Ice Cube

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Ice Cube

1969—

Rap musician, songwriter, music producer, actor

"With an eye that magnifies brutal characters and violent situations, Ice exposes a world that seems on the brink of exploding in the ear of the listener," wrote Havelock Nelson and Michael Gonzales in their book, Bring the Noise: A Guide to Rap Music and Hip-Hop Culture. A native of South Central Los Angeles who recorded with the notorious group N.W.A. before going solo, Ice Cube has often been a lightning rod for controversy; his N.W.A. song "F— tha Police" and solo raps like "Black Korea" have elicited angry denunciations, threats, and protests. Yet Ice Cube has argued repeatedly that his lyrics simply hold a mirror up to the reality of inner-city life. In the meantime, his records have gone multiplatinum, he developed an avid following among young white rock fans, and he gained even more fame by highlighting his kind, comedic personality in two spectacularly profitable film franchises: Friday and Barbershop. The contrast between his gangsta rap career and his film comedies seem perfectly reasonable to Ice Cube. As he told UPI NewsTrack: "You can't pigeonhole me into anything."

Rap Grabbed His Attention

Ice Cube was born O'Shea Jackson in 1969—four years after the Watts Riots shook the foundations of Los Angeles and placed the race relations crisis in focus for the nation. His mother, Doris, who, like O'Shea's father, Hosea, hailed from the southern United States, named her son after her favorite football player, O. J. Simpson. A better-than-average student, he attended Hawthorne Christian School where he dabbled in sports. Like many of his friends, O'Shea committed a few petty crimes but was not involved in heavy gang violence. While funk and soul dominated inner-city radio during his youth, nothing caught O'Shea's ear quite the new sounds of rap that arrived toward the end of the 1970s. "When I first heard [the Sugarhill Gang's] ‘Rapper's Delight,’ I couldn't stop rewinding it," he told Art Form. "It did nothing but grab me. By the age of 14, I was writing my own raps, and seeing [influential "gansta" rapper] Ice-T in concert for the first time."

O'Shea—who now called himself Ice Cube—was also hanging around with his friend Jinx, who shared his passion for rap. After hearing Ice Cube's first rap—written during typing class—Jinx agreed to make a tape with him. Ice Cube admitted to Rolling Stone that this early effort was "pathetic. The beat was going, and I was over in the left corner. The lyrics, they were cool, but they wasn't no exciting type of mind-boggling shit. I was only 15, you know." In 1986, Jinx's cousin, Dr. Dre, hooked Ice Cube up with Eric "Eazy E" Wright, who had financed an independent record label—Ruthless Records—with proceeds from his drug dealing. Eazy asked Ice Cube to write material for a New York-based group called HBO, which had signed with Ruthless.

Ice Cube collaborated with Dr. Dre on a track called "Boyz-n-the-Hood," an uncompromising tune about life on the streets of Compton. HBO didn't want the song, so Eazy recorded the song himself in 1986. Then he, Ice Cube and Dr. Dre became Niggas With Attitude, or N.W.A. The group's records—many written and rapped by Ice Cube—garnered them a following, and they seemed embarked on a lucrative career. But Ice Cube's mother insisted that he get an education, so at age 18, he headed off for the Phoenix Institute of Technology. After a yearlong drafting course, Ice Cube returned to Los Angeles and started up with the group in earnest.

Founded Gangsta Rap with N.W.A.

Ice Cube wrote material for Eazy's solo effort, Eazy-Duz-It, Ruthless released in 1988. N.W.A.'s first LP, Straight Outta Compton, appeared on the Priority label in 1989. Featuring the controversial single "F—tha Police," which prompted a threatening letter to the record company from the FBI, the album went platinum in three months without the benefit of any radio airplay. Listening to the album, Nelson and Gonzales wrote in Bring the Noise, "is like sitting in the Theatre of Urban Mojo, staring at rapidly changing images of ghetto angst." While the authors charge that the band received harsh criticism because it told the truth about young black men's lives, they admit that the songs are an assault on the listener. Yet, they add, "in some way one cannot help but become attracted to the brutal images—it's like staring at an auto accident."

