Black Music Month Celebrates: Ice Cube

”Ice Cube with Da Lench Mob, I got it goin on. A brotha that’s livin in the city of the criminal zone. One time can’t keep the law and order cuz everybody’s goin crazy for a quarter”- Ice Cube.

When you break down what it means to be a pioneer of Hip Hop you have to mention Ice Cube. He not only co-founded Gangster Rap, but also helped to draw the blueprint for all future legends of Hip Hop on how to take the world of music and entertainment by storm.

Ice Cube was born O’Shea Jackson on June 15th, 1969 in South Central Los Angeles, California. Born to Hosea and Doris Jackson, he had 2 sisters and one brother. When Cube was just 12 years old his older sister was shot to death by her boyfriend in a murder-suicide. Cube would later express that this loss of his sister opened his eyes and hardened him to the hostile environment that he was surrounded by in South Central.

As a teenager O’Shea was given the nickname Ice Cube by a family member. It was also at this time that Cube developed a love for Hip Hop and began writing raps of his own. He eventually formed a rap group called C.I.A. (Cru In Action) with his friends Anthony “Sir Jinx” Wheaton and Darrel “K-Dee” Johnson. Ice Cube and K-Dee were the rappers of the group while Sir Jinx was the beat maker and DJ of the group. It was through Sir Jinx that Ice Cube would meat Andre “Dr. Dre” Young who is a cousin of Sir Jinx. Dre was popular on the LA underground music scene and when he and a childhood friend Eric “Eazy-E” Wright decided they wanted to form a Hip Hop group along with Ice Cube, a rapper named Lorenzo “MC Ren” Patterson and DJ Antoine “DJ Yella” Carraby, NWA was born.

NWA which is an acronym for N*ggaz With Attitude, was a supergroup of rappers and DJs led by ex-crack dealer and former gang member turned businessman and rapper, Eric “Eazy” Wright. NWA made a name for themselves rapping about street life in the inner city of Los Angeles. After finding local popularity on the west coast NWA became a national success in 1988 with their first full length album Straight Outta Compton, as well as Eazy-E’s solo album debut Eazy Duz It, which was written by Ice Cube.

With songs like “Straight Outta Compton”, “Gangsta Gangsta” and “F—k Tha Police”, NWA captivated millions of fans and garnered countless critics with their gritty and profound lyrics about street life in the inner city. Unfortunately a business dispute with NWA and their manager Jerry Heller would cause Ice Cube to leave the group by 1989 and seek out a solo career.

At the time that Ice Cube left NWA they were the biggest group in Hip Hop and many were under the belief that Ice Cube’s career was over after leaving the ensemble group, but Cube was determined to prove the skeptics wrong. After parting ways with his former band mates Cube linked up with the politically conscious Hip Hop superstar group Public Enemy and their production team The Bomb Squad and started working on his solo album debut Amerikkka’s Most Wanted.

Released in 1990 Amerikkka’s Most Wanted is Ice Cube’s expansion on the subject matter that he first introduced with NWA: the plight of the Black community. From drug dealers and crooked law enforcement to pimps and prostitution, Cube took listeners on a journey through the American inner city. The album became a groundbreaking platinum hit and like his previous work with NWA the album garnered a lot of criticism for its vulgar language and controversial subject matter, but this was only the beginning. His sophomore album Death Certificate would take both controversy and success to the next level.

Released in 1991 Death Certificate sees Ice Cube expressing himself in a much angrier manner than his first album. Having linked up with the Nation of Islam and becoming Muslim, Death Certificate is more socially, politically and racially charged than before and the album outmatched the success of Amerikkkas Most Wanted. Many critics would deem Ice Cube anti-Semitic and anti-white for the album’s content, especially in regards to his former manager Jerry Heller on the song “No Vaseline” the notoriously scathing diss track aimed at his former groupmates from NWA. The album is also notorious for its prophetic subject matter that predicted the LA Riots. If Death Certificate was Ice Cube’s prologue to the LA Riots, then his third album The Predator was the epilogue to the riots.

In 1992 Ice Cube released his third and most cohesive album to date, The Predator. The album’s first single “Wicked” was recorded while the LA riots were taking place. The album summarizes how all the conditions that Ice Cube rapped about on his previous albums finally came to ahead in the form of the riots. The album also contains the most popular Ice Cube song to date “It Was A Good Day”.

Along with “Wicked” and “It Was A Good Day”, the albums third single “Check Yo Self” which was produced by DJ Muggs from the west coast Rap group Cypress Hill would be the most commercially successful Ice Cube single ever. The Predator is Ice Cube’s most successful album to date and the album became another Hip Hop classic that further solidified Ice Cube as a Hip Hop icon.

The success of Ice Cube’s music career opened doors to other business ventures. In the decades since he first started his stellar music career Ice Cube has become a film mogul and now runs a high successful basketball league known as The Big 3, which now makes Cube a Black owner of a sports league In 2015 the biopic about NWA’s rise to prominence Straight Outta Compton was released to massive critical and commercial success. Ice Cube’s son O’Shea Jackson jr. portrayed Cube in the film, giving the younger generation a history lesson on Ice Cube’s iconic legacy.

In 2016 Ice Cube was inducted into the Rock and Roll Halll Of Fame with his fellow band mates of NWA., further solidification of his status as music legend.

Cube has inspired countless artist both in and outside of the genre of Hip Hop with his groundbreaking raw style and lyricism. After over 30 years since he first made it big in Hip Hop he still remains to be one of Hip Hop’s most relevant voices. As someone who has been rapping my whole life Cube has been my biggest influence from Hip Hop. I feel like Cube has always represented the creative direction that Black artist should all aspire to go in: one that never forgets the past and is inclusive of its history, as he did with his funk-inspired sound and always aspire to influence the next generation to grow and be even more creative with the roots you plant for them. Black Music Month Celebrates: Ice Cube.