ice Cube was working on several projects, including a film adaptation of the popular 1970s television sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter. The recording is Ice Cube’s first solo album since the release of War and Peace (The Peace Disc) in 2000 and features rappers Snoop Dogg, WC, and Lil Jon. Ice Cube talked about the impetus behind Laugh Now, Cry Later in several interviews conducted on the heels of the recording’s release. He told Jet magazine’s Margena A. Christian that the album “talks about social issues that we’re dealing with, but it’s a record that is fun, too. With this new

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record, I’ve got to kind of slowly bring people up to speed on what rapping is all about.”10 He discussed the state of rap in 2006 with Newsweek magazine’s Allison Samuels, stating that rap is “all about a party now. Rap goes through phases, and sometimes one phase can last too long. This phase has blinded a lot of the young cats from seeing what’s really going on in the world.”11 Ice Cube expanded on these ideas in his interview for Jet magazine, commenting as well on the continued appeal of his music: Rap music is real one-sided now. It’s really talking about partying, weed, and women. It’s a little stale. Ain’t nobody talking about the real and what we’re going through. . . . You never play out. All rappers should hope that my record does well just for the sake of longevity and for them to see that after twenty years in the game, you can still be here. . . . The rap generations are getting older and older. We even have a generation of rap pioneers in their 50s. It used to be kind of like a young man’s game, but you have rap fans of all ages now. So what I’m doing is catering to my fans and whoever else comes along with that, it’s cool.12

Ice Cube also explained his reasons for releasing Laugh Now on his own label instead of on Priority, his recording home for his previous solo albums. He wanted the autonomy that comes from making one’s own decisions, and, as he told Billboard ’s Hillary Crosley, “If you own it, you can make deals without giving [a major label] a percentage. . . . You get with a major label for their distribution. If you have the money to promote yourself, then you should do your records independently. It’s just smarter.”13 Furthermore, according to Ice Cube, “They [major-label companies] want to hear certain shit so the radio will play it. I didn’t want to deal with that; I wanted to say what I wanted to say.”14 Laugh Now, Cry Later comprises 20 tracks, most of which are between three and four minutes long. Some contain themes reminiscent of the sociopolitical messages found in Ice Cube’s music of the early 1990s; others are party songs, intended to do little other than make listeners feel good and feel like tapping their feet. “Go to Church” is a humorous piece about rappers whose music and personal behavior are more puffery than reality. “Why We Thugs” and “The Nigga Trap” are fine examples of the erstwhile angry and socially reflective Ice Cube. “Growin’ Up” is a hybrid that is part apologia and part autobiography. “Child Support” is a no-holds-barred look at the “illegitimate” evolution of rap since the days of Ice Cube’s first flowering. “Why We Thugs” was the first single from Laugh Now. Produced by hiphop entrepreneur Scott Storch, who has been linked musically to Dr. Dre, 50 Cent, and G-Unit, the piece focuses on social issues that plague urban areas. Ice Cube discussed thug life with journalist Margena A. Christian. His thoughts are reminiscent of those expressed by Furious Styles, the character played by Laurence Fishburne in Boyz N the Hood:

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The first lines of the song set the tone, telling us that every urban neighborhood has the same problems and every underclass urban resident faces the same struggles. These lines give way to the chorus, which is stated repeatedly and which underscores the dilemma Ice Cube addressed in his Jet interview: “They give us guns and drugs, then wonder why in the fuck we thugs.” In the section that follows, Ice Cube mentions George Bush, Saddam Hussein, Russell Simmons, and Sugar Hill. Bush is lambasted for his alleged complicity in the problems derived from guns and drugs in inner-city neighborhoods; in fact, Ice Cube says that Bush “runs shit like Saddam Hussein.” By contrast, Ice Cube thanks hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and Sugar Hill, one of the earliest hip-hop record labels, for giving hope, through music, to several generations of hip-hop musicians. In this first verse, we get a glimpse of Ice Cube, vintage and inveterate storyteller. Although the rhyme scheme is very elementary (day/hay/yay/bay), the images depicted are strong. Once again, Ice Cube paints a bleak picture of life in his—and every, he wants us to believe—’hood. He tells us that gangbanging has been a constant in his neighborhood since his earliest days and that when he and his peers react, badly, to their environment, they are sent away to Pelican Bay State Prison, a maximum-security facility in northern California. In the second verse, Ice Cube explains the reasons for the unrest in urban neighborhoods, which he reduces to drugs, thugs, and gangs. In the third and final verse, Ice Cube, who again acts as the story’s protagonist, describes the inevitable outcome of a life lived under these circumstances. After he takes his .44 from a dresser drawer, we assume the worst. Our assumptions are confirmed in the lines that follow, as Ice Cube tells us that he was arrested and sentenced to 20 years. The chorus is repeated to reinforce the message that the woes of every ’hood are largely the result of external factors. The final words, “every ’hood’s the same,” further buttress the message that all urban ghettos, whether they are in Los Angeles, Houston, or New York, the three cities cited in the music video, are bound by shared social troubles. “Go to Church” was the second single released from Laugh Now. It features Lil Jon and Snoop Dogg, who share the song’s performance with Ice Cube. Snoop begins the piece, and the quality of his voice—unctuous and Cheshire cat-like—works perfectly for the opening lines: “Nigga, if you scared, go to church. You knew the job was dangerous when you took it.” The dangerous job referred to, of course, is the business of the rap game and

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the harder-than-it-appears importance of speaking from lived experiences— that is, keeping it real. In the third verse, Snoop and Ice Cube tell us that Ice Cube’s a gangsta and Snoop’s a hustler. The verse also sets the tone for the aggressive posturing that ensues where the rappers, in turn, enumerate the reasons for their dominion in rap and, by consequence, the reasons that other rappers fall short. Ice Cube begins the attack on inferior rappers in his first solo verse. Blasted for having “lyrics full of steroids,” the targeted rappers are accused of spending all of their time in clubs making a whole lot of noise instead of doing the yeoman’s work of chronicling important social issues. This verse also includes an ad hominem attack on Mike Jones, a rapper from the South and owner of a high-profile nightclub frequented by celebrities. The best part of this verse is not the lyrics themselves but Ice Cube’s delivery of them, which, in addition to being bold and belligerent, offers the perfect vocal cadences for each line. This hallmark style of Ice Cube’s best rapping is especially clear in the words “We can get it crackin’ if it get to clickin’, clackin’.” The chorus, repeated twice, follows Ice Cube’s solo verse. Because of its central position between the solo verses of Ice Cube and Snoop, who sings the fourth full verse, the chorus is the most significant component of the piece. It consists of four lines, in which the final three words of each are repeated for effect. The performers’ “scared, gutter, and down” cohorts are challenged at the beginning of each line of the chorus and told to either play by the rules of the rap game or, that failing, do one of three things: pray in church, do their dirt, or go berserk. These words are intoned venomously, making it clear to the objects of the taunts, as well as to the listeners, that there are limited options for those who behave in ways that do not comport with Ice Cube’s standards of decorum. Snoop’s extended solo verse centers on his establishing his importance as “the big boss Dogg” among his competitors who are “suckers” and “dope fiends.” The taunting escalates in the antiphonal section that follows. The text here is minimal, consisting of nothing more than “you scared, motherfucker, you scared,” repeated several times in call-and-response fashion between the rappers. “Go to Church” concludes with several more repetitions of the chorus and an emphatic warning from Ice Cube to “devils” and their laws. A musical ostinato of nine notes, in its first iteration spanning no more than the interval of a minor third, holds the piece together. It is a catchy musical phrase, its minor modality appropriately menacing. This, coupled with the staccato delivery of Ice Cube’s lines and the slower, more slippery elocution of Snoop, makes for a piece that works, at least musically, on every level. The lyrics, conversely, contain little that is compelling and force our attention to the catchy chorus and rhythmic repetitions. “The Nigga Trap,” like “Why We Thugs,” centers on life in the ’hood. The piece has two messages, one intended for gangbangers and other inhabitants of unnamed urban ghettos and the other targeted at perpetrators of racist social systems. The title is a metaphor for the various ways young black

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men are ensnared by tempting societal vices and doomed to failure. The chorus underscores this, with its allusions to men being baited and then handed prison sentences. The piece begins, as is Ice Cube’s wont, with a spoken introduction. In it, Ice Cube lays the foundation for the ensuing message, stating that the text is not hyperbolic, but based on lived experiences. In his role as “ghetto spokesman” who knows black people from eastside Oakland to Brooklyn, Ice Cube details the ways in which black men are targets of racist social systems and imprisoned in frightening numbers. He cites George W. Bush and Arnold “The Terminator” Schwarzenegger, governor of California, as particular villains and scoffs at court-appointed “public pretenders,” aka public defenders, for their impotence in successfully handling cases involving black men. Interestingly, in the first verse Ice Cube also takes a slam at Flavor Flav, a member of Public Enemy who in the early 2000s gained new popularity for his reality TV show Flavor of Love, for being in a relationship with Danish actress Brigitte Nielsen, referred to by Ice Cube as “a white bitch.” In the second and final verse, Ice Cube attacks the state of California and its penal system, and then directs his attention to his peers, giving them a list of imperatives. He describes California’s prisons as “concrete slave ships” that never move and warns young black men to not get caught in the system. The final words are reserved for black men, as Ice Cube asks why they look upon each other as enemies when they ought to embrace each other as comrades. He makes a special plea to black men to forget about territorial loyalties and to focus, instead, on carving out a sustainable future, saying, “fuck where you from, nigga, look where you at.” He also points a finger of blame at the clergy, alleging that most of the “bullshit” that the black community hears comes “straight out the pulpit.” Right before the final iterations of the chorus, Ice Cube emphasizes the need for black people to act on the ills that plague their communities, beseeching them to “understand that it’s AIDS in the hood.” In this sense, the song recalls the messages of “Us,” in which Ice Cube urges black men and women to take greater responsibility for their destiny. “Child Support” is a caustic attack on a generation of rappers who postdate Ice Cube and the founders of gangsta rap. Here, Ice Cube portrays himself as one of the fathers of gangsta rap, scolding his rap offspring. The hook, which appears at the outset, immediately establishes Ice Cube’s preeminence as the paternal head of the house of gangsta rap. The first verse expands the father/child relationship introduced in the hook and also includes a humorous reference to a popular television show. Capitalizing on the notoriety of the “Who’s My Baby Daddy” theme on Maury, a talk show popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s that used DNA tests to establish the paternity of illegitimate offspring, Ice Cube rants about the “bitch niggas” who want to check his urine to see if he is the father—of gangsta rap. Although he admits to having sired “bastard rap children,” he vows that he will be a “deadbeat daddy” who will not provide material support. In the second verse, Ice

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Cube elucidates the genetic connection between himself and his rap progeny. Speaking as their father, Ice Cube reminds his “children” of their heritage as he implores them to “keep it gangsta.” The closing lines of the verse are a condemnation of the “brainless” rap that centers on “pussy and money” and a plea for the return of the conscious and political themes that were staples of gangsta rap in its heyday. The third and final verse is at once a condemnation of the present state of rap and a dismissal of critics’ attacks on Ice Cube’s ventures in film. Ice Cube denounces chinchilla-wearing and Bentley-driving rappers, saying that the entire rap business needs a good kick in the pants. Although he does not mention any rappers by name, it is clear that Ice Cube is talking about the numerous “bling” rappers of the late 1990s and early 2000s whose music was devoid of the important social statements found in the music of the Last Poets, NWA, Public Enemy, and KRS-One. In the final lines, just before the restatement of the hook, Ice Cube takes a slap at his detractors who accused him of jumping ship and abandoning his gangsta roots. The piece ends with multiple statements of the hook, the words “you want child support, get it out your ass, bitch,” and, as we often find in Ice Cube’s music, a final tag that is spoken instead of rapped. In this concluding statement, Ice Cube again ridicules young rappers, this time telling them that they “smell like shit,” and implores them to clean up their act. “Growin’ Up” is a nostalgic skip down Ice Cube’s memory lane. After hearing music that evokes memories of his adolescence, Ice Cube begins to think about the various components of his youth: house parties, representing his ’hood, his earliest associations with NWA, his first forays in cinema. The companion music video features images of Ice Cube through the years; clips of Eazy-E are particularly prominent. The text is divided into three verses, each separated by a chorus. In the first verse, Ice Cube sings about his first meetings with Dre, Yella, and Eazy-E and how this association spawned gangsta rap. In those formative years of gangsta rap, NWA told the world how young black men felt. The lion’s share of verse two centers on Eazy-E. In fact, the entire second half of the verse is in obeisance to the founder of NWA and the subject of Ice Cube’s harangue in “No Vaseline.” In this posthumous apology, Ice Cube thanks Eazy-E for everything and tells him, “I learned a lot of game from you.” He even offers to be a mentor to Eazy’s son. The third verse is a hodgepodge in which Ice Cube thanks his fans for their support, defends his dual roles as rapper and actor, and criticizes the racial politics of Hurricane Katrina, in 2005. Although Ice Cube’s reference to the black victims of Katrina appears oddly placed in this retrospective, it ties in with his self-affirmation as an assertive chronicler of black people’s stories. The words “I love all my fans ’cause they know I’m a man and not a little boy or some fuckin’ play toy” are unnecessarily defensive but can be explained in light of the song’s reflective character and Ice Cube’s need, here, to validate his transition from young rapper to mature rapper and entertainment mogul.