Despite N.W.A.'s massive success, Ice Cube got into a dispute with the group's manager, Jerry Heller. After a 50-city tour and record grosses of over $3 million, Ice Cube found he'd earned a mere $32,000. Following further negotiations he was compensated, but decided to leave the group. "N.W.A.'s still a strong group without Ice Cube," the rapper remarked to Musician. "But Ice Cube is not as strong with N.W.A. as he is by himself." He formed his own label, Street Knowledge, hiring new talent such as female rapper Yo-Yo. His first solo album, AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted—released on Priority in 1990—was quickly certified platinum. Produced in collaboration with Public Enemy's Chuck D. and the Bomb Squad, the album convinced many that Ice Cube was the real force behind N.W.A.'s hardest-hitting work, and that as a solo artist he would be a major force. Spin called it "a masterpiece." Yo-Yo debuted on the track "It's a Man's World," matching Ice Cube's well-known sexism with savvy responses; some listeners viewed her inclusion as a tempering of Ice Cube's alleged misogyny. Indeed, Ice Cube also produced Yo-Yo's 1990 album Make Way For the Motherlode and would serve as executive producer on her 1992 sophomore effort, Black Pearl. Still, Nelson and Gonzales declared that "the sexism found on [AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted] is counterproductive to the goals of the struggle" for black liberation.

In 1991, Priority released Ice Cube's Kill At Will, another highly successful record that earned strong reviews. Art Form praised the single "Dead Homiez" as "a harrowing and sorrowful tale of a funeral for a friend." That same year, Ice Cube made his acting debut in John Singleton's hit movie Boyz N' the Hood, playing the haunted, violent Doughboy to generally favorable reviews.

With the release of Death Certificate, Ice Cube once again plunged into controversy. Apparently anti-Semitic references to Heller in "No Vaseline" and hostile words for Korean grocers in "Black Korea" triggered a wave of protests from organizations like the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; even Billboard condemned the record in an editorial. Ice Cube's apparent racism and misogyny sparked considerable comment, though he and some of his defenders noticed that critics were silent on the subject of black-on-black violence.

At the same time, however, Ice Cube impressed many critics with his prowess as a rapper and observer of life on the streets: Entertainment Weekly called 1991's Death Certificate "20 tracks of the most visceral music ever allowed in public," awarding it an "A-" grade. Spin admired the record's "big, slap-happy beats" but took Ice Cube to task for what critic Dimitri Ehrlich deemed racist, sexist, and homophobic material. Side one—the "Death Side"—begins with the sound of a funeral; "the life side" commences with a birth. "The ‘death’ side is the condition we're in now," Ice Cube explained to Ehrlich in Interview, adding that "There are more positive records on the ‘life’ side, because while the ‘death’ side shows you where we at, ‘life’ shows you where we going."

At a Glance …

Born O'Shea Jackson, c. 1969, in Los Angeles, CA; son of Hosea (a machinist and groundskeeper) and Doris (a hospital clerk) Jackson; married, Kimberly Jackson, 1993; children: four. Education: Phoenix Institute of Technology, graduated, 1988.

Career:

Rap singer, producer, actor. Member of and writer for rap group N.W.A., 1986-89; solo artist, 1989-; formed record production company, Street Knowledge, 1990; produced for rapper Yo Yo; Lench Mob, record production company, founder, 1992-; CubeVision, film production company, founder, 2000s-;.

Addresses:

Web—www.icecube.com.

Broadened Appeal

Following Ice-T's successful run on the first Lollapalooza traveling rock festival in 1991, Ice Cube appeared on the bill for Lollapalooza 2 in 1992, sharing the stage with funk-rockers the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Seattle- based grungemeisters Soundgarden, and Pearl Jam, among many others. Almost every rock act on the bill heaped praise on Ice Cube, and the Chili Peppers went so far as to appear in a video for his 1992 album The Predator. Another, much more important event came between Death Certificate and The Predator, however: the Los Angeles riots in the spring of 1992. After a group of white police officers who were videotaped beating black motorist Rodney King were acquitted by an all-white jury, the city exploded in acts of random violence. Fans looked to Ice Cube for a definitive statement on the riots.

The Predator earned an "A-" from Entertainment Weekly's Greg Sandow, who observed that "what's most striking here are songs—Ice Cube's strongest, most cohesive work yet—about the perils of everyday South Central life." Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times—who called Ice Cube's first and second LPs "two of the most compelling albums ever in rap "—found that despite its consistencies, the album's best moments make it "essential listening." Still, Hilburn criticized the rapper for "failing to deal more directly with the events of [the riots]." The album debuted at Number One on the Billboard pop and rhythm and blues charts simultaneously, the first album to do so since Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life in 1976.

On top of enhanced fame from his new hit record, Ice Cube would soon become even better known thanks to another film role. This time he starred with Ice-T in the film Trespass, a crime thriller whose working title had been Looters but was changed in response to the 1992 riots. Meanwhile, Reflex magazine reported that Ice Cube had donated $25,000 to the Los Angeles-based Minority AIDS Project, and Option noted his donation of proceeds from a new single to post-riot relief efforts.

