Ice Cube Playboy Interveiw
Go ahead, drop the needle and hear the words that changed hip-hop: "You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge." Then listen to Dre's hypnotic beats and Ice Cube's clever but lyrical profanity. Now tell us that N.W.A, once labeled "the world's most dangerous group," still doesn't get a rise out of you.
Released in August 1988, N.W.A's groundbreaking record Straight Outta Compton and its incendiary singles like "Fuck Tha Police," "Gangsta Gangsta" and "Dopeman" blasted a path for gangsta rap to follow. Two decades hence, it still sounds just as revolutionary and relevant.
N.W.A founding member Ice Cube, now one of hip-hop's most influential artists, is still keeping it bitingly real while talking up street knowledge on Raw Footage, his excellent new solo album. After performing in Europe this summer, 39-year-old Cube kicks off a U.S. tour August 21 where fans will hear him rapping out some of N.W.A's classics and adding his trademark wicked wit and intelligence to new songs like "Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It." He proudly claims that Raw Footage is real, raw hip-hop for the brain.
A South Central L.A. native and former architectural drafting student who started writing "Fuck Tha Police" while in school, Cube has become an international music and film icon, creating an ever-expanding brand that marks him as an impact player in the entertainment business. While Raw Footage is his ninth solo record, he's been increasingly involved in the film business through his Cube Vision Productions company, and as an actor, writer, director and producer. Starting with his breakout acting role as Doughboy in Boyz N the Hood, Cube has carved out an impressive career that includes such diverse fare as Trespass, Friday, Three Kings, two Barbershop films and more. In his new film The Longshots, out August 21, Cube plays a football coach in a true story about a female quarterback who leads her team to a championship. His edgy comedy Janky Promoters is out next March, and possible remakes of The A-Team and Welcome Back, Kotter are on the horizon.
Before the release of Raw Footage Playboy.com spoke with Cube about the lasting impact of Straight Outta Compton, whether he considers Barack Obama "NWB," the growing influence of black filmmakers and why gangsta rap made him do it.
Playboy.com: The Longshots is your 24th film appearance. That's more than double the number of albums you've recorded. And you're not the only hip-hop artist with a résumé like that. Why are we seeing more rappers getting a shot in movies? What are they bringing to the table from the streets?
Ice Cube: They're bringing reality, their observations. Actors sometimes act. Rappers they be, know what I mean? They know how to really be the part and not just act the part. And people and viewers respond to us. Yeah, we rappers are observant. To be a rapper, it's like being a comedian, how they observe human relationships. To give people stuff that they can connect with, you have to be observant. So that translates to the screen when people respond to us. But you know, it's not like we're doing something new. Nat King Cole, Cab Calloway, Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Elvis, even Kris Kristofferson, they all was in music and then got into acting. So it ain't nothing new what we're doing. We're just doing it from our end of things.
Playboy.com: It must be encouraging for you to see Hollywood giving support to more black filmmakers.
Cube: What Hollywood is realizing is that black people go to the movies more than anybody else. For us, movies are still an outing—we're not staying at home in the hood watching movies on our big screen televisions. Black people also go to movies to escape their reality. As a filmmaker, I don't want to shove it right back in their face. If they spend $50-$60 dollars for their family at the movies, I want them to enjoy the experience, and break away for those few hours, escape from what's bothering them at home.
Playboy.com: You have a film premiering and an album dropping in the same week, and yet you've still found time to go on tour. How is it to be the "Grand Wizard" back on the road?
Cube: It feels real good, man. Thank God that I'm back on my bike. I've been independent since 2006 with my Lench Mob Records and it's rejuvenated me as an artist. It's all on me. I can do what I feel and not what the A&R department or record company execs want me to do. I'm my own man again. I feel there's a hunger out there for my type of music, hip-hop for the brain. I've got a lot of fans who've been waiting to see and hear me. [Laughs] So here I come!
Playboy.com: This month also marks the 20th anniversary of Straight Outta Compton. We put it on the stereo recently, and it still jumps right out like it did back in 1988.
Cube: It still sounds good. I've been performing some of the songs in concert and the fans just love it. You know it's hard for a Dr. Dre track not to hold up. Musically, they don't do records that ferocious no more. It's still electrifying, whether you hear it for the umpteenth time or for the first time. Like we said, "Damn that shit is dope!"
Playboy.com: How did the group's name N.W.A reflect what you guys were experiencing coming out of South Central and Compton?
Cube: It was the perfect name for the perfect combination of guys. N.W.A, that's what we were, what we felt, coming out of our hoods. We were tired of shit. We couldn't hold it in any longer. When things build up underneath, they got to blow. We were going to talk about it. It was the only name for us, because it was about taking control of yourself and defining who we were. N.W.A was the world's most dangerous group. We opened the floodgates for artists to be themselves. And it would never ever have reached the heights that it did if not for what we said and did.
Playboy.com: What was the social atmosphere really like when the record was released?
Cube: The '80s were a real mean world in Los Angeles. You got the Crips and the cops and crack, the triple-c, and it was ugly. A real ugly world where people in the hood, average people, suffered bad.
Playboy.com: You talk about the crack scourge, and "Dopeman" was about its awful impact. How do you remember that situation being right in the middle of it?
