Ice Cube's enemies list
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He may have gotten slightly more family friendly as of late, but make no mistake: Ice Cube has plenty of people who should still be scared of him. Returning this summer with Raw Footage—on which he threatened to “fist-fight the president,” no less—Cube made it clear that no matter how many shitty kids’ movies he might star in, he’s far from going soft. Those who plan on checking out his set at the Mohawk this Sunday might want to take that into consideration and make sure they don’t fall into one of the following categories—and if they do, they should probably check themselves before they wreck themselves.
The other members of N.W.A.
Although music history is littered with the broken husks of bands that, for whatever reason, suddenly decided they couldn’t fucking stand one another, few groups suffered the kind of nuclear fallout that N.W.A. did. (Just ask Dee Barnes.) Angry over Eazy-E’s close relationship with Ruthless Records’ Jerry Heller, Cube left his partners over royalty disputes, then set to work spreading that bad blood all over town, beginning with “A Message To The Oreo Cookie”—widely interpreted to be aimed squarely at “sell-out” Eazy-E. The shot across the bow sparked a vicious rebuttal from N.W.A. in the form of songs like “100 Miles And Runnin’” and “A Message To B.A.,” which referred to him as “Benedict Arnold” before threatening to “fuck you with a broomstick.” Cube hit back hard: The infamous “No Vaseline” alleged that that if his former crew “were smart as me / Eazy-E would be hangin’ from a tree.” He later patched things up with everyone (except for Eazy, who died of AIDS in 1995), but not before the feud spawned some of the greatest “diss” tracks of all time—ensuring their vendetta would last in perpetuity.
Although music history is littered with the broken husks of bands that, for whatever reason, suddenly decided they couldn’t fucking stand one another, few groups suffered the kind of nuclear fallout that N.W.A. did. (Just ask Dee Barnes.) Angry over Eazy-E’s close relationship with Ruthless Records’ Jerry Heller, Cube left his partners over royalty disputes, then set to work spreading that bad blood all over town, beginning with “A Message To The Oreo Cookie”—widely interpreted to be aimed squarely at “sell-out” Eazy-E. The shot across the bow sparked a vicious rebuttal from N.W.A. in the form of songs like “100 Miles And Runnin’” and “A Message To B.A.,” which referred to him as “Benedict Arnold” before threatening to “fuck you with a broomstick.” Cube hit back hard: The infamous “No Vaseline” alleged that that if his former crew “were smart as me / Eazy-E would be hangin’ from a tree.” He later patched things up with everyone (except for Eazy, who died of AIDS in 1995), but not before the feud spawned some of the greatest “diss” tracks of all time—ensuring their vendetta would last in perpetuity.
Uncle Sam
Seeing as he believes (according to “When Will They Shoot?”) that “Uncle Sam is Hitler without an oven”—plus the fact that he can’t spell “America” without “KKK”—it’s a given that Cube’s not exactly a red-blooded patriot. That’s because, in his pessimistic worldview, “the land of opportunity” is all but closed off to African-Americans: As “A Bird In The Hand” asks, “Do I gotta go sell me a whole lotta crack / For decent shelter and clothes on my back? / Or should I just wait for help from Bush?” So it’s understandable that Cube would be less than eager to join up with the military—but then, no conscientious objector in history has threatened to find Uncle Sam and “put my gat in his mouth / Pump seventeen rounds make his brains hang out” the way that Cube does in “I Wanna Kill Sam.” Later he declares, “Bitch, you can fight your own wars”—which makes his appearance in Three Kings just a tad hypocritical. (Or maybe just hilarious.)
Seeing as he believes (according to “When Will They Shoot?”) that “Uncle Sam is Hitler without an oven”—plus the fact that he can’t spell “America” without “KKK”—it’s a given that Cube’s not exactly a red-blooded patriot. That’s because, in his pessimistic worldview, “the land of opportunity” is all but closed off to African-Americans: As “A Bird In The Hand” asks, “Do I gotta go sell me a whole lotta crack / For decent shelter and clothes on my back? / Or should I just wait for help from Bush?” So it’s understandable that Cube would be less than eager to join up with the military—but then, no conscientious objector in history has threatened to find Uncle Sam and “put my gat in his mouth / Pump seventeen rounds make his brains hang out” the way that Cube does in “I Wanna Kill Sam.” Later he declares, “Bitch, you can fight your own wars”—which makes his appearance in Three Kings just a tad hypocritical. (Or maybe just hilarious.)
Cops
Of all Ice Cube’s enemies, none take more frequent abuse than the fuzz, who have been a target of his vitriol ever since N.W.A.’s “Fuck The Police” asserted that “Ice Cube will swarm / On any motherfucker in a blue uniform.” Indeed he has: On “Endangered Species (Tales From The Darkside),” Cube offers the alternative police credo, “To serve, protect, and break a nigga’s neck.” Maybe he feels that way because every time he runs afoul of them, they don’t seem especially concerned with his Miranda rights: In “Who Got The Camera?” they pull him over and immediately proceed to “put my ass in a choke hold.” Even the relatively benign officer who stops Cube in “Say Hi To The Bad Guy” threatens to “gaffle” him if he doesn’t hand over a bear claw. No wonder the mere fact that he “saw the police and they rolled right past me” is enough for Cube to decide “It Was A Good Day.” (By the way, it’ll be interesting to see how this attitude plays into Cube’s upcoming “buddy cop” show.)
