Ice Cube Breaks Down His Entire Catalogue [interesting read]

[187_gangsta_crip]

Thanks that was a good read.. Cube is the best westcoast MC alongside Pac

[Blasphemy]

I read it on the site last night (or yesterday, can't remember) and the only thing I was wondering is why WSC second album "Terrorist Threats" wasn't talked about?

[Dre-Day]

@From Dre Day... ^^

when you highlighted "It was time to indulge", i don't think he was talking about himself indulging in the 'escapism' sort of rap, i.e. selling out. i took it that he was still talking about people in general, i.e. people were wanting to indulge in the weed, cars, etc due to the new Clinton-era.

so i disagree that he was basically admitting to selling out, he was actually meaning something different

you're probably right.

but my previous comment also refers to the first part that was marked

[D-Nice]

yeah this article is great.

That same year Eazy released Eazy-Duz-It. With Eazy’s record, a lot of people pitched in—the D.O.C., MC Ren, and myself. We all put a lot of effort to get that record done, but at the end of the day writers were not considered producers. No matter what you contributed to the record, style wise, you were not considered a producer unless you did beats. And to me, that was bullshit.

That’s when I started to have issues with the way business was being done. I was the one that told Dr. Dre to go ‘Gangsta, gangsta, that’s what they yelling, it’s not about a salary, it’s all about reality.’ Me bringing those records to the studio and telling Dre to use them is producing just as much as Yela rewinding the tape and making sure the drum machine is working. That was my main problem. I thought we should all get paid as producers. And Eazy didn’t see it that way.

i don't think cube has ever complained like this about production credits before.
but bringing in samples is not the same as producing.

To me the best thing to do is to be honest about it and not pussy foot around it, especially in a rap song. You can pussy foot around it in an interview, but in a rap song you have to go all out and give the true pulse of what you are feeling

that's exactly what he does from time to time.

The Predator record was a change of pace for me. Songs like “It Was A Good Day” were less political because we had been so political to the point where people didn’t even think I could rap anymore. People didn’t think I was an MC! They were trying to turn me into some political figure. And I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, hold on…we are doing music. I’m just injecting what I feel is the truth in my music.’ So I wanted to get back to the music. And then in another way I felt Damn, we can’t get a song in rotation, but the [non-political] form of gangsta rap was getting played all day. I knew there was a difference. The music I was making was institutionalized-breaking shit.

The shit that me, Public Enemy, Ice T, and KRS-One were doing was not the status quo. We were making highly charged political arena shit. So, if I was MTV or any of the radio stations, I would make it my business to get us off of that political tip. And if I was a fan I would think, Man, President Clinton is in office. It’s time to party. No more Reaganomics…it’s time to let loose, man! Let’s hit the club…let’s get some weed, get a car, and get some pussy like Bill. Fuck all that political shit. We won. That’s when escapism rap became the standard. It was time to indulge.

i like 'It was a good day', but he basically admitted to sell out.

At the time when I started recording Lethal Injection, I was in a juggling act. I was trying to juggle movies and music and I didn’t know how to do both at the same time. I would leave the film set and go do records and you don’t ever do that dumb shit [laughs]. So because of that, the music suffered. The records were not as good as they could have been

at least he's honest here, he should do that more often.
i don't think lethal injection is bad, but it could have been better.

That’s when Mack, myself and WC decided to do the Westside Connection album Bow Down and I was really happy with the results. I didn’t feel like we were starting shit. We were just defending ourselves because the West Coast was starting to feel repercussions from our success. That record was basically saying that there was a line in the sand. Without that album the industry would have stopped the West Coast long before that

what an arrogant statement.
it didn't save west coast music

I ‘m really proud of this record. When I go in the studio and make a song like “Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It,” I feel good about the work. To me, if you are a B-Boy you love these kind of [conceptual] records. If you are just a rap fan, this shit is probably going to get on your nerves [laughs]. I’m staying down with the B-Boys, man, because at the end of the day they are the only ones who are going to be left. Everybody else is going to chase the next hit or the next trend. The B-Boy’s are going to be here forever. So I decided to do records for them. I felt because it was a political year that I needed to make a political album. This was 2008. We didn’t know who was going to be the next President. We had just seen Bush break the country. It was a time to figure out how Obama could be President. Even today, with Obama in office, nobody knows if they will keep their house. It wasn’t the time to party and bullshit. So I basically had that attitude. I just wanted to make a record that examined where we are.

he doesn't even know the content of his own album 

Bow Down did not save the West but it put alot of people on notice lol. That album created alot of dialogue, good and bad.

