"It's funny how people who ain't never been down there can think that America is so fair and that we should be alright. "If you pump drugs and guns into our community - or any lower class community - and not give the people any outlet, any way out, then what do you expect the outcome will be?" Jackson asks. "The stuff with George Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger is obvious," he says. On tracks "The Nigga Trapp" and "Why We Thugs," Jackson rails against politicians George Bush and California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. He underlines his status as the father of hip-hop: "Child Support" and the crunked-up, Lil Jon-produced "Go to Church", also featuring Snoop Dogg, are scathing attacks on unnamed up-and-coming rappers who talk the talk without giving the king of the West Coast his due.īut Jackson saves his strongest vitriol for bigger targets. His maturity and experience shine through, as does his anger that so little has changed since he first appeared on the scene. Jackson's latest album, 2006's "Laugh Now, Cry Later," shows he is as relevant as ever.
Most notably, he has proved himself as an actor, from his acclaimed 1991 debut in "Boyz N The Hood" via a starring role in "Three Kings" alongside George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg to the Barbershop and Friday films, which have hit home his bankability as a movie star, director and producer. One of the richest men in hip-hop, Jackson has increasingly extended his reach beyond the hip-hop sphere. His work paints a bleak picture of America's black underclass where a good day means "I didn't even have to use my AK" and the funeral of a homeboy is "the only time black folks get to ride in a limo." A multimillion-selling artist and producer, he has catalogued America's social and political failings since he burst onto the West Coast scene with NWA and "Straight Outta Compton", in blistering verbal attacks which have influenced a generation of hip-hop artists from Tupac to Jay Z.įrom "AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted" to "Laugh Now, Cry Later", his stark portrayals of ghetto life's poverty-wracked, drug-fueled survivalism set against a backdrop of LA riots, gangs and gun crime show a side of America its leaders would prefer to keep under wraps his lyrical fluidity has seen him both decried as racist and misogynist and hailed as poet-hero. Straight-talking, aggressive and antagonistic, Ice Cube, aka O'Shea Jackson, the godfather of gangsta rap, pulls no punches. He was best known for his character in John Singleton's Oscar-nominated film Boyz n the Hood (1991), as the triggerman who murdered high school football star Ricky Baker and was later killed in retaliation.
Nigga killed a Crip and a Blood in the hood" Lloyd Fernandez Avery II (J September 4, 2005) was an American actor. Y'all wanna know why there's noise in the hoodĬause there's drugs in the hood, thugs in the hood "It's boyz in the hood, it's toys in the hood