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ARE WE DONE YET? In this film, the sequel to Are We There Yet?, Ice Cube again plays the part of Nick Persons—only this time, instead of being a bachelor on the prowl, he is married, the stepfather of two preteens and the expectant father of twins, and the not-so-proud owner of a home that gives new meaning to the term “fixer-upper.” Produced by Ice Cube for RKO Pictures and Cube Vision, the film is based loosely on Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, a 1948 comedy that starred Cary Grant and Myrna Loy. Like its predecessor, Are We Done Yet? is a family film, rated PG, with a target audience of the under-10 crowd and their parents. More than anything, the film is a showcase for Ice Cube’s versatility as an actor and his desire, it would seem, to be appreciated in a realm far removed from gangsta rap. Although nothing in the movie is outstanding (neither the acting nor the thin story line) and one is hard pressed to say anything that is not as vacuous as the film itself, there are bright moments. The best of these are two borrowings, one from the film Jaws, the other from James Brown’s classic, “The Payback” (1974). In the first, Nick and his stepchildren are kayaking on a lake near their home. When Nick spots an enormous sturgeon circling his small kayak, he yells, borrowing a well-known line from Jaws, “I think we need a bigger boat.” The second borrowing, from James Brown, occurs when an angry Nick goes after a member of the construction crew with a two-by-four. Sensing that he may be outmaneuvered, Nick cries, “I don’t know karate, but I know crazy.” This “sample” of one of the bestknown lines from one of popular music’s most revered icons adds a touch of droll humor in an otherwise slapstick and predictable production. Another nice touch, if a bit contrived and hokey, is the special appearance by basketball legend Magic Johnson near the end of the film. Despite Nick’s farcical encounters with a team of blind plumbers, well-meaning neighbors bearing platter after platter of sturgeon, and the antics of Chuck, the lunatic general contractor, the film ends, as we would expect, on an upbeat note—the house is made habitable and restored to its former glory, and Nick, his wife, stepchildren, and newborn twins live a wholesome and happy life in the wilds of Oregon.

Conclusion It is difficult to summarize a professional career that is perhaps only at its midpoint. I began this study by borrowing a phrase from Public Enemy’s Chuck D in which Ice Cube’s work, as musician and actor, was discussed in terms of “reinventions.” From his beginnings as a founding father of the gangsta rap movement in the late 1980s and his hardcore recordings of the early 1990s through his family-friendly father-figure roles of the early 2000s and back again, with Raw Footage, released in 2008, to a take-noprisoners gangsta, Ice Cube personifies the myriad ways in which a career can be imagined, realized—or reinvented. As a result, his work, considered in the ensemble, is difficult to pigeonhole because of its breadth and because of Ice Cube’s calculated attempts to reach diverse audiences. Nevertheless, his performance output between 1988 and 2007 seems to be classifiable into three distinct categories, two centered on music, the other on film. In each of these groupings, several works stand out as being prototypes of a particular period in Ice Cube’s oeuvre. Because of this, it becomes possible to assess the commonalities of his work across genres while discussing the discrepancies—which might also be viewed as reinventions—that to date have distinguished his career. The early years of Ice Cube’s career are clearly defined by his genre-defining recordings in the gangsta rap idiom made between 1988 and 1993. Blockbusters such as AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted and Death Certificate, in addition to NWA’s Straight Outta Compton, established Ice Cube’s dominion as a gangsta rapper—and by consequence cemented a one-dimensional image of his work in the eyes of many. Throughout the late 1980s and mid-1990s,

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Ice Cube wore his trademark “angriest black man in America” scowl as a highly marketable badge of honor and recorded music, including the now-classics “Fuck Tha Police,” “Us,” “Black Korea,” “The Nigga Ya Love to Hate,” “No Vaseline,” and “Once Upon a Time in the Projects,” whose controversial lyrics stoked the flames of his gangsta persona. We find similarly caustic material in the music Ice Cube recorded later, in the late 1990s and first years of the 2000s; here, however, the lyrics tend to be more introspective and thoughtful than fiercely aggressive. “The Nigga Trap,” for example, has ad hominem attacks on a number of political and popular culture figures, yet it is focused on black men and the imperatives of the black community to control its own destiny. Despite the ubiquity of gangsta themes in Ice Cube’s music, especially in the early recordings, his music sometimes contains lyrics that are far less volatile and rhythms that are jazzy and mellow, with none of the pulsating rhythms that typically accompany his texts. The best examples are “It Was a Good Day,” which in its curiously sardonic way is positive and upbeat, and “Growin’ Up,” a poignant, nostalgic, and autobiographical piece in which Ice Cube explains many of his life’s choices. Were we to consider only these aspects of Ice Cube’s identity as a performer, we would deny the other, equally significant components of his multifaceted career. His early work in film helped move him away from the stereotypes attached to gangsta rap. As Doughboy in Boyz N the Hood, arguably his best performance, Ice Cube established himself as a talented actor. Although at first blush this role appears to be an extension of the hardcore South Central hoodlums whose lives Ice Cube often chronicled in his studio recordings, it represented a palpable step in a different direction, one that relied more on subtle gesture than verbal aggression. His other early films, including, especially, Anaconda and Three Kings, signaled important breaks from the gangsta caricature Ice Cube might have become had he continued in a single direction. By the early 2000s, mainstream audiences, those under age 30 in particular, were more likely to associate Ice Cube with film than music; audiences under age 20 were especially more likely to associate him with his smiling, affable portrayal of Nick in Are We There Yet and Are We Done Yet than with the mad-at-the-world Ice Cube of his 1990s recordings. Through careful calculation, Ice Cube continued to expand his horizons in film between 1999 and 2007 as director, producer, and writer, defying critics eager to confine him to a single domain. His work in these capacities in the Barbershop and Friday series is noteworthy, evidence of his talents in the spectrum of activity in filmmaking. Given the great variety and inconsistency, even, in his work, we might ask ourselves, as others have, what is next on Ice Cube’s agenda. Will he join the ranks of numerous pop culture musicians and continue to ply the trade that made him famous? A gangsta rapper at age 50? 60? Will he seek to expand his activity as a film writer, creating new roles for himself that will undoubtedly lead to reconceived images of Ice Cube, actor, in the public eye? Will he focus

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on directing and producing, the brains behind new films and recordings? The kaleidoscope of Ice Cube’s professional agenda makes this difficult to predict, since his work continues to evolve as he continues to reinvent himself. And yet, Ice Cube has given us a clear sense of his intended directions, stated in unequivocal terms in 1998: “I rap. I produce. I act. I write. I direct.” Now approaching age 40, Ice Cube will no doubt continue to be a formidable presence in each.

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Discography SOLO RECORDINGS AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted (Priority Records, 1990; executive producer, Ice Cube). “Better Off Dead” (produced by Ice Cube, Sir Jinx, E. Sadler); “The Nigga Ya Love to Hate” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by E. Sadler, Ice Cube); “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by E. Sadler, Keith Shocklee, Ice Cube); “What They Hittin’ Foe?” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by The Average White Band, Ice Cube); “You Can’t Fade Me” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by E. Sadler, Ice Cube); “JD’s Gafflin’ ”; “Once Upon a Time in the Projects” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by Sir Jinx); “Turn Off the Radio” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by Paul Shabazz, Chuck D., E. Sadler); “Endangered Species (Tales from the Darkside)” (featuring Chuck D; lyrics by Ice Cube; music by E. Sadler); “A Gangsta’s Fairytale” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by E. Sadler); “I’m Only Out for One Thing” (featuring Flavor Flav; lyrics by Ice Cube; music by Stevie Wonder, Sir Jinx); “Get Off My Dick and Tell Yo Bitch to Come Here” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by E. Sadler); “The Drive-By” (lyrics by Ice Cube); “Rollin’ wit the Lench Mob” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by E. Sadler); “Who’s the Mack?” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by The JB’s); “It’s a Man’s World” (featuring Yo-Yo; music by Sir Jinx; contains a sample from “It’s a Man’s World,” as recorded by James Brown); “The Bomb” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by Sir Jinx). Kill at Will (Priority Records, 1990; executive producer, Ice Cube). “Endangered Species” (featuring Chuck D; lyrics by Ice Cube and Chuck D; music by E. Sadler and Sir Jinx); “Jackin’ for Beats” (lyrics by Ice Cube and Del; music by Chilly Chill, Sir Jinx, D-Nice, EPMD, Public Enemy, Digital Underground, LL Cool J, X-Clan); “Get Off My Dick and Tell Yo Bitch to Come Here” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by E. Sadler); “The Product” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by Sir Jinx); “Dead Homiez” (lyrics by Ice Cube); “JD’s Gafflin’ ” Part 2 (words

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by JD); “I Gotta Say What Up!!!” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by Sir Jinx, Isaac Hayes). Death Certificate (Priority Records, 1991; executive producer, Ice Cube). “The Funeral” (written by Sir Jinx); “The Wrong Nigga to Fuck Wit” (written by Ice Cube); “My Summer Vacation” (written by Ice Cube; contains a sample from “Atomic Dog,” as recorded by George Clinton); “Steady Mobbin’ ” (written by Ice Cube; contains a sample from “Reach Out,” as recorded by the Average White Band); “Robin Lench” (written by Sir Jinx & the Boogie Men); “Givin’ Up the Nappy Dug Out” (written by Ice Cube; contains a sample from “Hip Hugger,” as recorded by Wilson Pickett); “Look Who’s Burnin’ ” (written by Ice Cube; contains a sample from “Claudie,” as recorded by Gladys Knight and the Pips); “A Bird in the Hand” (written by Ice Cube); “Man’s Best Friend” (written by Ice Cube); “Alive on Arrival” (written by Ice Cube); “Death” (written by Dr. Khallid Muhammad); “The Birth” (written by Dr. Khallid Muhammad); “I Wanna Kill Sam” (written by Ice Cube); “Horny Lil’ Devil” (written by Ice Cube); “Black Korea” (written by Ice Cube); “True to the Game” (written by Ice Cube; contains a sample from “Outstanding,” as recorded by the Gap Band); “Color Blind” (written Ice Cube, Deadly Threat, Kam, the Maad Circle, King Tee, J Dee); “Doing Dumb Shit” (written by Ice Cube; contains a sample from “Funkentelechy,” as recorded by Parliament); “Us” (written Ice Cube); “No Vaseline” (written by Ice Cube). The Predator (Priority Records, 1992; executive producer, Ice Cube). “The First Day of School (Intro; produced by Ice Cube)”; “When Will They Shoot?” (written by Ice Cube; contains samples from “We Will Rock You,” as recorded by Queen); “I’m Scared” (Insert); “Wicked” (written by Ice Cube & Don Jaguar; contains samples from “Funky Worm,” as recorded by the Ohio Players; “Welcome to the Terrordome,” as recorded by Public Enemy; “Can’t Truss It,” as recorded by Public Enemy); “Now I Gotta Wet ’Cha” (written by Ice Cube and D.J. Muggs; contains samples from “Aqua Boogie,” as recorded by Parliament; “Get Out of My Life Woman,” as recorded by Solomon Burke); “The Predator” (written by Ice Cube; contains samples from “Superman Lover” as recorded by Johnny “Guitar” Watson; “East Coast,” as recorded by DAS EFX); “It Was a Good Day” (written by Ice Cube; contains samples from “Footsteps in the Dark,” as recorded by the Isley Brothers; “Come On Sexy Woman,” as recorded by The Moments); “We Had to Tear This Mothafucka Up” (written by Ice Cube and D.J. Muggs; contains a sample from “Subway In,” as recorded by Duke Jordan); “Fuck ’Em” (Insert); “Dirty Mack” (written by Ice Cube; contains samples from “Aqua Boogie,” as recorded by Parliament; “Unfunky UFO,” as recorded by Parliament); “Don’t Trust ’Em” (written by Ice Cube; contains a sample from “Green Earring,” as recorded by Steely Dan); “Gangsta’s Fairytale 2” (written by Ice Cube; contains samples from “Impeach the President,” as recorded by Roy C. Hammond; “Distant,” as recorded by A Taste of Honey; “Sir Noise D’ Voidoffunk,” as recorded by Parliament); “Check Yo Self ” (featuring DAS EFX; written by Ice Cube and D.J. Muggs); “Who Got the Camera?” (written by Ice Cube; contains a sample from “I Gotta Thang, You Gotta Thang, Everybody Gotta Thang,” as recorded by Funkadelic); “Integration” (Insert); “Say Hi to the Bad Guy” (written by Ice Cube; contains samples from “I Ain’t Got Nobody,” as recorded by Sly Stone; “P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up),” as

