We’re sitting in a posh suite at the Four Seasons, 20 miles and a lifetime away from the South Central neighborhood where Cube grew up writing aggressive rhymes inspired by the struggle and strife he saw around him. Gary Gray, behind the camera, “but they wanted it to depict more of a party atmosphere instead of what really happened, what really went down,” Cube told The Daily Beast in an exclusive interview last weekend in Beverly Hills. Dre, Eazy-E, MC Ren, and DJ Yella their own asses on wax in 1991 after his infamous break from the group with the celebrated diss track “No Vaseline.”Īn N.W.A movie had been pitched to Cube for years before it took shape with his Friday director and close friend, F. A warts-and-all chronicle of the rise and fall of N.W.A (well, minus a few glaring omissions), the 1990s-set biopic is his most personal artistic expression since handing former BFFs Dr. Dre get heated over anything in decades-let alone face off against cops, incite crowds to civil disobedience, trifle with groupies, dabble with gangbangers, or beef with rival crews with the kind of hostility that used to lead to savage beatdowns, or worse.īut Ice Cube’s worlds have never collided as thoroughly as they do in his latest film, Straight Outta Compton. What’s more, the now-adult children of the ‘90s who grew up bobbing their heads and pumping their fists to N.W.A’s confrontational bangers haven’t seen Cube or his Beats-pushing billionaire squadmate Dr.

A whole generation of kids know him best as the irritable dad from the Are We There Yet? movies (not to mention Boyz n the Hood, the Friday films, two Barbershops, Ride Along, and 21/ 22 Jump Street), thanks to a carefully cultivated career crossover Cube started engineering for himself soon after striking out on his own. The rapper born O’Shea Jackson is now also Ice Cube: 46-year-old family man, Hollywood actor, writer, and producer whose films have grossed over $1.3 billion to date. But life has changed drastically for Ice Cube over three decades of turbulent highs and lows and beefs and breakups, in a career that’s seen the gifted lyricist evolve from West Coast gangsta rapper to the N.W.A defector and chart-topping solo MC who once proclaimed himself AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted. It’s safe to say the younger, hungrier, angrier Cube depicted in Straight Outta Compton would have far harsher words for his detractors. We want people to be real even when criticizing… and if you don’t like the movie, you can kill yourself.” And that’s fine, because it’s all about being real. I can expect some people will love the film and hate the group still. “For those that came around, welcome to 2016,” Ice Cube smiled to a roomful of journalists on a recent afternoon in Beverly Hills.

He’s also softened his stance on critics. Nowadays, Ice Cube is a producer of Universal’s N.W.A biopic Straight Outta Compton, and the father of one of its stars (24-year-old O’Shea Jackson Jr., who plays his own dad). Once upon a time a crazy motherfucker named Ice Cube burst onto the rap scene, pissing off politicians and police officers with his N.W.A crew by speaking truth to the street injustice he witnessed on a daily basis in his Compton, California, ‘hood.īack then N.W.A raised a middle finger to the suits, authorities, enemies, and critics who didn’t like what they had to say or how they said it, buoyed by the album sales, fans, and groupies that told them they were onto something with tracks like “Straight Outta Compton,” “Gangsta Gangsta,” and “Fuck Tha Police.”

Ice cube compton