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
My grandmother worked at one of those Bel-Air mansions, and we would go - not too often, but every now and then - to pick her up. Hollywood was probably 12 miles from my house, but it might as well have been a million miles away. The only time I saw that world was on TV. Until I started making records.
But with rap music - not just N.W.A. - but rap music in general, seeing these artists wearing these team logos all the time started bringing a synergy and energy about having to rep your city, your team, everywhere and all the time.
It was just funny to me that some of our leaders would take that much time and energy to dismiss something that was loved by so many of our people,
Cool people still have a hard time showing what they got in Hollywood.
You pay to have a good time, you don't always want to pay to be schooled or sad or reminded how bad you got it. To me a movie theater ain't always the place for that.
Black. White' will force people to challenge themselves.
I thought it was a good opportunity to perform on TV and get the message out there.
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.
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.
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,
Everybody is worried about the guy with the black power, leather jacket on, Afro ... worried about those kind of people and not really knowing that racism is not just the obvious.
It will force people to challenge themselves and really examine where we stand in terms of race.
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 have a lot of milestones that I'm proud of when it comes to music, 'Amerikkka's Most Wanted,' I'm extremely proud of that. Just because of what I had to go through to get that music produced, that album produced.