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recorded by Parliament); Bonus Tracks: “Check Yo Self (‘The Message’ Remix)” (background vocals by DAS EFX; written by Ice Cube, E. Fletcher, M. Glover, S. Robinson; contains a sample from “The Message,” as recorded by Grandmaster Flash); “It Was a Good Day (Remix)” (written by Ice Cube; contains samples from “Let’s Do It Again,” as recorded by the Staples Singers; “Sir Noise D’ Voidoffunk,” as recorded by Parliament); “24 wit an L” (written by Ice Cube; contains a sample from “We Write the Songs,” as recorded by Marley Marl); “U Ain’t Gonna Take My Life” (written by Ice Cube, A. Kiedis, J. Frusciante, C. Smith, M. Balzary, T. McElroy, D. Foster; contains samples from “Sir Psycho Sexy,” as recorded by Red Hot Chili Peppers; “I Gotcha,” as recorded by Joe Tex; and an interpolation of “My Lovin’ (Never Gonna Get It). Lethal Injection (Priority Records, 1993; executive producer, Ice Cube). “The Shot” (produced by Sir Jinx for Jinx Productions); “Really Doe” (Ice Cube, Laylaw, D. McDowell; produced by Laylaw and Derrick McDowell; contains samples from “You Gotta Believe,” as recorded by the Pointer Sisters; “Lick the Balls,” as recorded by Slick Rick); “Ghetto Bird” (Ice Cube, Q D III); “You Know How We Do It” (Ice Cube, QDIII; contains a sample from “The Show Is Over,” performed by Evelyn “Champagne” King); “Cave Bitch” (Ice Cube, Brian G.); “Bop Gun (One Nation)” featuring George Clinton (Ice Cube, Q D III, G. Clinton, Jr., G. Shider, W. Morrison; contains an interpolation of “One Nation under a Groove”); “What Can I Do?” (Ice Cube, the 88 X Unit; contains an interpolation of “I Want You”); “Lil Ass Gee” (Ice Cube, Sir Jinx; contains a sample from “La Di Da Di, as recorded by Doug E. Fresh); “Make It Ruff, Make It Smooth” featuring K-Dee (Ice Cube, K-Dee, QDIII); “Down for Whatever” (Ice Cube, Madness 4 Real); “Enemy” (Ice Cube, Madness 4 Real); “When I Get to Heaven” (Ice Cube, Brian G., M. Gaye, R. Benson, A. Cleveland; contains an interpolation of “Inner City Blues” by M. Gaye. Bonus tracks: “What Can I Do?” (Westside Remix); “What Can I Do?” (Eastside Remix); “You Know How We Do It” (Remixed by Ice Cube); “Lil Ass Gee” (Eerie Gumbo Remix). Bootlegs & B-Sides (Priority Records, 1994). “You Don’t Wanna Fuck wit These (Unreleased 1993 Shit)” (music by Ice Cube, H. Rasmussen, R. Berg, J. Dahl, L. Baungaard, N. Kvaran; contains a sample from “Hey What’s That You Say,” as recorded by Brother to Brother); “Lil Ass Gee” (music by Ice Cube, Sir Jinx; contains a sample from “La Di Da Di,” as recorded by Doug E. Fresh); “My Skin Is My Sin” (music by Ice Cube, Jam, Madness, 4 Real); “It Was a Good Day” (Remix), (music by Ice Cube, G. Clinton Jr., W. Collins, B. Worrell; contains samples from “Let’s Do It Again,” as recorded by the Staple Singers; “Sir Nose D’Voidoffunk,” as recorded by Parliament); “U Ain’t Gonna Take My Life” (music by Ice Cube, A. Keidis, J. Frusciante, C. Smith, M. Balzary, T. McElroy, D. Foster; contains samples from “Sir Psycho Sexy,” as recorded by Red Hot Chili Peppers; “I Gotcha,” as recorded by Joe Tex; contains an interpolation of “My Lovin’ (Never Gonna Get It)”; “When I Get to Heaven” (music by Ice Cube, Brian G., M. Gaye, J. NYX); “D’Voidofpopniggafiedmegamix” (music by Ice Cube; contains excerpts from “The Message”; “Bop Gun”; We Had to Tear This M. F. Up”; “Steady Mobbin’ ”; “Givin’ Up the Nappy Dugout”; “Jackin’ for Beats”; “No Vaseline”; “Wicked”; “A Gangsta’s Fairytale”; “Once Upon a Time in the Projects”; “It Was a Good Day”; “Who’s the Mack?”; “You

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Know How We Do It”; “Ghetto Bird”; “Get Off My Dick and Tell Yo Bitch to Come Here”); “Robbin’ Hood (’Cause It Ain’t All Good)” (music by Ice Cube, The 88 X Unit); “What Can I Do?” (Remix), (music by Ice Cube, The 88 X Unit); “24 wit an L” (music by Ice Cube; contains a sample from “We Write the Songs,” as recorded by Marley Marl); “You Know How We Do It” (music by Ice Cube, QDIII; contains a sample from “The Show is Over,” as recorded by Evelyn Champagne King); “2 N the Morning” (music by Ice Cube, Laylaw, D. McDowell, G. Clinton Jr., G. Shider, D. Spradley; contains a sample from “Atomic Dog,” as recorded by George Clinton); “Check Yo Self ” (remix), (music by Ice Cube, E. Fletcher, M. Glover, S. Robinson; contains a sample from “The Message,” as recorded by Grandmaster Flash). War & Peace, Vol. 1 (The War Disc) (Priority Records, 1998; executive producer, Ice Cube). “Ask about Me” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by Mo’Suave); “Pushin’ Weight” (featuring Mr. Short Khop; lyrics by Ice Cube and Mr. Short Khop; music by J. Johnson); “Dr. Frankenstein” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by J. Johnson and J. Hearne); “Fuck Dying” (featuring Korn; lyrics by Ice Cube; music by Bud’da); “War & Peace” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by Bud’da; contains an interpolation of “Don’t Speak,” as recorded by Gwen Stefani); “Ghetto Vet” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by Bud’da); “Greed” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by Bud’da); “MP” (lyrics by Master P); “Cash over Ass” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by R. “Binky” Garner); “The Curse of Money” (featuring Mack 10; lyrics by Ice Cube and Mack 10; music by J. Johnson and J. Hearne); “The Peckin’ Order” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by T. Walker and M. Demby; contains an interpolation of “Theme from Mahogany”); “Limos, Demos & Bimbos” (featuring Mr. Short Khop; lyrics by Ice Cube and Mr. Short Khop; music by R. Cousins and A. Summers; contains a sample from “Behind My Camel,” as recorded by The Police); “Once Upon a Time in the Projects 2” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by QDIII and Rick Rock); “If I Was Fuckin’ You” (featuring Mr. Short Khop and K-Mac; lyrics by Ice Cube, K-Mac, and Mr. Short Khop; music by R. “Binky” Garner); “X-Bitches” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by J. Johnson and J. Hearne); “Extradition” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by Bud’da); “3 Strikes You In” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by J. Johnson and J. Hearne); “Penitentiary” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by S. “E-ASki” Adams). War & Peace, Vol. 2 (The Peace Disc) (Priority Records, 2000; executive producer, Ice Cube). “Hello” (featuring Dr. Dre and MC Ren; written by Ice Cube, A. Young, L. Patterson); “Pimp Homeo” (Insert); “You Ain’t Gotta Lie (Ta Kick It)” (featuring Chris Rock; written by Ice Cube, C. Thompson, R. Shelton, Loren Hill); “The Gutter Shit” (featuring Jayo Felony, Gangsta & Squeak Ru; written by Ice Cube, T. Gray, J. Savage, T. Anderson, M. Moore); “Supreme Hustle” (written by Ice Cube, C.Thompson, R. Shelton, L. Hill, W. Cunningham; contains a sample from “Kleer Sailin’,” as recorded by Kleer); “Mental Warfare” (Insert); “24 Mo’ Hours” (written by Ice Cube, K. Gilliam); “Until We Rich” (featuring Krayzie Bone; written by Ice Cube, C. Thompson, R. Shelton, L. Hill, A. Henderson, La Forrest Cope; contains a sample from “Show Me,” as recorded by Glenn Jones); “You Can Do It” (featuring Mack 10, Ms. Toi; written by Ice Cube, D. Rolison, D. Saunders, A. Baker, A. Bambaataa, J. Robrie, R. Allen, J. Miller, E. Williams; contains a sample from “Planet Rock,” as recorded by Afrika Bambaataa); “Mackin’ and Drivin’,” (Insert); “Gotta

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Be Insanity” (written by Ice Cube, S. Combs, L. Blackmon, A. Lockett; contains an interpolation of “Keep It Hot”); “Roll All Day” (written by Ice Cube, D. Saunders); “Can You Bounce?” (written by Ice Cube, R. Frierson); “Dinner with the CEO” (Insert); “Record Company Pimpin’ ” (written by Ice Cube, T. Grayl, K. Harrison, R. Neal, R. Parker, C. Satchell, R. Atkins, E. Sermon, P. Smith; contains an interpolations of “Riding High” and “Please Listen to My Demo”); “Waitin’ ta Hate” (written by Ice Cube, G. Clinton Jr., W. Morrison, W. Nichols, E. Sermon, G. Snider, P. Smith, A. Williams; contains samples from “If It Don’t Turn You On,” as recorded by BT Express and “So Whatcha Sayin’ ” as recorded by EPMD); “Nigga of the Century” (written by Ice Cube, C. Charles). Ice Cube’s Greatest Hits (Priority Records, 2001; executive producer, Ice Cube). “Pushin’ Weight” (from War & Peace, Vol. 1 ); “Check Yo Self ” (from Bootlegs & B-Sides); “We Be Clubbin’ ” (from the soundtrack The Players Club, 1988); “$400 Dollar Bill Ya’ll” (2001); “Once Upon a Time in the Projects” (from AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted); “Bow Down” (from Bow Down); “Hello” (from War & Peace, Vol. 2); “You Can Do It” (from War & Peace, Vol. 2); “You Know How We Do It” (from Lethal Injection); “It Was a Good Day” (from The Predator); “Bop Gun (One Nation)” (from Lethal Injection); “What Can I Do?” (from Bootlegs & B-Sides); “My Summer Vacation” (from Death Certificate); “Steady Mobbin’ ” (from Death Certificate); “Jackin’ for Beats” (from Kill at Will ); “The Nigga Ya Love to Hate” (from AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted); “In the Late Night Hour” (2001). Laugh Now, Cry Later (Lench Mob Records, 2006; executive producer, Ice Cube). “Definition of a West Coast G” (Sketch); “Why We Thugs” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by Scott Storch); “Smoke Some Weed” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by Budda); “Child Support” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by Teak & Dre); “2 Decades Ago” (Sketch); “Doin What It Pose 2 Do” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by Emile); “Laugh Now, Cry Later” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by Sean C and LV); “Stop Snitchin”(lyrics by Ice Cube; music by Swizz Beatz); “Go to Church” (featuring Snoop Dogg and Lil Jon; lyrics by Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg; music by Lil Jon); “The Nigga Trapp” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by DJ Green Lantern); “A History of Violence”; “Growin Up” (lyrics by Ice Cube; lyrics and music by Minnie Riperton, Richard Rudolph, Gene Dozier, Kenny St. Lewis); “Click, Clack—Get Back” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by Emile, Lane Tietgen); “The Game Lord” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by Teak & Dre); “Chrome & Paint” (featuring WC; lyrics by Ice Cube and WC; music by Budda, Jerry Reed, Donald Covay); “Steal the Show” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by Scott Storch); “You Gotta Lotta That” (featuring Snoop Dogg; lyrics by Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg; music by Lil Jon); “Spittin’ Pollaseeds” (featuring WC and Kokane; lyrics by Ice Cube, WC, and Kokane; music by Kipper Jones, Rahsaan Patterson, Keith Crouch); “Holla @ Cha Boy” (lyrics by Ice Cube; music by Lil Jon).