[Lunatic]

I read it on the site last night (or yesterday, can't remember) and the only thing I was wondering is why WSC second album "Terrorist Threats" wasn't talked about?

I was about to say, it seems they forgot an album LOL

[Hoodlum204]

Dope Read!!

[Stan]

Yea good read, thanks.  There seems to be a gap in the Natural Born Killaz and Eminem story.  Em's first album was 96 or 97 I believe.  Natural Born was '94 right?  What happend to those two or three years?

That was the time Pac was around and Dre was leaving the Row I think.

[3331]

lethal injection is my favorite cube album after death certificate. i thought it was a great record and perfect transition into g-funk. i don't understand his hatred for it. he might be disowning it because it didnt get amerikkkaz or DC status as far as reviews and mainstream classic status.

[UCC]

I think with the stuff like wrong timings and inaccuracies like that there are always two things going on -

1 - that shit happened ages ago, 1994 was like 16 years ago, imagine if someone asked you how you were feeling during a particular week 16 years ago... I'm like late 20s, so for me that would be trying to recall some shit I did was I was around 15... I can remember some stuff, but not really how I was feeling over any particular thing. It's like, yo, how did that math test go when you were 15, how were you feeling, did you go out the same night to a party, etc - it's unlikely you'll have a completely accurate answer.
To us it's like famous history, so you'd think they'd make a point of remembering it, but they don't sit around recalling the past all the time and once the time has past the memory is bound to be kinda fuzzy for a lot of stuff.

2 - It's an interview, so you have to come up with an answer there and then usually, so it's like, well this was happening, that was happening, they probably say some stuff then realize later they made a mistake in the answer

[Dre-Day]

Bow Down did not save the West but it put alot of people on notice lol. That album created alot of dialogue, good and bad.

yeah, he could have said that, in stead of giving the album too much credit

[OG Seff]

Man, Ice Cube is da nigga!! I liked that new song with WC and Maylay "Too West Coast"  tight shit!!

[JG]

Cube got the dates all wrong. Serves him right for licking out white girls assholes. That's what he used to be into. Why his kids are so light

[sav-man]

Interesting read...like others, I agree that Lethal Injection was really not that bad of an album. It was very good, if not classic. I'm puzzled as to why he didn't say more about the War and Peace albums. They both got mixed reviews when they came out (VIBE absolutely hated War, as I recall), but they both have songs that I love--I still think War may be his most underrated solo CD ever. I still wonder if maybe the released products of those albums weren't the original plan that Cube had for them. Back in '97/'98, I remember Cube saying in interviews that War was going be a gangsta-ish type record, and the impression he gave was that Peace was going to be more, as he said, "showing how it should be," (i.e. political-type stuff). But when they came out, War was basically a semi-concept album told from the point of view of a gang boss (as opposed to the gang members) with a tiny bit of politics at the end, and Peace was a mixture of straight gangsta/boasting stuff and party records. I wonder if War and Peace (and Terrorist Threats, too) are sore points with Cube? Good read either way.

[papa-smurf]

2pac and death row was rideing 4 west hard b4 the westside connection came out with bow down.but this was a dope read

[D-Nice]

Interesting read...like others, I agree that Lethal Injection was really not that bad of an album. It was very good, if not classic. I'm puzzled as to why he didn't say more about the War and Peace albums. They both got mixed reviews when they came out (VIBE absolutely hated War, as I recall), but they both have songs that I love--I still think War may be his most underrated solo CD ever. I still wonder if maybe the released products of those albums weren't the original plan that Cube had for them. Back in '97/'98, I remember Cube saying in interviews that War was going be a gangsta-ish type record, and the impression he gave was that Peace was going to be more, as he said, "showing how it should be," (i.e. political-type stuff). But when they came out, War was basically a semi-concept album told from the point of view of a gang boss (as opposed to the gang members) with a tiny bit of politics at the end, and Peace was a mixture of straight gangsta/boasting stuff and party records. I wonder if War and Peace (and Terrorist Threats, too) are sore points with Cube? Good read either way.

Yeah conceptually Peace was a train wreck for Cube compared to what he originally said the album was going to be. That had the potential to be a classic. War I agree that is not his best album but I still play that album heavily. Personal classic for me.