Struck Out on His Own

Just as The Predator was raiding the charts, Rolling Stone announced that N.W.A. had apparently disbanded. Ice Cube, however, appeared on top of his game. His 1993 release Lethal Injection was one of the year's most eagerly anticipated albums. While some critics praised it, Kevin Powell of Vibe declared it "not the masterpiece it could have been." Time, meanwhile, claimed that "Ice Cube's raps about police brutality and white immorality enter the ear and expand in the brain like a Black Talon bullet; his lyrics are sometimes inexcusable, but his logic is often inescapable. Ignore his high-caliber insights at your peril."

Bell Hooks, a feminist theorist, explored Ice Cube's perceived misogyny and thoughts on attaining black self-love in an interview with the rapper published in Spin. "Black women have always been the backbone of the community," he declared, "and it's up to the black man to support the backbone." He also insisted that "I do records for black kids, and white kids are basically eavesdropping. White kids need to hear what we got to say about them, and their forefathers, and uncles, and everybody that's done us wrong." Additionally, he admitted wanting to move into "straight political records" but didn't want to change the content of his records too abruptly.

By 1994, Ice Cube's life had undergone some changes. Reported Vibe, "He's happily married, a follower of the beliefs of the Nation of Islam, and the father of a little namesake (O'Shea Jackson, Jr.), with a baby girl on the way. Fans and detractors alike will tell you that Ice Cube seems a lot less angry these days." He starred in Singleton's feature Higher Learning, directed some music videos, and announced plans to eventually move into feature film direction. Although the scourge of white America appeared to have gone mainstream, Lethal Injection had done little to rehabilitate Ice Cube in the eyes of his critics; in interviews, Ice Cube's more conciliatory remarks were still tempered with flareups of the old fury. He also trumpeted the Nation of Islam's demand for a separate black country. Yet the "new" Ice Cube reflected a more pragmatic sensibility; as he insisted to Vibe, "I know that killing a nigga' down the street ain't going to solve none of my problems at all. And I don't put that into my records, unless I'm explaining a situation. I ain't stupid no more. And some people can't deal with that."

Created Successful Films

The more mature and sensible Ice Cube also began to solidify the new direction in his professional life. The next few years would paint the rapper as more of a producer of movies than music. Ice Cube made his film writing debut in 1995 with the release of the hugely successful movie Friday. The film featured F. Gary Gray in the director's chair and comedian Chris Tucker in the costar seat. The movie launched the big screen career for both Gray—who had done videos for Ice Cube and Queen Latifah—and Tucker, who had experienced success with HBO's Def Comedy Jam. With a budget of $2 million, Friday has since grossed more than $80 million dollars.

Ice Cube acted as executive producer and star in his next movie, Dangerous Ground, and costarred in horror flick Anaconda with Jennifer Lopez. And as he planned, his ever-changing position in Hollywood film-making was approaching a milestone. His next role would be as director, writer and actor in The Players Club. This directorial debut for Ice Cube had a bigger budget than Friday—$5 million—and proved with opening week returns of more than $8 million, to be a financial success as well. The Players Club boasted the highest per-screen gross of the movies opening during the same weekend. Ice Cube, now a rapper, writer, producer, actor and director, was also now a member of the small Hollywood Club of moneymaking film directors.

With the confidence that success was possible in the film world, Ice Cube went back to his roots recording War & Peace, a two volume disc set that dropped Volume 1, in 1998. War & Peace, Vol. 1 (The War Disc) debuted with mild reviews. The rap artist, however, was still applauded for his impressive rhyme flow. He also tackled more movie roles, staring in Three Kings with George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg in 1999. War & Peace, Vol. 2 (The Peace Disc) was released in 2000 and has sold close to 750,000 units. To promote the release, Ice Cube joined the successful Up In Smoke Tour during the summer. Along with Ice Cube, the tour featured Dr. Dre, Eminem, and Snoop Doggy Dogg.

Ice Cube also revisited his early success with a follow up to Friday—Next Friday. His production company, CubeVision, produced the movie for New Line Cinema as part of production pact that had extended through 2002. The production pact folded after New Line turned down several projects recommended by Ice Cube. He then began working on two films slated for release in 2001: Ghost of Mars and All About the Benjamins. Ice Cube has placed great stock in advice his mentor, John Singleton, has offered. "He said if you can write a record, you can write a movie," Ice Cube explained in Jet. Following that advice, Ice Cube has found great success as a filmmaker, as well as a musician.