COLLABORATIONS NWA: Straight Outta Compton (Ruthless/Priority Records, 1988; executive producer, Eric [Eazy-E] Wright). “Straight Outta Compton” (written by MC Ren, Ice Cube, Eazy-E); “**** tha Police” (written by MC Ren, Ice Cube); “Gangsta

108

Discography

Gangsta” (written by Ice Cube, Eazy-E, MC Ren); “If It Ain’t Ruff ” (written by MC Ren); “Parental Discretion Iz Advised” (written by Eazy-E, MC Ren, Ice Cube); “8 Ball” (remix) (written by Ice Cube); “Something Like That” (written by MC Ren, Dr. Dre); “Express Yourself ” (written by Ice Cube); “Compton’s N the House” (remix) (written by MC Ren, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube); “I Ain’t tha I” (written by Ice Cube); “Dopeman” (remix) (written by Ice Cube); “Quiet on tha Set” (written by MC Ren); “Something 2 Dance 2” (written by Eazy-E, Dr. Dre). Eazy-E: Eazy-Duz-It (Ruthless/Priority Records, 1988; executive producer, Eric (Eazy-E) Wright). “Still Talkin’ ” (written by D.O.C., MC Ren, Ice Cube); “Nobody Move” (written by MC Ren); “Ruthless Villain” (written by MC Ren); “2 Hard Muthas” (written by MC Ren); Boyz-n-the-Hood” (remix) (written by Ice Cube, Eazy-E); “Eazy-Duz-It” (written by Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, MC Ren); “We Want Eazy” (lyrics by D.O.C.; music by W. Collins, G. Clinton, Parker, Jr.); “Eazy-er Said Than Dunn” (written by Dr. Dre); “Radio” (written by MC Ren); “No More?’s” (written by Ice Cube); “I’mma Break It Down” (written by MC Ren); “Eazy-Chapter 8 Verse 10” (written by B.U.L.L.S.H.I.T.). Da Lench Mob: Guerrillas in tha Mist (Eastwest Records, 1992; executive producer, Ice Cube) “Capital Punishment in America” (written by Ice Cube); “Buck tha Devil” (written by Ice Cube); “Lost in tha System” (written by J-Dee, Mr. Woody, G. Clinton Jr., W. Collins, B. Worrell, A. Green, H. Shocklee, E. Sadler, R. Walters); “You & Your Heroes” (written by Ice Cube); “All on My Nut Sac” (written by Ice Cube, J-Dee, Mr. Woody, T-Bone); “Guerrillas in tha Mist” (written by Ice Cube, W. Hutchison, G. Clinton Jr., W. Collins, B. Worrell, Mr. Woody); “Lenchmob Also in tha Group” (written by Ice Cube); “Ain’t Got No Class” (written by J-Dee, Rashad, Chilly Chill); “Freedom Got an A.K.” (written by Ice Cube, T-Bone, H. Casey); “Ankle Blues” (written by Shorty, Rashad); “Who Ya Gonna Shoot wit That?” (written by Ice Cube, J-Dee, Rashad); “Lord Have Mercy” (written by Ice Cube, K. Toney, T-Bone); “Inside tha Head of a Black Man” (written by Ice Cube). Westside Connection: Bow Down (Priority Records, 1996; executive producer, Ice Cube). “World Domination” (Intro) (written by Ice Cube, Mack 10, WC, Bud’da); “Bow Down” (written by Ice Cube, Mack 10, WC, Bud’da); “Gangstas Make the World Go ’Round” (written by Ice Cube, Mack 10, Cedric Samson; contains an interpolation of “People Make the World Go ’Round”); “All the Critics in New York” (written by Ice Cube, Mack 10, WC, Binky); “Do You Like Criminals?” (written by Ice Cube, Mack 10, WC, K-Dee, Bud’da); “Gangstas Don’t Dance” (insert); “The Gangsta, the Killa, and the Dope Dealer” (written by Ice Cube, Mack 10, WC, Bud’da; contains a sample from “Hurt,” as recorded by Nine Inch Nails); “Cross ’Em Out and Put A ‘K’ ” (written by Ice Cube, Mack 10, WC, Bud’da); “King of the Hill” (written by Ice Cube, Mack 10, QDIII); “3 Time Felons” (written by Ice Cube, Mack 10, WC, Bud’da); “Westward Ho” (written by Ice Cube, Mack 10, WC, QDIII); “The Pledge” (insert); “Hoo-Bangin’ (WSCG Style)” (written by Ice Cube, Mack 10, WC, K-Dee, the Comrades, All frum tha I). Featuring . . . Ice Cube (Priority Records, 1997; executive producer, Ice Cube). “Bend a Corner with Me” (featuring Khop; music by Ice Cube, T. Anderson; 1997); “Natural Born Killaz” (Dr. Dre and Ice Cube; music by A. Young, Ice

Discography

109

Cube; 1994); “Bow Down” (Westside Connection; music by Ice Cube, D. Rolison, W. Calhoun, S. Anderson; 1996); “Bop Gun (One Nation” (Ice Cube, featuring George Clinton; music by Ice Cube, QDIII, G. Clinton Jr., G. Shider, W. Morrison, W. Collins; 1993); “Check Yo Self ” (Ice Cube, featuring DAS EFX; music by Ice Cube, L. Muggerud, E. Fletcher, M. Glover, S. Robinson; 1993); “Endangered Species (Tales from the Darkside)” (Ice Cube, featuring Chuck D; music by E. Sadler, Ice Cube; 1990); “Trespass” (Ice T featuring Ice Cube; music by Ice Cube, T. Morrow; 1992); “It’s a Man’s World” (Ice Cube featuring Yo-Yo; music by Ice Cube, Y. Whitaker, A. Wheaton; 1990); “West Up!” (WC and the Maad Circle featuring Ice Cube; music by W. Calhoun, G. Duke, L. Calhoun, B. Miller, Ice Cube, N. Chandler, D. Rolison, C. Johnson); “Game Over” (Scarface, featuring Ice Cube and Dr. Dre; music by B. Jordan, A. Young, Ice Cube, R. Vick; 1997); “Wicked Wayz” (Mr. Mike, featuring Ice Cube; music by T. Jone, M. Walls, Ice Cube; 1996); “Two to the Head” (Kool G Rap & D.J. Polo, featuring Ice Cube; music by A. Wheaton, N. Wilson, Ice Cube, B. Jordan, R. Shaw, E. Hazel, G. Clinton, Jr.; 1992). Westside Connection: Terrorist Threats (Capitol Records, 2003; executive producers, Mack 10 and Ice Cube). “A Threat to the World” (Intro); “Call 9-1-1” (written by Ice Cube, D. Rolison, W. Calhoun, T. Green); “Potential Victims” (written by Ice Cube, D. Rolison, W. Calhoun, T. Green); “Gangsta Nation” (featuring Nate Dogg; written by Ice Cube, D. Rolison, W. Calhoun, F. Nassar, N. Hale); “Get Ignit” (written by Ice Cube, D. Rolison, W. Calhoun, R. Feemster; contains a sample from the video “Bum Fights”); “Pimp the System” (featuring Butch Cassidy; written by Ice Cube, D. Rolison, W. Calhoun, C. Robles, R. Coes, D. Means; contains a sample from the movie “American Pimp”); “Don’t Get Outta Pocket” (featuring K-Mac; written by Ice Cube, D. Rolison, W. Calhoun, K. Garmon, T. Green); “IZM” (written by Ice Cube, D. Rolison, W. Calhoun, W. Nugent, K. Risto; contains elements from the song “Gangster of Love,” performed by Talking Heads); “So Many Rappers in Love” (written by Ice Cube, D. Rolison, W. Calhoun, C. Robles, R. Coes); “Lights Out” (featuring Knoc ‘Turn’ Al; written by Ice Cube, D. Rolison, W. Calhoun, D. Young, H. Hersh, R. Habor); “Bangin’ at the Party” (featuring K-Mac, Skoop, and Young Soprano; written by Ice Cube, D. Rolison, J. Tucker, A. Price, A. Weaton, J. Hill); “You Gotta Have Heart” (written by Ice Cube, D. Rolison, W. Calhoun, W. Nugent, K. Risto); “Terrorist Threats” (written by Ice Cube, D. Rolison, W. Calhoun, D. Thornton); “Superstar” (Double Murder = Double Platinum) (written by Ice Cube, D. Rolison, W. Calhoun, D. Wesley).

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Selected Filmography (1991–2007) AS ACTOR 1991

Boyz N the Hood (Columbia)

1992

Trespass (Universal)

1994

The Glass Shield (Miramax)

1995

Higher Learning (Columbia) Friday (New Line Cinema)

1997

Dangerous Ground (New Line) Anaconda (Sony)

1998

The Players Club (New Line) I Got the Hook Up (Dimension Films)

1999

Three Kings (Warner Bros.) Thicker Than Water (Palm Pictures)

2000

Next Friday (New Line)

2001

Ghosts of Mars (Screen Gems)

2002

All about the Benjamins (New Line) Barbershop (MGM) Friday after Next (New Line)

2004

Barbershop 2: Back in Business (MGM) Torque (Warner Bros.)

112 2005

Selected Filmography (1991– 2007) Are We There Yet? (Columbia) xXx: State of the Union (Revolution Studios)

2007

Are We Done Yet? (Columbia)

AS DIRECTOR / PRODUCER / WRITER 1995

Friday (writer, executive producer)

1997

Dangerous Ground (executive producer)

1998

The Players Club (writer, director, executive producer)

2000

Next Friday (writer, producer)

2002

All about the Benjamins (writer, producer) Friday after Next (writer, producer)

2004

Barbershop 2: Back in Business (executive producer)

2005

Are We There Yet? (producer)

2007

Are We Done Yet? (producer)

Notes INTRODUCTION 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Frank Williams, “Hip-Hop Is . . . ”, The Source, January 1996, p. 15. Ibid. Ibid. Scoop Jackson, “Bow Down,” XXL, vol. 2, no. 2, 1998, p. 80. Ibid., p. 86. Ibid., p. 86. Cheo Hodari Coker, “Return of the Gangsta,” XXL, June 2008, p. 78. Ibid., p. 82.

CHAPTER 1 1. See Jeff Chang, “Ladies and Gentlemen, [Is This] the Next President of the United States [?],” Vibe, September 2007, p. 176. 2. Rap, Race, and Equality, produced by Stephen and Grant Elliott. Filmakers Library, 1994. 3. See Angela Bouwsma, “Jerking Off vs. Doing It,” The Source, March 1996, p. 12. 4. Quoted in John Leland, “Rap and Race,” Newsweek, June 29, 1992, p. 48. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. Bakari Kitwana and Selwyn Seyfu Hinds, “Rap Wars Roundtable: Critical Culture,” The Source, January 1996, p. 84. 9. Leland, “Rap and Race,” p. 48.