Of all Ice Cube’s enemies, none take more frequent abuse than the fuzz, who have been a target of his vitriol ever since N.W.A.’s “Fuck The Police” asserted that “Ice Cube will swarm / On any motherfucker in a blue uniform.” Indeed he has: On “Endangered Species (Tales From The Darkside),” Cube offers the alternative police credo, “To serve, protect, and break a nigga’s neck.” Maybe he feels that way because every time he runs afoul of them, they don’t seem especially concerned with his Miranda rights: In “Who Got The Camera?” they pull him over and immediately proceed to “put my ass in a choke hold.” Even the relatively benign officer who stops Cube in “Say Hi To The Bad Guy” threatens to “gaffle” him if he doesn’t hand over a bear claw. No wonder the mere fact that he “saw the police and they rolled right past me” is enough for Cube to decide “It Was A Good Day.” (By the way, it’ll be interesting to see how this attitude plays into Cube’s upcoming “buddy cop” show.)
Bitches
Although Cube loves to hit “the nappy dugout,” he certainly seems to have trouble finding a girl worthy of taking home to mom. In “Once Upon A Time In The Projects,” he meets someone he’s interested in, only to discover she lives with her gangbangin’ brother, 13-year-old pregnant sister, and drug-dealing mother in a crack house. The caliber of women he chooses is clearly a problem: In “You Can’t Fade Me,” he gets with Carla, “the neighborhood hussy,” only to be fingered for knocking her up—which pisses him off so much he reflects, “What I need to do is kick the bitch in the tummy.” Then there’s the “stringy hair, no derriere, frontin’ and fakin’ with your silicone pair” white girls who want to get with him in “Cave Bitch,” a prospect that Cube compares to “kinda like Barbie fucking Bob Marley.” But even though he admonishes white girls that “your ass too flat / I need a butt big enough that can clap,” he’s smart enough to know that “you can’t trust a big butt and a smile” in “Don’t Trust ’Em”: They’re likely to get you home, get you naked, then jack you and put you in a trunk. And afterward, they won’t even snuggle!
Macks
As wary an eye as Ice Cube casts on his potential amours, that’s nothing compared to the guys who try to steal them away. Posers like the targets of “Who’s The Mack?”, for example: “Some brother in a big hat / Thinking he can get any bitch with a good rap.” In Cube’s world, these men always turn out to be pimps-in-training who will “have your ass in and out of every car;” or they’re crackheads who “wanna pump the gas / Give you a sad story and you give him the cash;” or they’re players in the club “asking if you ever been in a hot tub” so that “hopefully they can start tagging the pussy so he can keep bragging.” But judge not lest ye be judged, Cube, since you’re not above a little bragging yourself: In “Dirty Mack,” he boasts that “there’s a new girl on my street / And I’m-a introduce her to my meat,” only to be cock-blocked by an interloper who blabs to her “about all the hos that I ran up in.” Ethics aside, Cube always has a “big fat gat for the dirty mack.” What, you didn’t know it was like that?
As wary an eye as Ice Cube casts on his potential amours, that’s nothing compared to the guys who try to steal them away. Posers like the targets of “Who’s The Mack?”, for example: “Some brother in a big hat / Thinking he can get any bitch with a good rap.” In Cube’s world, these men always turn out to be pimps-in-training who will “have your ass in and out of every car;” or they’re crackheads who “wanna pump the gas / Give you a sad story and you give him the cash;” or they’re players in the club “asking if you ever been in a hot tub” so that “hopefully they can start tagging the pussy so he can keep bragging.” But judge not lest ye be judged, Cube, since you’re not above a little bragging yourself: In “Dirty Mack,” he boasts that “there’s a new girl on my street / And I’m-a introduce her to my meat,” only to be cock-blocked by an interloper who blabs to her “about all the hos that I ran up in.” Ethics aside, Cube always has a “big fat gat for the dirty mack.” What, you didn’t know it was like that?
White people
Most of Ice Cube’s enemies have done something specific—cheated him out of money, falsely arrested him, possibly given him venereal disease—but his most venomous vitriol is served up machine gun-style at the widest of targets: White people have officially been on notice since 1992, and they still have retired L.A. Police Chief Daryl Gates (whom he threatened to turn into a “Kentucky Fried Cracker” in “The Wrong Nigga To Fuck Wit”) and the Rodney King jury to blame. “Why you have to leave it to Beaver?” he asks in “Now I Gotta Wet’Cha.” "Now I'm chasin’ Beaver's ass with a cleaver.” On “The Predator” he takes it one step further, declaring war on all of white America (“Niggas are sick of your white man's tricks with no treat / That's right now it's on on sight”) and offering a rare moment of self-aware candor: “So who is Ice Cube?/ I'm a rapper, actor, macker / Got a little problem with the redneck cracker.” Consider yourself warned.
Most of Ice Cube’s enemies have done something specific—cheated him out of money, falsely arrested him, possibly given him venereal disease—but his most venomous vitriol is served up machine gun-style at the widest of targets: White people have officially been on notice since 1992, and they still have retired L.A. Police Chief Daryl Gates (whom he threatened to turn into a “Kentucky Fried Cracker” in “The Wrong Nigga To Fuck Wit”) and the Rodney King jury to blame. “Why you have to leave it to Beaver?” he asks in “Now I Gotta Wet’Cha.” "Now I'm chasin’ Beaver's ass with a cleaver.” On “The Predator” he takes it one step further, declaring war on all of white America (“Niggas are sick of your white man's tricks with no treat / That's right now it's on on sight”) and offering a rare moment of self-aware candor: “So who is Ice Cube?/ I'm a rapper, actor, macker / Got a little problem with the redneck cracker.” Consider yourself warned.
