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
I think when somebody goes to the movies and they spend their money and they take the girl out, the family, they want to have a good time. You don't always want to be hit over the head with history or how bad society is.
I've done movies for certain reasons; I did 'Anaconda' because the black man lives. Simple. The black man isn't dead in the first three pages, like Jurassic Park. It's like, 'The black man kills the snake with a Latino girl? Damn! I got to do this.'
I was given the name by my brother when I was about eleven or twelve years old. He was older than me, and around that age I was starting to get into girls, and when they would call the house for him, and when he was not there, I would try to talk to them. I was trying to be the man and trying to get them to come and see me, not worrying about him. When he found out... he started calling me Ice Cube as a joke because he said I was trying to be too cool. I just liked it and started telling everybody in the hood "my name is Ice Cube."
Sometimes guys just want the girl and want to drop the kids off anywhere they can. Guys it’s a package. You like a woman, she’s got kids, it’s a package. You can’t just go in one-sided. It’s pretty cool.
My worst ever car was a green Datsun B210, back when they called it 'Datsun' - now it's 'Nissan.' Very unsexy, unattractive. Girls hated the car. I was embarrassed to even be in it but it was my transportation.
I'm a menace to society, But girls in biker shorts are so fly to me. After the date, I'mma want to do the wild thing... You're talkin' lobster? I'm thinkin' Burger King.
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.
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 thought it was a good opportunity to perform on TV and get the message out there.
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.
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.
I've been caught in parachute pants. And on my high school yearbook, they used the wrong picture. They were supposed to use the picture of me with a nice suit on. They used me with my collar flipped up, in a fuchsia and white striped shirt. I blame Prince and Michael Jackson in the Eighties for that.