114

Notes

10. Ibid. 11. Ibid., p. 49. 12. Ibid., p. 52. 13. Ibid. 14. Kitwana and Hinds, “Rap Wars Roundtable,” pp. 83–84. 15. Lorraine Ali, “Same Old Song,” Newsweek, October 9, 2000, p. 70. 16. Christopher John Farley, “Hip-Hop Nation,” Time, February 8, 1999, p. 57. 17. Murray Forman, The ’Hood Comes First: Race, Space, and Place in Rap and Hip-Hop (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2002), p. 191. 18. John Leland, “Criminal Records: Gangsta Rap and the Culture of Violence,” Newsweek, November 29, 1993, p. 63. 19. Figures taken from the Bureau of Statistics, National Center for Health Statistics, reported in Newsweek, November 29, 1993, p. 66. 20. Tom Morgenthau, “The New Frontier for Civil Rights,” Newsweek, November 29, 1993, p. 65. 21. Quoted in ibid., p. 65. 22. Quoted in Denene Millner, “Pistol Whipped,” Vibe, April 1999, p. 122. 23. Sia Michel, “Bangin’: For Life, Love & a Future,” The Source, April 1996, p. 72. 24. Ibid. 25. Allen S. Gordon, “Resurrection of Principles,” The Source, April 1996, p. 61. 26. See Jonathan Alter, “Let’s Stop Crying Wolf on Censorship,” Newsweek, November 29, 1993, p. 67. 27. Kitwana and Hinds, “Rap Wars Roundtable,” p. 82. 28. Cited in Gail Hilson Woldu, “Teaching Rap: Musings at Semester’s End,” College Music Symposium, vol. 37 (1997), p. 68. 29. Ibid. 30. Kitwana and Hinds, “Rap Wars Roundtable,” p. 82. 31. Marjorie Heins, Sex, Sin, and Blasphemy: A Guide to America’s Censorship Wars (New York: New Press, 1998), p. 75. 32. See Adam Sexton, ed., Rap on Rap: Straight-Up Talk on Hip-Hop Culture (New York: Delta Books, 1995), p. 139. 33. Transcript of “Crossfire,” moderated by Pat Buchanan and Michael Kinsley, in Sexton, Rap on Rap, p. 149. 34. Bakari Kitwana, “Mixed Messages,” The Source, November 1995, p. 12. 35. Luther Campbell, “Today They’re Trying to Censor Rap, Tomorrow . . . ” in Sexton, Rap on Rap, pp. 171–172. 36. Ice Cube, “Black Culture Still Getting a Bum Rap,” in Sexton, Rap on Rap, p. 160. 37. Michael Leonard, “Efil4Zaggin,” Rhythm, June 1991, p. 69. 38. Richard Slater, “Rappers Will Laugh All the Way to the Bank,” Lancashire Telegraph, June 8, 1991. 39. Blues & Soul magazine, June 11, 1991. 40. dream hampton, “Niggaz, Pleaze,” The Village Voice, July 23, 1991, p. 69. 41. Ice-T, “The Controversy,” in Sexton, p. 178. 42. Ibid. 43. Ice-T, “The Controversy,” in Sexton, p. 179. 44. See Sexton, Rap on Rap, p. 178.

Notes

115

45. Ibid. 46. Alter, “Let’s Stop Crying Wolf on Censorship,” p. 67. 47. Adario Strange, “Rap Wars Roundtable: The Art Form,” The Source, January 1996, p. 77.

CHAPTER 2 1. S. H. Fernando, Jr., The New Beats: Exploring the Music, Culture, and Attitudes of Hip Hop (Edinburgh: Payback Press, 1995), p. 96. 2. Carter Harris, “Eternal Gangsta,” Vibe, October 1999, p. 120. 3. Eithne Quinn, Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang: The Culture and Commerce of Gangsta Rap (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), p. 70. 4. Frank Williams, “Eazy-E: The Life, the Legacy,” The Source, June 1995, pp. 55–61. 5. Harry Allen, “Eazy-E: Eternal E,” Vibe, March 1996, pp. 119–120. 6. See Williams, “Eazy-E: The Life, the Legacy,” p. 52; Harris, “Eternal Gangsta,” p. 119; and Jerry Heller, quoted in Williams, “Eazy-E: The Life, the Legacy,” p. 56. 7. Quoted in Terry McDermott, “NWA: Straight Outta Compton,” Los Angeles Times, April 14, 2002. 8. Jeff Chang, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005), pp. 318–319. 9. Quoted in McDermott, “NWA: Straight Outta Compton.” 10. See the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, April 9, 1989. 11. Quoted in Chang, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, p. 318. 12. Quoted in Brian Cross, It’s Not about a Salary . . . Rap, Race, and Resistance in Los Angeles (London: Verso, 1993), pp. 200–201. 13. Murray Forman, The ’Hood Comes First: Race, Space, and Place in Rap and Hip-Hop (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2002), p. 190. 14. Quoted in the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, April 9, 1989. 15. Jonathan Gold, “NWA: Hard Rap and Hype from the Streets of Compton,” LA Weekly, May 5–11, 1989, p. 18. 16. Chang, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, p. 328. 17. Quinn, Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang, p. 83. 18. Chang, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, p. 320. 19. Quoted in Ibid., p. 320. 20. Quoted in Gold, “NWA,” p. 22. 21. Quoted in Cross, It’s Not about a Salary, p. 201. 22. See Quinn, Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang, p. 80. 23. See Chang, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, p. 325. 24. Interestingly—and surprisingly—California Congressman Don Edwards, himself a former member of the FBI, did not support the FBI’s condemnation of NWA. He objected to the Bureau’s letter on the grounds that its censorship violated the group’s freedom of expression. See Cheryl Keyes, Rap Music and Street Consciousness (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004), p. 94. 25. Gold, “NWA,” p. 20. 26. Forman, The ’Hood Comes First, p. 189.

116

Notes

27. Forman, cited in Quinn, Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang, p. 72. 28. Forman, The ’Hood Comes First, p. 191. 29. See Quinn, Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang, p. 65. 30. McDermott, “NWA: Straight Outta Compton,” p. 18. 31. Forman, The ’Hood Comes First, p. 195. 32. Dave Marsh and Phyllis Pollack, “Wanted for Attitude,” Village Voice, October 10, 1989, p. 33. Cited in Chang, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, p. 325. 33. Quoted in Fernando, The New Beats, p. 96.

CHAPTER 3 1. Heidi Siegmund Cuda, “Who Stole the Soul?,” Vibe, April 2002, p. 146. 2. Frank Owen, “Hanging Tough,” Spin, April 1990, p. 33. 3. Ibid., p. 34. 4. Cuda, “Who Stole the Soul?,” p. 146. 5. Ibid. 6. A detailed analysis of this piece is found in Adam Krims, Rap Music and the Poetics of Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), chapter 3. 7. Joan Morgan, “The Nigga Ya Hate to Love,” in Adam Sexton, Rap on Rap: Straight-Up Talk on Hip-Hop Culture (New York: Delta Books, 1995), p. 120. 8. Ice Cube, “Black Culture Still Getting A Bum Rap,” in Sexton, Rap on Rap, pp. 158–160. 9. Michael Eric Dyson, Between God and Gangsta Rap: Bearing Witness to Black Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 174. 10. John Leland, “Cube on Thin Ice,” Newsweek, December 2, 1991, p. 69. 11. Brian Cross, It’s Not about a Salary . . . Rap, Race and Resistance in Los Angeles (London: Verso, 1993), pp. 214 and 216. 12. See S. H. Fernando, Jr., The New Beats: Exploring the Music Culture and Attitudes of Hip Hop (Edinburgh: Payback Press, 1995), p. 127. 13. Cited in ibid., p. 127. 14. Quoted in Leland, “Cube on Thin Ice,” p. 69. 15. Anthony Choe, “Ice Cube’s ‘Black Korea’: Racially-Charged Rap,” in Yisei, Spring 1992. 16. Ibid. 17. Quoted in Joel McIver, Ice Cube: Attitude (London: Sanctuary, 2002), p. 347. 18. Choe, “Ice Cube’s ‘Black Korea,’ ” 1992. 19. Eithne Quinn, Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang: The Culture and Commerce of Gangsta Rap (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), p. 79. 20. Cited in Jeff Chang, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005), pp. 351–352. 21. In Chang, p. 99. 22. Chang, Can’t Stop, p. 344. 23. Juan M. Floyd-Thomas, “A Jihad of Words: The Evolution of African American Islam and Contemporary Hip-Hop,” in Noise and Spirit: The Religious and Spiritual Sensibilities of Rap Music, ed. Anthony B. Pinn (New York: New York University Press, 2003), pp. 49–71. 24. Ibid., p. 52.

Notes

117

25. Ibid., pp. 52–53. 26. Quoted in McIver, Ice Cube, p. 85. 27. Quoted in Margena A. Christian, “Ice Cube,” Jet, June 12, 2006, p. 58. 28. Ibid., p. 58. 29. Quoted in ibid., p. 59. 30. See McIver, Ice Cube, p. 86. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid., p. 115. 33. Christopher John Farley, “The Predator,” Time, December 28, 1992, p. 68. 34. McIver, Ice Cube, p. 115. 35. Quoted in Cross, It ’s Not about a Salary, p. 215. 36. Danyel Smith, “Ice Cube’s Meltdown,” Rolling Stone, January 7, 1993, p. 46. 37. Ibid. 38. McIver, Ice Cube, p. 118. 39. Touré, “Recordings: Snoop and Cube,” Rolling Stone, January 27, 1994, p. 51. 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid. 42. Farley, “The Predator,” Time, December 28, 1992, p. 68. 43. The text that follows is found in Chang, Can’t Stop, pp. 335–337. The original transcript, called “A Conversation with Angela Davis and Ice Cube,” is from the archives of Bill Adler. See Chang, p. 516. 44. Quoted in Chang, Can’t Stop, p. 335. 45. Ibid. 46. Contained in ibid., pp. 335–336. 47. Ibid., pp. 336–337.

CHAPTER 4 1. “An Introduction from Ice Cube,” Friday, New Line Home Entertainment, 1995. 2. Quoted in Joel McIver, Ice Cube: Attitude (London: Sanctuary, 2002), p. 156. 3. See Eric Berman, “Westside Connection: Bow Down,” Vibe, December 1996/ January 1997, p. 186. 4. Quoted in Blair Fischer, “Ice Cube Battles through ‘War’ and ‘Peace,’ ” Rolling Stone, October 16, 1998. 5. Cheo Hodari Coker, “Ice Cube: War and Peace, Vol. I (The War Disc),” Vibe, December 1998/January 1999, p. 182. 6. Ibid., pp. 181–182. 7. Sheila Rule, “Generation Rap,” New York Times Magazine, April 3, 1994, p. 43. 8. Ibid., p. 44. 9. Ibid., p. 45. 10. Selwyn Seyfu Hinds, “Don of the Westside,” The Source, May 1996, p. 50. 11. Ibid., p. 52. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid., pp. 54–55.

118 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

Notes Ibid., pp. 55–56. Ibid., p. 58. Scoop Jackson, “Bow Down,” XXL, vol. 2, no. 2, 1998, p. 84. Ibid., pp. 86–88. Ibid., pp. 84–86. Ibid., p. 84. Ibid.

CHAPTER 5 1. Heidi Siegmund Cuda, “Who Stole the Soul?” Vibe, April 2002, p. 145. 2. Blake French, “All about Cube: A Conversation with Ice Cube and Mike Epps,” filmcritic.com/2002 (accessed November 2007). 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid. 5. Three Kings, Warner Bros. Home Video, 2000. 6. See Craig Rosen, “Ice Cube Explains NWA ‘Chin Check’ Reunion,” Yahoo!Music, March 13, 2000, music.yahoo.com/read/news/12025259 (accessed November 2007). 7. David Thigpen, “Ice Cube: War & Peace, Vol. 2 (The Peace Disc),” Vibe, May 2000, p. 173, 8. Ice Cube was also the director of The Players Club. 9. Quoted in Richard Deitsch, “Q & A, Ice Cube,” Sports Illustrated, January 24, 2005, p. 24. 10. Margena A. Christian, “Ice Cube,” Jet, June 12, 2006, p. 55. 11. Allison Samuels, “No More Mr. Ice Guy,” Newsweek, June 19, 2006, p. 58. 12. Christian, “Ice Cube,” p. 55. 13. Hillary Crosley, “Ice Cube: The Indie Kid?” Billboard, June 17, 2006, p. 57. 14. Samuels, “No More Mr. Ice Guy,” p. 58. 15. Christian, “Ice Cube,” p. 56.

