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By Martin Woodside Still Americas most wanted After spending years cleaning up in Hollywood last years Are We There Yet? grossed nearly $100 million worldwide Ice Cube returns to dominate the hard-hitting rhyming style that made him one of the planets best and most controversial rap superstars. After all, as Cube bluntly put in on the opening track of 2000s War & Peace, Vol. 2 (The Peace Disc) , hes the one that started this gangster shit. And while the words writer/director/actor belong on his resume, so does rap icon. As the founding member of the most notorious pioneer gangsta-rap groups of all time, N.W.A., and the platinum-selling artist that made AmeriKKKas Most Wanted the essential hip-hop album of 1990, Cubes still the unapologetic, self-styled and articulate Nigga Ya Love to Hate. Im a b-boy when its all said and done, says Cube (real name: OShea Jackson). Ive been down with music since before I knew I could make a dollar at it. Not being on a record label and doing it on my own is refreshing because I can do it like I feel it. I dont have to compromise anything. It just felt right. I was doing this record for my fans and for me. Stepping away from the game for so long, his last full-length was six years ago, allowed Ice Cube to watch rap grow and, for the most part, he says hes pleased with what hes seen. Its being accepted in all the nooks and crannies that wouldnt accept it 10 years ago, he says. Even Madison Avenue is starting to use rappers to sell their products. The music is bigger than ever and I aint got no complaints. Still, the prosperity of a few rappers hasnt done much to change life in places like Cubes old stomping grounds in South Central, the all-too-real backdrop for Boyz n the Hood, the rappers first and most lauded film. And while his lyrics drew some criticism, a close inspection of his gangster rhetoric (Once Upon a Time in the Projects and Endangered Species from AmeriKKKas) protested instead of glamorized the plight of the inner-city. People are still having the same problems that weve always had but people kind of been in denial a little bit, Cube says. Were hoping to swing it back to raps that are relevant to people that are buying em and not raps about me-me-me, party-party-party-party. The rap industry is far removed from what it was in the AmeriKKKas Most Wanted era, when the likes of Cube and Public Enemy were reaching big audiences with songs that featured plenty of hard-hitting social criticism and incendiary anger. South Centrals prodigal son earned plenty of street cred and notoriety Billboard once publicly condemned Cube, the first time the trade publication singled out an artist but his lyrics also promoted self-awareness and education. Nowadays, excepting the occasional angry spat from Eminem, most mainstream rappers avoid anything remotely political like the plague. But Cube senses a change. Now that Bush is in his second term, it seems like the tension is back in the air, he says. The door is open for this kind of music to emerge. If so, Laugh Now, Cry Later (release date: June 6) may be the beginning of a trend. With songs like the Scott Storch-produced Why We Thugs and The Nigga Trap, Cube isnt pulling any punches in his dissection of Americas urban ghettos and the system that keeps them going. I just want people to stop and think that there are forces at work to keep our community the way it is, he says. It takes million-dollar machines to make hundred-dollar guns. Its definitely a plan at work. I think the government never stopped preying on its citizens in that way. We just gotta combat it through music and education. And while its been 16 years since the compelling and dangerous AmeriKKKas Most Wanted, Laugh Now, Cry Later (released on Cubes own Lench Mob Records) marks another step in the rappers fascinating and powerful evolution and growth as a hip-hop artist. But Cube reacts strongly against the idea that his Hollywood years have led to complacency or a lack of perspective. It isnt like I made it so I have nothing else to worry about, he says. Most of the people I deal with are still in South Central L.A., still going through it, still struggling everyday. The higher you go, the more you can see its the haves and the have-nots. It dont feel good for me to work on a $100 million movie like XXX and know that money can go so far in South Central L.A. Those kinds of things make it bittersweet. Cubes marketed himself shrewdly for years, balancing the roughneck social criticism in his music with his more mainstream personae to his film and television projects. Cube recently launched Black/White, which just finished its first cable television run on FX, the rappers latest vehicle exploring racial politics. The show, which Cube produced, involves having a white family and black family swap races thanks to intense make-up sessions and wigs. Outta Black/White, I didnt really want people so caught up in the families that they didnt look at themselves in that situation or realize that racism has layers, he says. I just wanted to pull some of those layers back. With such a provocative premise, the show got a lot of peoples attention, which is all Cube claims he wanted. All you can do is plant seeds, he says. People gotta change themselves. On the web: www.icecube.com |
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Copyright © 2002 Mean Street Magazine, LLC |
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