Cube: The 1980s saw the worst of it, what crack did to people. It was all around us, so it was easy to write about it. It was a disease going from house to house and street to the next street. The man you respected in 1978-79 with the family, living down the street, with a good job...well by '83, he'd lost his job, lost his family, his self-respect, and he had drug dealers selling crack out of his house. And he's smoking it, living in his own garage. A grown man, 40-50 years old, is high on crack. You saw drug dealers kicking him in the ass as they walked up the street, because he owed them money. You saw dudes like that, guys you once respected, all fucked up. As a youngster, it was a world turned upside down.
Playboy.com: We've heard that "Fuck Tha Police" almost didn't make the cut. It would have been a very different album without that track. What's the story behind that?
Cube: I'd written a verse for the song, but in '87 Dre didn't want to use it. He was going through a lot of personal issues with the po-lice—an ankle bracelet, weekends in jail. So he didn't want no songs talking about or even thinking about the cops. When I came back from school in Arizona in '88, Dre was saying we needed some material for this N.W.A record. So I just waited till everybody was in the room and ran "Fuck Tha Police" again by them. And this time he just got out-voted. We had individual songs but we were looking for concepts we could do together. The tune just caught fire; the guys were saying that it was dope. Because, you know what, everybody did hate the police. Everybody had a story. We had the balls to say it. Lucky I held onto the song and didn't let it go.
Playboy.com: Along with the real-life grittiness on the record, there's a lot of great humor and irony in the music, like the song "I Ain't Tha One."
Cube: [Laughs] That is part of the hood. If you ain't laughin' you might be cryin' so try to get as many smiles as you can in before you die. Humor is a big part of any hood. Some of the most dangerous people are some of the most funny people. It's a crazy dynamic about human nature but comedy is as big in the hood as violence. That song was for guys who had no money. The drug business had turned things upside down where girls wanted guys with money. Back then I didn't have no money and I wanted to combat that. I had to put it on record with "I Ain't Tha One!"—don't be lookin' at me.
Playboy.com: You've said in the past that hip-hop wasn't quite ready for the kind of street knowledge that you bring to the table. What do you mean by that?
Cube: In 1993 [after 1992's L.A. riots] mass media just made a conscious effort not to promote political hip-hop. And [instead] promote hip-hop that was full of escapism, like smoking weed, and cars and women, diamonds and bling and all that shit. And that was the person and stories they'd rather promote, somebody that was doing that. Because, no offense to nobody, but America would rather see Lil' Wayne and not Chuck D on your little kid's bedroom wall. Chuck D can change the world. Lil' Wayne—no offense, he's got good lyrics, I like him, I bump and I listen to him—but he ain't political at all. So, it's time to turn that around.
Playboy.com: Those are themes consistently found in all your solo efforts, including Raw Footage.
Cube: Raw Footage is a record to listen to in your head, it ain't a record that you probably play to get the party started. [Laughs] Know what I mean? I'd been waiting to do this record for a long time. I felt hip-hop wasn't ready for the kind of street knowledge I used to do. My specialty, my forté, is what's going on with the politics of today—letting the powers-that-be know what's going on with the streets. Raw Footage is hip-hop for the brain. It's a record for the individual listener—put on the headphones and crank it up, but be prepared to think about the lyrics.
Playboy.com: You say on the first single that it's about dope lyrics and delivery. But you've said it's also about being a source of information for listeners.
Cube: [Laughs] That's right, you got to have the dope lyrics and delivery. But it's a record that's really about what's going on with my fans, and what's going on with me. It's about social issues. I hope it's instructional that it's a resource for inspiration and solutions to some of those issues. It's also a spiritual record, one that can move you. It's real, raw, uncut and uncensored by any A&R department. I'm not influenced by no SoundScan or Billboards or nothing like that.
Playboy.com: That social dialog that started 20 years ago about what really went on with the black experience in inner cities, is there some connection to the fact we now have an African-American leader of a major party?
Cube: [Laughs] I hope so. I mean through music and also through sports, people have been able to communicate to America about other experiences. My feeling is that black people can be better Americans than Americans claim to be. Because we take it on the chin, we get knocked down, we get up and we're still willing to work within the overall system. All's we want is a fair shake and opportunity like everybody else, that's all. No more or no less.
Playboy.com: Would you call Barack Obama N.W.A?
Cube: I don't know if he's N.W.A. [Laughs] He might be more like "NWB," with a brain! I think he speaks the real. He's also a product of today's America—a white and black mix, like many are. I think he's the balance that America needs to get past all the shit that's running us into the ground. It's been like an anchor around our necks what's been going on here. There's a lot of nepotism and cronyism, and the cream is not being allowed to reach to the top. And that's why America is starting to lose in the world race. We're starting to fall behind economically, leadership-wise, technology-wise, you know.
Playboy.com: From what you've seen, what impact would Obama's election as president have on other people's view of America?
Cube: I was just touring all over Europe in July—England, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland—all these places and they're all big on Obama becoming president. It's like they're begging for him to give some leadership and vision and change things up. They're asking us, "How can he lose? Is there any way he can lose?" And they're kinda scared wondering what will happen if he doesn't win. For me, damn, let's try something new. |