Annotated Bibliography Ali, Lorraine. “Same Old Song.” Newsweek, October 9, 2000, pp. 68–70. Looks at controversies in a variety of popular music, from Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and the Sex Pistols to NWA and Public Enemy. Allen, Harry. “Eazy-E: Eternal E.” Vibe, March 1996, pp. 119–120. Account of the life of Eazy-E. Alter, Jonathan. “Let’s Stop Crying Wolf on Censorship.” Newsweek, November 29, 1993, p. 67. Argues that record company executives who “market death” should shoulder the responsibility for the consequences of their product. Atkins, Sherryll. “Sweet Honey in the Rock.” The Source, November 1996, pp. 89–90. Overview of the rapper Yo Yo, who collaborated with Ice Cube, her mentor, on “It’s a Man’s World.” Berman, Eric. “Westside Connection: Bow Down.” Vibe, December 1996/ January 1997, p. 186. Review of Bow Down that says the album “provokes no debate” and “raises no controversy.” Bing, Léon. Do Or Die. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. An account of teenage gangs in and around Los Angeles, focused in particular on the Crips and the Bloods. Bisbort, Alan. “R.I.P. Rap.” Hartford Advocate, November 30, 2000, p. 19. Contends that rap music is stupid, misogynistic, and hateful. Bouwsma, Angela. “Jerking Off Vs. Doing It.” The Source, March 1996, p. 12. Excellent editorial that discusses rap’s “keeping it real” mantra. Bratton, William J. “The Legacy of Detective Sipowicz.” Time, March 6, 2000, p. 34. Article on aggressive policing and race. Browne, David. “ . . . Lust and Hate.” New York Times, June 23, 1991. Unfavorable review of NWA’s second album, “Niggaz4Life.”

120

Annotated Bibliography

Brundage, James. “Friday after Next,” available at filmcritic.com/2002 (accessed November 2007). Unfavorable review that concludes: “Friday after Next is the coal in your stocking for the holiday season.” Cardwell, Annette. “Barbershop,” filmcritic.com/2002 (accessed November 2007). Favorable review that claims this to be Ice Cube’s “best role since Three Kings.” Cary, Lorene. “As Plain as Black and White.” Newsweek, June 29, 1992, p. 53. Uses rap to discuss black and white Americans’ divergent views on race—and Americans’ difficulty in discussing race. Advocates finding a “common language” in order to better understand different points of view. Cepeda, Raquel, ed. And It Don’t Stop: The Best American Hip-Hop Journalism of the Last 25 Years. New York: Faber and Faber, 2004. A collection of 30 essays about hip-hop that appeared in various magazines from the early 1980s and early 2000s. Featured writers include Touré, Joan Morgan, Harry Allen, Greg Tate, and Danyel Smith. Chang, Jeff. Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005. A comprehensive, meticulously documented study of hip-hop. Winner of the American Book Award in 2005 and the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award in 2006. Chang, Jeff, ed. Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop. New York: BasicCivitas, 2006. A collection of 35 essays that examine a variety of issues in hip-hop, including global hip-hop, gender relations in hip-hop, and hip-hop literature. Essayists include Greg Tate, Mark Anthony Neal, Bill Adler, and Joan Morgan. Chang, Jeff. “Ladies and Gentlemen, (Is This) the Next President of the United States (?).” Vibe, September, 2007, pp. 172–181. The demographics of youth and race in the presidential election of 2008. Quotes Obama on rap and the young vote as factors in the race. Choe, Anthony. “Ice Cube’s ‘Black Korea’: Racially Charged Rap.” Yisei, Spring 1992. Article on Ice Cube’s controversial piece, written by a member of Harvard University’s Korean Student Organization. Christian, Margena A. “Ice Cube.” Jet, June 12, 2006, pp. 54–60. A look at the many sides of Ice Cube. Chua-Eoan, Howard. “Black and Blue.” Time, March 6, 2000, pp. 24–28. Looks at race and the murder of Amadou Diallo by members of the New York Police Department. Chuck D. “The Sound of Our Young World.” Time, February 8, 1999, p. 66. Chuck D., the spokesperson for Public Enemy, discusses the early days of rap and predicts the future of hip-hop. Cohen, Adam. “Gangsta Cops.” Time, March 6, 2000, pp. 30–34. A look at the Los Angeles Police Department. Coker, Cheo Hodari. “Ice Cube: War and Peace, Vol. I (The War Disc).” Vibe, December 1998/ January 1999, pp. 181–182. Unfavorable review. The journalist asks, “Remember Ice Cube? I Miss Ice Cube.” Coker, Cheo Hodari. “Return of the Gangsta.” XXL, June 2008, pp. 76–82. Explores the many sides of Ice Cube: as gangsta rapper, actor, producer. Copeland, Lee. “Close to the Edge.” The Source, March 1996, pp. 82–83. Gun suicide and black youth.

Annotated Bibliography

121

Cose, Ellis. “Rage of the Privileged.” Newsweek, November 15, 1993, pp. 56–63. Successful black Americans discuss racial profiling and racial stereotypes. Crosley, Hillary. “Ice Cube: The Indie Kid?” Billboard, June 17, 2006, p. 57. Review of Laugh Now, Cry Later. Cross, Brian. It’s Not about a Salary . . . Rap, Race and Resistance in Los Angeles. London: Verso, 1993. Studies rap in Los Angeles through interviews with a variety of musicians, including Ice Cube and Eazy-E. Cuda, Heidi Siegmund. “Who Stole the Soul?” Vibe, April 2002, pp. 142–146. Explores Ice Cube’s dual commitments to film and music. Dyson, Michael Eric. Between God and Gangsta Rap: Bearing Witness to Black Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Contains an essay on Ice Cube entitled “Ice Cube: Gangsta Rap’s Visionary.” Everett, Todd. “Talk Is Cheap but Profitable.” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, February 12, 1989. A conversation with record label executives on the marketing of rap. Everett, Victor. “Black with Attitude.” The Source, May 1996, pp. 40– 42. An interview with MC Ren of NWA on his past and future roles in the music business. Farley, Christopher John. “Hip-Hop Nation.” Time, February 8, 1999, pp. 54–64. Explores how hip-hop has transformed American culture. Traces roots of hiphop from 1979 to 1999. Farley, Christopher John. “The Predator,” Time, December 28, 1992, p. 68. Review of The Predator. Fernando, S. H., Jr. The New Beats: Exploring the Music Culture and Attitudes of Hip Hop. Edinburgh: Payback Press, 1995. An important early study of hip-hop. Excellent photographs. Fischer, Blair. “Ice Cube Battles through ‘War’ and ‘Peace.’ ” Rolling Stone, October 16, 1998. Mixed review. Floyd-Thomas, Juan M. “A Jihad of Words: The Evolution of African American Islam and Contemporary Hip-Hop.” In Noise and Spirit: The Religious and Spiritual Sensibilities of Rap Music, ed. Anthony M. Pinn. New York: New York University Press, 2003, pp. 49–71. Forman, Murray. The ’Hood Comes First: Race, Space, and Place in Rap and Hip-Hop. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2002. A complex exploration of the spatial component of rap music and hip-hop culture. Forman, Murray, and Mark Anthony Neal, eds. That’s the Joint! The Hip-Hop Studies Reader. New York: Routledge, 2004. A collection of essays on rap and hip-hop that spans 25 years of scholarship. Contributors include Michael Eric Dyson, David Samuels, Tricia Rose, Nelson George, Kyra Gaunt, and Juan Flores. French, Blake. “All about Cube: A Conversation with Ice Cube and Mike Epps,” filmcritic.com/2002. Ice Cube explains his affinity for film production. French, Blake. “All about the Benjamins,” filmcritic.com/2002. Unfavorable review. Gaither, Larvester. “Big Brother Is Watching You. The Source, April 1996, p. 62. Article on gang profiling and constitutional rights. Gaither, Larvester. “Caught in the Crossfire.” The Source, March 1996, pp. 81–83. A discussion with emergency room surgeons on inner-city victims of gun violence.

122

Annotated Bibliography

George, Nelson. Hip Hop America. New York: Viking, 1998. A personal look at hiphop from one of hip-hop’s foremost historians. A classic. Gilmore, Mikal. “Easy Target: Why Tupac Should Be Heard before He’s Buried.” Rolling Stone, October 31, 1996, pp. 49–51 and 81. A critical, quasi-eulogistic analysis of the many sides of Tupac Shakur. Gold, Jonathan. “NWA: Hard Rap and Hype from the Streets of Compton.” LA Weekly, May 5–11, 1989, pp. 16–22. In-depth look at NWA as emerging artists. Conversations with Ice Cube and his manager, Jerry Heller. An important early piece. Goldberg, Jeffrey. “The Color of Suspicion.” New York Times Magazine, June 20, 1999, pp. 50–57 and 64, 85–87. Article on race, racial profiling, and law enforcement. Gordon, Allen S. “From Mogul to Martyr.” The Source, January 1996, p. 30. A retrospective on the life of Eazy-E. Gordon, Allen S. “Resurrection of Principles.” The Source, April 1996, pp. 60–62. An article about the Crips and the Bloods. Harris, Carter. “Eternal Gangsta.” Vibe, October 1999, pp. 119–120. A retrospective look at the life of Eazy-E. Hastings, Deborah. “Interpreting the Message.” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, February 12, 1989. Early conversations about gangsta rap that include an interview with Ice Cube. Heins, Marjorie. Sex, Sin, and Blasphemy: A Guide to America’s Censorship Wars. New York: New Press, 1998. Discussion of censorship and the First Amendment. Interesting discussion of the debate over 2 Live Crew’s Nasty as They Wanna Be. Hinds, Selwyn Seyfu. “Don of the Westside.” The Source, May 1996, pp. 50–58. An interview with Ice Cube on the East Coast/West Coast conflicts. Howell, Ricardo. “Lasting Poets.” The Source, July 1995, pp. 50–51 and 76. Overview of rap pioneers the Last Poets. Jackson, Scoop. “Bow Down.” XXL, vol. 2, no. 2, 1998, pp. 80–88. Asks if Ice Cube “still matters” in hip-hop. Keyes, Cheryl. Rap Music and Street Consciousness. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004. A detailed, carefully documented history of rap that blends popular culture with folklore, musicology, and ethnomusicology. Kitwana, Bakari. “Are You Ready to Die?” The Source, August 1995, pp. 56–57. Looks at gun violence and the hip-hop generation. Filled with statistics. Kitwana, Bakari. “Armed to the Teeth.” The Source, August 1995, p. 58. Examines weapons and white supremacist groups. Kitwana, Bakari. “Mixed Messages.” The Source, September 1995, p. 16. Editorial that discusses the themes of gangsta rap and their effect on listeners. Kitwana, Bakari. “Strange Fruit.” The Source, November 1995, p. 12. An editorial about the relationship between the late civil rights activist C. Delores Tucker and conservative Republicans William Bennett and Robert Dole in their antirap campaigns. Kitwana, Bakari. Why White Kids Love Hip Hop. New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2005. Explores how hip-hop and the hip-hop generation have transformed the politics of race in the United States. Kitwana, Bakari, ed. “Where Do We Draw the Line? Gun Violence and the HipHop Generation: Part Two.” The Source, March 1996, pp. 79–83. Articles that explore the ways in which gun violence affects the hip-hop community.

Annotated Bibliography

123

Kitwana, Bakari, and Marc Landas. “An Overview of Censorship in the Rap Community.” The Source, January 1996, p. 85. A timeline (1990–1995) of red-letter days in the censoring of rap. Kitwana, Bakari, and Selwyn Seyfu Hinds. “Nothing against Rap.” The Source, January 1996, p. 85. Interview with the antirap advocate the Reverend Calvin Butts. Kitwana, Bakari, and Selwyn Seyfu Hinds. “Rap Wars Roundtable: Critical Culture.” The Source, January 1996, pp. 82–88 and 106. Roundtable discussion on rap and censorship with the feminist author bell hooks, the hip-hop scholar Michael Eric Dyson, and the cultural critic Haki Madhubuti. Krims, Adam. Rap Music and the Poetics of Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Detailed discussion of how rap is put together musically. Entire chapter devoted to Ice Cube’s “The Nigga Ya Love to Hate.” Landas, Marc. “Guns, the Law, and You.” The Source, August 1995, p. 59. Overview of gun laws in the United States. Leland, John. “Criminal Records: Gangsta Rap and the Culture of Violence.” Newsweek, November 29, 1993, pp. 60–64. A look at the violent messages in gangsta rap and their correlation to violence in inner-city neighborhoods. Leland, John. “Cube on Thin Ice.” Newsweek, December 2, 1991, p. 69. Critique of Death Certificate. Condemns Ice Cube’s attacks on Jews and Koreans and calls him a “racist demagogue.” Leland, John. Hip: The History. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. Traces the evolution of “hip” from slave music through gangsta rap. Leland, John. “Rap and Race.” Newsweek, June 29, 1992, pp. 46–52. Excellent discussion of hip-hop culture, race, and racial politics. Leonard, Michael. “Efil4Zaggin.” Rhythm, June 1991. Review. Malone, Bonz. “Young, Rich, and Deadly.” The Source, July 1995, pp. 54–58. An interview that chronicles a day in the life of the late Notorious B.I.G. McDermott, Terry. “NWA: Straight Outta Compton.” Los Angeles Times, April 14, 2002. Comprehensive look at NWA, from the group’s beginnings to its most important recordings. McIver, Joel. Ice Cube: Attitude. London: Sanctuary, 2002. An engagingly written biography of Ice Cube. Michel, Sia. “Bangin’: For Life, Love & a Future.” The Source, April 1996, pp. 70–74. Ice-T discusses his days as a member of the Crips. Michelob. “ ‘G’ foe Life: Mack 10.” The Source, August 1995, p. 43. Interview with Mack 10 in which he discusses his relationship with Ice Cube. Millner, Denene. “Pistol Whipped.” Vibe, April 1999, pp. 121–124. Article on rappers busted on weapons charges. Morgenthau, Tom. “The New Frontier for Civil Rights.” Newsweek, November 29, 1993, pp. 65–66. Looks at the crisis of black-on-black crime and rap’s response. Ice Cube is quoted: “It’s a great day for genocide. What’s that? That’s the day when all the niggaz die.” Neal, Mark Anthony. What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture. New York: Routledge, 1999. Analyses of black popular music from be-bop to hip-hop. NWA and Ice Cube are discussed in the chapter on postindustrial soul. Ogg, Alex, and David Upshal. The Hip Hop Years: A History of Rap. New York: Fromm International, 2001. Interviews with key figures in early hip-hop, including Ice Cube.

