Ice Cube
Ice Cube
O'Shea Jackson Sr., known by his stage name Ice Cube, is an American rapper, songwriter, actor, record producer and filmmaker. He began his career as a member of the hip-hop group C.I.A. and later joined the seminal rap group N.W.A. After leaving N.W.A in December 1989, he built a successful solo career in music and films. Additionally, he has served as one of the producers of the Showtime television series Barbershop and the TBS series Are We There Yet?, both...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionRapper
Date of Birth15 June 1969
CityLos Angeles, CA
CountryUnited States of America
As far as producing, once we started shooting, I soon realized where the critical decisions about the movies were really being made, and it wasn't on the set. They were being made in the production meetings. That's where producing a movie happens. And that's where I wanted to be. I didn't just want to be a piece, a pawn being played. I wanted to take part in the creative process, and that's how I sort of got introduced to the idea.
The creative process of making a movie really turned me on. I'd started getting behind the scenes with a camcorder and VHS tape when making music videos.
The hardest period for a writer is the period in-between writing. That's when you can go crazy if you don't allow the creative juices to flow.
To see it as a game is dope. You know they've got all these other games, and they finally gave a little respect to one of the classic movies in American history.
What I wanted people to recognize is that racism is in all of us, in layers. Some in more layers than others. It's not just the Klan guy and the black-fist guy, and it's about peeling away those layers.
Black. White' will force people to challenge themselves.
We wanted to be true to what a barbershop is, so every headline we could grab between the first 'Barbershop' and the second was in there,
I thought it was a good opportunity to perform on TV and get the message out there.
I think the worst thing you can do about a situation is nothing. You have to get it out in the open. You have to talk about it.
I remember wishing there was snow in L.A. And how jealous we used to get of those Christmas specials with kids playing in the snow.
When I was in N.W.A. and didn't get paid all the money I was owed, that's when the business side of showbiz hit me.
South Central is just who I am. Even though I have a nice house, nice family, the rest of my generation is still in South Central L.A. My cousins, my brothers, my sisters, they don't wanna move out.
It's not like I'm the first man ever to do this, y'know? You gotta go back to Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby and Sammy Davis Jr. Those are people who've done music well and movies well, and y'know, Frank Sinatra and Elvis and all these dudes have made the transition. I don't know about Elvis, 'bout doin' 'em good, y'know? It's nothin' new.
'Boyz-n-the-Hood' was actually supposed to be written for Eazy's group. He had a group out in New York called Home Boys Only, called HBO. One of them looked like LL Cool J. Eazy wanted to write a song for them, a street song, like what we were doing on the mix tapes. So when I wrote it, it was too West Coast for them.