Ice Cube

If I were to make a list of all the musical artists I respect the most, Ice Cube would easily place high in the top five...which may seem strange, since his type of gangsta rap is pretty far out on the hip-hop scale. An original member of the groundbreaking act N.W.A., Ice quickly realized that all his bandmates were money-grubbing bitches, so he went solo. And even after millions of sales, plus a highly successful career in Hollywood, he still lives in South Central and spends much of his time and money on projects that help out the area. Now THAT'S being True To The Game, Nigga!!

"AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted/Kill at Will"

  1. "Better Off Dead"--spoken word (1:02)
  2. "The Nigga Ya Love to Hate" (3:12)
  3. "AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted" (4:08)
  4. "What They Hittin' Foe?" (1:22)
  5. "You Can't Fade Me/JD's Gaffilin'" (5:12)
  6. "Once Upon a Time in the Projects" (3:40)
  7. "Turn Off the Radio" (2:37)
  8. "Endangered Species (Tales from the Darkside)"--featuring Chuck D (3:21)
  9. "A Gangsta's Fairytale" (3:16)
  10. "I'm Only Out for One Thang"--featuring Flavor Flav (2:10)
  11. "Get Off My Dick and Tell Yo Bitch to Come Here" (0:56)
  12. "The Drive-By"--spoken word (1:01)
  13. "Rollin' wit the Lench Mob" (3:43)
  14. "Who's the Mack?" (4:33)
  15. "It's a Man's World"--featuring Yo-Yo (5:26)
  16. "The Bomb" (3:27)
  17. "Endangered Species (Tales from the Darkside)"--remix (4:10)
  18. "Jackin' for Beats" (2:57)
  19. "Get Off My Dick and Tell Yo Bitch to Come Here"--remix (3:38)
  20. "The Product" (3:35)
  21. "Dead Homiez" (3:55)
  22. "JD's Gaffilin' (part 2)"--spoken word (0:32)
  23. "I Gotta Say What Up!!!" (3:08)

Gotta love how this album starts, with Ice being lead down the green mile to the execution chamber: "Got any last words?" "Yeah, I got some last words -- fuck ALL of y'all!" "Switch." Bzzzzzttztzt... Another great song is "A Gangsta's Fairytale", which fucks up all the old Mother Goose stories better than Andrew Dice Clay can ever dream of. Most of the beats are a little more hip-hop than I'd like, but "The Nigga You Love to Hate" still kicks ass to this day. This is the remastered version, with the follow-up EP Kill at Will added as bonus tracks.

"Death Certificate"

    The Death Side:
  1. "The Funeral" (1:37)
  2. "The Wrong Nigga to Fuck Wit" (2:48)
  3. "My Summer Vacation" (3:56)
  4. "Steady Mobbin'" (4:10)
  5. "Robin Lench"--spoken word (1:13)
  6. "Givin' Up the Nappy Dug Out" (4:15)
  7. "Look Who's Burnin'" (3:53)
  8. "A Bird in the Hand" (2:17)
  9. "Man's Best Friend" (2:06)
  10. "Alive on Arrival" (3:11)
  11. "Death" (1:03)
    The Life Side:
  12. "The Birth" (1:21)
  13. "I Wanna Kill Sam" (3:22)
  14. "Horny Lil' Devil" (3:42)
  15. "Black Korea" (0:46)
  16. "True to the Game" (4:10)
  17. "Color Blind" (4:29)
  18. "Doing Dumb Shit" (3:45)
  19. "Us" (3:43)
  20. "No Vaseline" (5:15)
    remaster bonus track:
  21. "How to Survive in South Central" (3:40)

The ultimate Ice Cube album, which I enjoy mostly for its politics and social commentary, as opposed to the music itself. :) It's hard-edged, misogynist and downright RACIST in parts, but hey, when things are fucked up in the 'hood, you gotta say it like it is. (Oh, did I mention that the L.A. Riots hadn't happened yet? More on that later...) My favorite song here is "Givin' Up the Nappy Dug Out", which features a female chorus singing: "I've got a big old ding-a-ling, and if that bitch remains, I'm gonna do my thing with your daughter!" Now THAT'S pure poetry! This remastered version adds as a bonus track "How to Survive in South Central", from the movie Boyz N the Hood.

"The Predator"

  1. "The First Day of School (intro)" (1:19)
  2. "When Will They Shoot?" (4:36)
  3. "I'm Scared (Insert)" (1:32)
  4. "Wicked" (3:55)
  5. "Now I Gotta Wet 'Cha" (4:03)
  6. "The Predator" (4:03)
  7. "It Was a Good Day" (4:19)
  8. "We Had to Tear This Muthafucka Up" (4:24)
  9. "Fuck 'em (Insert)" (2:02)
  10. "Dirty Mack" (4:34)
  11. "Don't Trust 'Em" (4:06)
  12. "Gangsta's Fairytale 2" (3:19)
  13. "Check Yo Self"--featuring Das Efx (3:42)
  14. "Who Got the Camera?" (4:37)
  15. "Integration (Insert)" (2:31)
  16. "Say Hi to the Bad Guy" (3:22)
  17. "Check Yo Self"--'The Message' remix (3:54)
  18. "It Was a Good Day"--remix (4:28)
  19. "24 Wit an L" (3:25)
  20. "U Ain't Gonna Take My Life" (4:09)

On April 29, 1992, an all-white jury in Simi Valley looked at the footage of four white cops beating up a helpless black motorist named Rodney King, decided they didn't give a shit about the facts of the case, and handed down a "Not Guilty" verdict. By nightfall, the people of South Central Los Angeles decided they'd had enough bullshit, and turned the city streets into a modern version of 1776 Boston. A year later, Ice Cube laid on wax his own perspective of those events, which basically boiled down to: "Hey, I toldja! I toldja South Central was a powder keg ready to explode!" Whether or not anyone actually listened is a ripe subject for debate, but several years later, not a damn thing's changed really...the country's moved on to more sinister topics, like terrorism and child-molesting priests and other pointless crap.

But, whatever. With the aftermath of the riots fresh on everyone's mind, Ice Cube's venomous rage seems a bit directionless and unfocused here, although he does lay it down good in the song "We Had to Tear This Motherfucker Up", which is about the riots themselves. That's basically all I bought the album for, since the rest is kinda crappy, and my short-lived fascination with gangsta rap had reached a dead end by this point. After all, you can't change the world overnight, and sometimes you gotta wonder if the world really wants to be changed...

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