124

Annotated Bibliography

Owen, Frank. “Hanging Tough.” Spin, April 1990, pp. 33–34. An interview with Ice Cube focused on his departure from NWA. Pattillo, Mary. “Transnational Hip-Hop Nation.” The Source, October 1995, p. 23. Discussion of global and multicultural hip-hop. Perkins, William, ed. Droppin’ Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music and Hip-Hop Culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996. A historical guide to rap and hip-hop from their beginnings. Essays devoted to white crossover, women in rap, gangsta rap, message rap, Latino rap, and black nationalism. Perry, Imani. Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004. A discussion of the art, politics, and culture of hip-hop. Contains detailed analyses of the lyrics of hip-hop artists, including Ice Cube. Pinn, Anthony B., ed. Noise and Spirit: The Religious and Spiritual Sensibilities of Rap Music. New York: New York University Press, 2003. Nine essays that explore the connections between religious concerns and rap music. Potter, Russell. Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip-Hop and the Politics of Postmodernism. New York: State University of New York Press, 1997. A complex examination of hip-hop’s cultural rebellion in historical contexts. Pough, Gwendolyn. Check It While I Wreck It. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004. A close exploration of gender politics in hip-hop. Powell, Kevin. “My Culture at the Crossroads.” Newsweek, October 9, 2000, p. 66. Provocative essay that bemoans the co-opting of rap by corporate interests and the apolitical direction of rap. Author longs for the golden era of hip-hop and the message-centered music of groups like Public Enemy. Powell, Kevin. “The Short Life and Violent Death of Tupac Shakur: Bury Me Like a G.” Rolling Stone, October 31, 1996, pp. 38–46 and 80. Article focused on Tupac’s murder and the violence in his life. Quinn, Eithne. Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang: The Culture and Commerce of Gangsta Rap. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. A detailed look at gangsta rap and its roots in black working-class expression. Ice Cube figures prominently in three of the book’s eight chapters. Rose, Tricia. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1994. The most important of the early studies of rap and hip-hop culture. Extraordinary bibliography. A classic. Rule, Sheila. “Generation Rap.” New York Times Magazine, April 3, 1994, pp. 40– 45. An interview with Abiodun Oyewole of the Last Poets and a very young (24 years old) Ice Cube. Excellent look at Ice Cube’s early thinking on race and rap. Samuels, Allison. “Battle for the Soul of Hip-Hop.” Newsweek, October 9, 2000, pp. 58–65. Discussions and interviews with a variety of hip-hop’s biggest names, among them Chuck D and Ice-T, on hip-hop’s future. Samuels, Allison. “No More Mr. Ice Guy.” Newsweek, June 19, 2006, pp. 58–59. Review of Laugh Now, Cry Later. Samuels, David. “The Rap on Rap: The ‘Black Music’ That Isn’t Either.” New Republic, November 11, 1991, 24–29. Provocative essay that alleges that rap is neither black nor music. Sandow, Gregory. “From Street to Big Business.” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, February 12, 1989. An article about rap in its early stages. Includes definitions of rap and its emergent subspecies, gangsta rap.

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125

Sanneh, Kelefa. “Cracking the Code in Hip-Hop.” New York Times, October 13, 2005. Doublespeak in rap and rap’s marketing to a cultural mainstream. Sexton, Adam, ed. Rap on Rap: Straight-Up Talk on Hip-Hop Culture. New York: Delta Books, 1995. An anthology of articles, essays, and interviews on hip-hop. Includes Ice Cube’s “Black Culture Still Getting a Bum Rap.” Shakur, Sanyika. Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1993. A first-hand account of life inside the Crips. Shakur, Sanyika “Monster Kody Scott.” “Do You See What I See? The Source, April 1996, p. 8. A “where do we go from here?” editorial, written by a former member of the Crips, on the state of gang warfare in Los Angeles. Shecter, Jon. “Real Niggaz Don’t Die.” The Source, September 1991, p. 24. Review of NWA’s Niggaz 4 Life and discussion of the group’s impact on popular music. Smith, Danyel. “Ice Cube’s Meltdown.” Rolling Stone, January 7, 1993, p. 46. Unfavorable review of The Predator. Snyder, Marlynn. “New Life at Death Row.” The Source, May 1996, p. 23. The controversies over rap lyrics and the record labels Interscope Records, MCA Music Entertainment Group, Atlantic Group/ Time Warner, and Suge Knight’s Death Row Records. Strange, Adario. “Death Wish.” The Source, March 1996, pp. 84–89 and 111, An important interview with Tupac Shakur. Topics include Tupac’s relationship with Biggie Smalls, Suge Knight, and the East Coast/West Coast feud. Strange, Adario. “Eazy E and Our Future.” The Source, June 1995, p. 10. Editorial on the inconsistencies in Eazy E’s life and the impact of his death from AIDS on the hip-hop community. Strange, Adario. “One in a Million.” The Source, January 1996, pp. 62–66 and 95. First-hand account of the Million Man March of October 1995. Strange, Adario. “Rap Wars Roundtable: The Art Form.” The Source, January 1996, pp. 70–74, 96–98. Discussion of censorship and rap with Chuck D, Bushwick Bill, and Harry Allen, moderated by Adario Strange. Strange, Adario. “Rap Wars Roundtable: The Executive Factor.” The Source, January 1996, pp. 76–80 and 100–102. Rap industry executives Luther Campbell, Bryan Turner, Bill Stephney, Barry Weiss, and Bill Adler discuss the state of free speech and rap. Strange, Adario. “Ya Money or Ya Life.” The Source, December 1995, p. 18. Editorial that examines the direction and future of rap. Thigpen, David. “Ice Cube: War & Peace, Vol. 2 (The Peace Disc).” Vibe, May 2000, p. 173. Tepid review. Touré. “Recordings: Snoop and Cube,” Rolling Stone, January 27, 1994, pp. 51–52. Unfavorable review of Lethal Injection. Watkins, S. Craig. Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement. Boston: Beacon Press, 2005. A detailed look at the hip-hop industry. West, Cornell. Race Matters. New York: Vintage Books, 1994. Brilliant essays that consider a variety of topics including nihilism in black America, black sexuality, and black-Jewish relations. Whitaker, Mark. “White and Black Lies.” Newsweek, November 15, 1993, pp. 52–54. The racial divide in the United States: how blacks and whites view situations from different perspectives.

126

Annotated Bibliography

Williams, Frank. “Eazy-E: Str8 of tha Streetz of Muthaphu**in Compton.” The Source, February 1996, p. 87. Review. Williams, Frank. “Eazy E: The Life, the Legacy.” The Source, June 1995, pp. 52–57 and 60–62. Retrospective on Eazy E’s life, written shortly after his death. Williams, Todd. “Crooklyn Dodger.” The Source, October 1995, pp. 68–70. The controversies surrounding the influential film director Spike Lee. Woldu, Gail Hilson. “Contextualizing Rap.” In American Popular Music: New Approaches to the Twentieth Century, ed. Rachel Rubin and Jeffrey Melnick. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001, pp. 173–191. Looks at the historical precedents for hip-hop culture. Woldu, Gail Hilson. “Teaching Rap: Musings at Semester’s End.” College Music Symposium, vol. 37, 1997, pp. 65–71. Looks at rap in an academic setting. Xtra P. “The Politics of Hip-Hop Culture.” The Source, August 1995, p. 10. Provocative editorial that looks at the politics and the business of hip-hop.

Index Acting: first moves into, 44; process behind, 71–72, 80; rapping and, 67 Adler, Bill, 3 Ahlerich, Milt, 23 All about the Benjamins (Ice Cube), 84 – 85 “All the Critics in New York” (Ice Cube), 60 Alter, Jonathan, 13 AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted (Ice Cube), 27–33, 35, 99 Anaconda, 57, 61 Anderson, Anthony, 85 Anderson, Elijah, 6 –7 Antisemitism, 41– 42, 47 Are We Done Yet? (Ice Cube), 98, 100 Are We There Yet? (Ice Cube), 91, 100 As Nasty As They Wanna Be (2 Live Crew), 9 –10 Barbershop, 77, 85– 87, 100 Barbershop 2: Back in Business, 90 –91

Beach Boys, 18, 79 Berman, Eric, 59 Billboard 200, 28, 33, 37, 46, 50, 88, 93 Black empowerment, 67– 68 “Black Korea” (Ice Cube), 38 Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (Rose), 1 Blige, Mary J., 88, 91 Bomb Squad, 28 Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, 82 “Bop Gun (One Nation)” (Ice Cube), 50 Bouwsma, Angela, 2 “Bow Down” (interview), 72 –75 Bow Down (Westside Connection), 57, 59 – 61 “Boyz n the Hood” (Eazy-E), 20 Boyz N the Hood (Singleton), 27, 44 – 45, 100 Brown, H. Rap, 54 Brown, James, 31, 49, 98 Bryant, Kobe, 81 Buchanan, Pat, 10

128

Index

Bush, George W., 91, 94 Butch Cassidy (rapper), 90 “Call 9–1–1” (Ice Cube), 89 Campbell, Luther, 11 Capitalism, 6 “Cave Bitch” (Ice Cube), 51 Cedric the Entertainer, 85 – 86, 90 Censorship, 9 –10; Alter on, 13; Campbell on, 11; “Cop Killer” and, 12 Chang, Jeff, 1, 19, 42 “Check Yo Self” (Ice Cube), 46 Chicago, 79 Chiffarobe, 43 “Child Support” (Ice Cube), 93, 96 – 97 Christianity, 53, 69 Christian, Margena, 93 –94 Chuck D, 36, 67, 68 Clockers, 59 Coker, Cheo Hodari, 62 “Color Blind” (Ice Cube), 40 Comedians, 59 Coolio, 40 “Cop Killer” (Ice-T), 12 Cosby, Bill, 58 Criminality, 6 Cross, Brian, 37 “Cross ‘Em Out and Put a K” (Ice Cube), 61 “Crossfire” (CNN TV Show), 10 Cuda, Heidi Sigmund, 28, 77–78 “The Curse of Money” (Ice Cube), 65 Da Lench Mob, 34, 54 Davis, Angela, 54 –56 “Dead Homiez” (Ice Cube), 35 “Dead on Arrival” (Ice Cube), 39 Death Certificate (Ice Cube), 27, 36 – 44, 99 “Devil,” 28 “Diss rap,” 60 DJ Pooh, 87 DJ Yella, 15, 97 Doggystyle (Snoop Dog), 50 Dole, Robert, 10