As a filmmaker Ice Cube continued the Friday franchise with another sequel, Friday After Next. The three films were blockbusters. He followed that success up with another comedy Barbershop. Barbershop included several controversial statements by a character played by Cedric the Entertainer. Cedric played a grumpy barber who spouted off about his grievances against Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, and Jesse Jackson. The comments sparked conversations throughout communities and even prompted Rosa Parks to decline an invitation to an NAACP Image award presentation ceremony in which both Barbershop and her life story were nominated for an award in 2002. The sequel, Barbershop 2: Back in Business, contained decidedly tamer material. These films too were box office hits.

Ice Cube continued his comedy output and box office success with Are We There Yet? in 2005 and its sequel Are We Done Yet? two years later. The films are comic romps about Nick Persons, played by Ice Cube, a once-carefree bachelor who tries to adjust to married life with stepchildren. In 2007 Ice Cube was developing a reality-based television show for the A&E network entitled Good in the Hood about reformed criminals who help others turn their lives around.

Comfortable with Dual Image

Ice Cube's attention to his softer sensibilities did not cloud his vision for his harder edges. He grew increasingly frustrated with the direction rap music was going: toward innocuous party music and away from social commentary. To inform young rappers and rap music listeners of his desires for change, Ice Cube wrote and produced a new album Laugh Now, Cry Later. He included songs about child support, the perils of drug dealing, and assessments of President George Bush and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger governance. Cutting through the lighter fare played on rap radio stations, singles from Laugh Now, Cry Later quickly rose to the top of the charts. "Why We Thugs" stayed among the top ten for over a month and the album was named by Jet among the top 20 albums not long after its release. His acting also included serious fare; he appeared in xXx: State of the Union as a NSA agent involved in stopping a military overthrow of the U.S. government.

His phenomenal success with both his intense music and his comedy films reveal Ice Cube's interest in expressing himself and connecting to his audience. "I have never worried about being hard or soft. I have always just been myself," Cube told Lydia Martin of the Miami Herald. "I'm concerned about being a man. Being a badass doesn't turn me on. That's an image; that's a gimmick. I mean, I still have hardcore records left in me…and hardcore movies. But I thought this was the perfect time in my career to make some movies for the whole family and reach another generation. I figure my core audience has kids who need something to connect to." Still married, Ice Cube's own family had grown to four children. With a solid family foundation and thriving business ventures, Ice Cube's desire to turn his creative impulses into marketable projects predicted much future success for him.

Selected works

Albums with N.W.A.

Boyz-n-the-Hood, Priority, 1986.

Straight Outta Compton, Priority, 1989.

Albums, solo

AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, Priority, 1990.

Kill at Will, Priority, 1991.

Death Certificate, Priority, 1991.

The Predator, Priority, 1992.

Lethal Injection, Priority, 1993.

War & Peace, Vol. 1, (The War Disc), Priority, 1998.

War & Peace, Vol. 2, (The Peace Disc), Priority, 2000.

Laugh Now, Cry Later, Lench Mob, 2006.

Films

Boyz N' the Hood, 1991.

Trespass, 1993.

CB4, 1993.

Higher Learning, 1994.

Friday, (also writer) 1995.

Dangerous Ground, (also executive producer) 1997.

Anaconda, 1997.

Players Club, (also writer and director) 1998.

I Got the Hook Up, 1998.

Three Kings, 1999.

Next Friday, (also writer) 2000.

Shadow Man, 2000.

Ghost of Mars, 2001.

All About the Benjamins, 2002.

Barbershop, 2002.

Friday After Next, 2002.

Barbershop 2: Back in Business, 2004.

Are We There Yet?, 2005.

xXx: State of the Union, 2005.

Are We Done Yet?, 2007.

Sources

Books

Nelson, Havelock, and Michael Gonzales, Bring the Noise: A Guide to Rap Music and Hip-Hop Culture, Harmony Books, 1991, pp. 87-89.

Periodicals

Art Form, 1992, pp. 42-49.

Daily Variety, November 23, 1992, p. 6; March 13, 2007, p. 3.

Entertainment Weekly, November 15, 1991, p. 90-91; November 20, 1992, p. 88; May 12, 1995, p. 43; April 17, 1998, p. 48; October 8, 1999, p. 22; April 13, 2007, p. 55.

Hollywood Reporter, January, 2001.

Interview, December 1991, p. 89.

Jet, February 28, 2000, pp. 58.

Los Angeles Times, November 15, 1992, p. 64.

Men's Health, September 2006, p. 104.

Miami Herald, April 5, 2007.

Musician, March 1991, pp. 58-61.

Newsweek, December 2, 1991, p. 69; April 27, 1998, pp. 72; June 19, 2006, p. 58.

Option, July 1992, p. 146.

Pulse!, August 1992, p. 65.

Reflex, November 10, 1992, p. 11.

Rolling Stone, October 4, 1990, pp. 78-86, 166.