^ No Bruno!
It’s easy to first look at Ice Cube’s debut and followup solo albums as a contest between Mike Tyson and one of his lesser opponents but don’t cut the ‘Death Certificate’ CD short just because it wasn’t produced by The Bomb Squad like ‘AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted’ was. The common thread that makes AMW and DC both undeniably hardbody classics is that one of rap music’s GOAT (def top 5 DOA) is gripping the microphone.
In between 1987 and 1992 there was no one spitting the disaffection of the ghetto youth better than Ice Cube was. Cube would basically be cut from the cloth that would later on give us Naughty by Nature, 2Pac, Mobb Deep and even Fifty Cent. Stylewise, Ice Cube is the father of danceable rap-nihilism. Think about that. Think about all the sick shit you can say behind some funky-ass bass-filled loops. That’s what Ice Cube did in 1989 when he linked with the producers of Public Enemy’s signature soundscape.
Not to diss any other piece of Hip-Hop music, but ‘AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted’ is a flawless victory. Yes, the production is ridiculous. Between this album and Public Enemy’s ‘Fear Of A Black Planet’ which dropped the following year we hear the last time Hip-Hop would be this sonically dense and layered. Peep the tracklist for ‘AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted‘. I can’t even imagine more than two(2) of these songs being able to be legally published in the current litigation loaded rap game.
When Ivan Rott isn’t sucking at picking NCAA teams or starting a senseless blogger fight he is doing some good for the culture by creating folders of sample sources. Keep up the good work Ivan and stay out of the lane of the dumb shit.
As incredible as the Bomb Squad was at this time they were barely ready to handle the likes of Ice Cube. By the time his first solo LP was completed he had already drafted two(2) mega-classic joints in ‘Eazy Duz It’ and ‘Straight Outta Compton’. The latter of which is the first and only rap album that an architect at my old office asked me to buy for him. ‘AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted is in reality the 4th album that Ice Cube had penned professionally. Dude was this prolific Picasso from the Pacific Coast Highway projects and he established the entire westside as official hardbody status.
NYC reels from those effects even today as the Bloods and Crips gangs have been adopted by disaffected east coast kids. Apparently gangs have decided to merge and consolidate much like their corporate counterparts. I would have never believed that NYC would follow any other places streetcode system but that was the power of Cube’s poetry. I’m going to play a few tracks from ‘AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted’ that show how retarded nice Cube was. For a period of several years he was unfukwittable…
^ The most menacing cover art evar.
‘AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted’
Yeah, the Bomb Squad, particularly Eric ‘Vietnam’ Sadler produced the FUX out of this album. This was some shit they had been perfecting for years with Chuck D as the frontman over this wall of noise. Ice Cube actually fits in the groove like he studied the Bomb Squad’s bars from afar. Shit is fast and hard [ll]. You couldn’t block Cube’s blows at this point in time. Maybe only G-Rap or Rakim could place in this race.
‘The Nigga You Love To Hate’
Oh shit! If ‘Funky Drummer’ is the most sampled breakbeat in Hip-Hop history ‘Atomic Dog’ is the everlasting bassline. I hate to use this relationship, but Ice Cube is lyrically ruthless. This is how you beat a song down to the ground. Ice Cube’s lyrics are incredible because there are no polysyllabic words in his verses (actually there were two – retaliate and motherfuckers, LOL).
Words that might have been longer are contracted into three-letter, one vowel associations. Penitentiaries are now “pens” while gatling guns are of course “gats”. When rappers today shorten phrases and words it’s done in an effort to say less, Cube shortened words to add more into his verses. Ice Cube was L.A.’s LL Cool J.
‘Who’s The Mack?’
Before you think that Ice Cube has totally migrated into the frenetic sound of the New York City streets he kicks a slick flow over a lazy lowriding bassline. Smooth and deadly.
‘Endangered Species’ featuring Chuck D
Back to killing shit and killing motherfuckers rhymebooks. Ice Cube was the dude who incited the Virginia Beach riots from the cartrunks and pickup trucks of angry college kids. Then it was the Death Certificate’s lyrics that set shit off post-Rodney King trial.
If you told me that Ice Cube would be ‘Are We There Yet’ after ‘Burn Hollywood, Burn’ I would have called you a fool or worse. This is why I haven’t seen any other Ice Cube movie than ‘Friday’. I won’t allow this man to ruin the Ice Cube who I met one night in a smoke filled Soul Kitchen party at S.O.B.’s. That Ice Cube was kidnapped. This new incarnation is a robot.
Check out Combat Jack’s Daily Math later today for his rebuttal regarding the dominance of Death Certificate.