“Don of the Westside” (interview in The Source), 70–72 “Dopeman” (Ice Cube), 23 Do the Right Thing (Lee, S.), 5, 38, 44 Dr. Dre, 3–4, 15, 22, 83, 97 Drug dealing, 17, 52 Duke, David, 48 Dyson, Michael Eric, 36–37 Ealy, Michael, 85–86, 90 East Coast-West Coast rivalry, 60, 70 –71 “Eazy Duz It” (Eazy-E), 20 Eazy-E (Wright, E.), 15, 20, 42, 97; Heller on, 27; passing of, 16 Efil 4 Zaggin (NWA), 11 “8 Ball” (Ice Cube), 23–24 Eminem, 91 “Endangered Species” (Ice Cube), 33 Epps, Michael, 85, 87 Eve, 85–86, 90 “Express Yourself” (Ice Cube), 23–24 “Extradition” (Ice Cube), 64 Farley, Christopher John: on Lethal Injection, 50 –51; on The Predator, 45; on rap/capitalism, 6 Farrakhan, Louis, 41, 48, 53 Fear of a Black Planet (Public Enemy), 29 “Fear of a Black Planet” (Public Enemy), 4 –5 50 Cent, 92 “Fight the Power” (Public Enemy), 5 Finch, Atticus, 43 Flavor Flav, 96 Flavor of Love (television show), 96 Forman, Murray, 20 Foxx, Jamie, 62 Franklin, Aretha, 92 “Freedom Got an A.K.” (Da Lench Mob), 54 French, Blake, 78 Fresh Prince (Smith, W.), 50

Index Friday (Ice Cube), 57– 59, 100 Friday after Next (Ice Cube), 87– 88 “Fuck Compton” (Tim Dog), 71 “Fuck Tha Police” (Ice Cube), 22, 31 Full Metal Jacket, 10 Funkadelic, 50 Gangs, 15 “Gangsta, Gangsta” (Ice Cube), 8, 23 “Gangsta Nation” (Ice Cube), 88–89 Gangsta rap, 1; Ice Cube on, 67, 74; Ice Cube’s seminal role in, 99; race and, 3 –5 “A Gangsta’s Fairytale” (Ice Cube), 8 “Gankin,” 21 Garity, Troy, 90 Gates, Henry Louis, 9 –10 Gender gap, 55– 56 “Generation Rap” (interview in NY Times magazine), 66 George, Nelson, 7 “Get Ignit” (Ice Cube), 89 “Get Off My Dick and Tell Yo Bitch to Come Here” (Ice Cube), 32 “Ghetto Vet” (Ice Cube), 63 – 64 Gold, Jonathan, 20 Gordon, Allen, 8 “Go To Church” (Ice Cube), 93 – 95 Grant, Cary, 98 “Greed” (Ice Cube), 65 “Growin’ Up” (Ice Cube), 93, 97, 100 Guerillas in Da Mist (Da Lench Mob), 54 Gun’s N’ Roses, 19 Hall, Arsenio, 31 hampton, dream, 12 Harlins, Latasha, 38 Heavy metal, 13 Heller, Jerry, 16, 27, 42

“Hello” (Ice Cube), 83 – 84 Hemingway, Ernest, 72 Hilburn, Robert, 45 Hill, Sugar, 94 Hinds, Selwyn Seyfu, 70 –72 Homosexuality, 41 hooks, bell, 4 Horsford, Anna Maria, 87 House of Pain, 49 Hussein, Saddam, 79, 94 “I Ain’t Tha One” (Ice Cube), 23 The Ice Opinion (Ice-T), 13 Ice-T, 12–13, 68 “If You Leave Me Now” (Chicago), 79 “I Get Around” (Beach Boys), 79 Interviews, 57, 66; “Bow Down,” 72 –75; “Don of the Westside,” 70 –72; “Generation Rap,” 66; in Jet magazine, 93 “It’s a Man’s World” (Ice Cube), 31–32 It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (Public Enemy), 29 “It Was a Good Day” (Ice Cube), 46, 49 – 50, 100 “I Wanna Be Your Lover” (Prince), 92 “Jackin’ for Beats” (Ice Cube), 34 Jackson, Scoop, 72–75 “Japs,” 42 Jaws, 98 J-Dee, 41 Jean, Wyclef, 88 Jefferson Airplane, 18 Jennings, Waylon, 83 Jones, Quincy, 3– 4 Joplin, Janis, 18 KAGRO. See Korean American Grocers’ Association Kam, 40 Kill at Will (Ice Cube), 27, 33–36 King, Martin Luther, 69 King, Rodney, 2, 12, 45, 79, 86

129

130

Index

King Tee, 40 – 41 Kinsley, Michael, 10 Kitt, Eartha, 87, 88 K-Mac, 63 Knight, Suge, 5 Korean American Grocers’ Association (KAGRO), 39 Korean-Americans, 37– 39 Krayzie Bone, 82 Ku Klux Klan, 53 Lady of Rage, 81 Laugh Now, Cry Later (Ice Cube), 92– 97 Lee, Harper, 43 Lee, Spike, 2, 5, 38, 44 Leland, John, 3, 5, 37 Leonard, Michael, 11 Lethal Injection (Ice Cube), 27, 50 –53 Let’s Do It Again, 58 Levant, Brian, 92 “Lil’ Ass Gee” (Ice Cube), 51– 52 Lil John, 92, 94 L.L. Cool J, 70 Long, Nia, 91 Louima, Abner, 47 Loy, Myrna, 98 Mac, Bernie, 62 Mack 10, 59, 63, 81, 90 Mafioso rap, 74 Malcom X, 67 “Mapping,” 21 Ma Rainey, 82 Mathis, Johnny, 88 Maury (television show), 96 MC Hammer, 49 McIver, Joel, 45 MC Ren, 83 Media, 69, 73 “Me So Horny” (2 Live Crew), 10 Million Man March, 2 Misogyny, 9 –10, 15 Morgan, Joan, 30 Morrison, Toni, 72

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, 98 Mr. Short Khop, 63 “My Summer Vacation” (Ice Cube), 39– 40 Nas, 6 Nate Dogg, 88 National Political Congress of Black Women (NPCBW), 10 Nation of Islam, 37– 39, 53, 68; rap music and, 43 – 44. See also Farrakhan, Louis Nelly, 92 Nelson, Willie, 83 New Jersey Drive, 59 Next Friday (Ice Cube), 80 – 81 Nielson, Brigitte, 96 “The Nigga of the Century” (Ice Cube), 84 “The Nigga Trap” (Ice Cube), 93, 95 – 96, 100 “The Nigga Ya Love to Hate” (Ice Cube), 4, 30, 33 “Niggaz 4 Life” (Public Enemy), 4 Nihilism, 5 –7 North, Oliver, 12 NPCBW. See National Political Congress of Black Women NWA, 1; Efil 4 Zaggin, 11; gangsta rap and, 74; obscenity in, 17; public outrage against, 19; Straight Outta Compton, 1, 17, 21–26, 99 Obama, Barack, 1 Obscene Publications Squad (Great Britain), 11 Obscenities, 9–10, 17, 66 Ohio Players, 47 Olde English 800, 25 Ol’ Dirty Bastard, 87– 88 “Once Upon a Time in the Projects” (Ice Cube), 30 “One Nation under a Groove” (Funkadelic), 50 Original Gangster (OG), 5–7

Index Outkast, 91 Oyewole, Abiodun, 66 Paige, Satchel, 64, 92 “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” (Brown), 49 Pareles, Jon, 1–2 Parents’ Music Resource Center, 19 Parks, Rosa, 86 “The Payback” (Brown), 98 “Penitentiary” (Ice Cube), 64 – 65 Phillips, Johnny, 16 “Pimp the System” (Ice Cube), 90 Player’s Club (Ice Cube), 72 The Players Club, 61 Poitier, Sydney, 58 Police brutality, 15, 28, 69 Pooh, DJ, 80 “Potential Victims” (Ice Cube), 88–89 The Predator (Ice Cube), 27, 45–50 Prince, 52, 92 Priority Records, 18 Prison life, 34 Producing, 78 “The Product,” 34 Public Enemy, 3 – 5, 29, 36 Public outrage: with “Cop Killer,” 12; with Efil 4 Zaggin, 11; against NWA, 19 Puff Daddy, 70, 85 Quayle, Dan, 12 Queen Latifah, 50 Race, Rap and Equality (documentary), 68–70 Racial conflict, 3–5, 38; as Ice Cube theme, 28; Leland on, 5; Stephney on dramatization of, 4 Rap culture, 43; Ice Cube on, 35– 36; nihilism of, 5 –7 Rap music: Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America, 1; “diss rap,” 60;

evolution of, 93; Farley on, 6; “gangsta rap,” 1, 3 – 5, 67, 74, 99; “Generation Rap” interview, 66; grassroots entrepreneurialism of, 16; language in, 66; “Mafioso style,” 74; Nation of Islam and, 43 – 44; as a network, 68; Rap, Race and Equality, 2; “reality rap,” 18; sampling in, 71; Turner on white youth and, 19 Rap, Race and Equality (Pareles/Rose), 1–2 Raw Footage (Ice Cube), 99 “Reality rap,” 18, 20 “Record Company Pimpin’ ” (Ice Cube), 83 “Respect” (A. Franklin), 92 Rich, Matty, 2 “Ride wit Me” (Nelly), 92 Robinson, Jackie, 64 Rose, Tricia, 1–2 Rule, Sheila, 73 Russell, David O., 79 Ruthless Records, 16 Sampling, 71 Samuels, Allison, 93 Schwarzenegger, Arnold, 96 The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews (Nation of Islam), 37 She’s Gotta Have It (Lee, S.), 44 Shocked. Michelle, 3 Simmons, Russell, 94 Simpson, O.J., 2, 86 Singleton, John, 2, 27, 44 – 45, 100 Sir Jinx, 40 SIster Souljah, 3 Skywalker, Luke, 62 Skywalker Records, 10 Slater, Richard, 11 Sly and the Family Stone, 34, 47 Smith, Danyel, 45 Smith, Will. See Fresh Prince Snoop Dogg, 3, 6, 81, 92, 94

131

132

Index

Soon Ja Du, 38 Soul Train, 31 The Source, 29, 70 –72 Spin, 29 Stephney, Bill, 3– 4 St. Louis, MO, 40 Storch, Scott, 93 Straight Outta Compton (NWA), 1, 17, 21–26, 99 Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. (Tupac), 54 Syncopation, 30 Temptations, 87–88 Terrorist Threats (Westside Connection), 88–90 Thigpen, David, 82 Thomas, Juan M. Floyd, 43 – 44 Thomas, Sean Patrick, 85–86, 90 Thompson, Kenan, 90 “3 Strikes You In” (Ice Cube), 64 Three Kings, 77–79 “3 Time Felons” (Ice Cube), 60 Till, Emmett, 51 Tim Dog, 71 Times Warner, 12 To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee, H.), 43 Touré, 50 Tucker, C. Delores, 10 Tucker, Chris, 58 Tupac, 6, 54, 88, 91 Turkkan, Leyla, 54 –55 Turner, Bryan, 19 2 Live Crew, 9 –10, 36 Unforgiven (Eastwood), 12 –13 “Until We Rich” (Ice Cube), 82 Uptown Saturday Night, 58 “Us” (Ice Cube), 42

Vibe, 29 Wahlberg, Mark (Marky Mark), 79 War and Peace, Vol. 2 ( The War Disc) (Ice Cube), 77, 81– 84 War and Peace, Vol. 1 (The War Disc) (Ice Cube), 57, 62 – 66 WC, 59, 92 “We Be Clubbin’ ” (Ice Cube), 61 “We Had to Tear This Motherfucker Up” (Ice Cube), 47 Westside Connection, 57, 59 – 61, 70 –72, 88 – 90 “What Can I Do?” (Ice Cube), 52 ‘What Up Gangsta?” (50 Cent), 92 “When I Get To Heaven” (Ice Cube), 51, 53 “When Will they Shoot?” (Ice Cube), 48 “Who Got the Camera?” (Ice Cube), 48 “Who’s the Mack” (Ice Cube), 33 “Why We Thugs” (Ice Cube), 93 “Wicked” (Ice Cube), 46 – 47 Witherspoon, John, 87 Wright, Eric. See Eazy-E Wright, Richard, 72 “The Wrong Nigga to Fuck Wit” (Ice Cube), 4 XXL magazine, 72–75 “You Can Make It If You Try” (Sly and the Family Stone), 34 “You Can’t Fade Me” (Ice Cube), 32 –33 “You Know How We Do It” (Ice Cube), 50 Yo-Yo, 31– 32

About the Author GAIL HILSON WOLDU is Associate Professor of Music at Trinity College in Connecticut. There she teaches courses on The Music of Black Americans, American Popular Music, Listening to Music, Current Trends in Black Music Expression, Hip Hop America, The Artist in Society, and Protest in Music.