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August 28, 2006
Criminally, critically underrated
Criminally, critically underrated is a new feature that will tackle some well-known (and some unknown) recording artists and make an argument that their artistic achievements have perhaps been unappreciated. It is wholly unscientific and slightly hyberbolic.
There are some universal truths in credible hip-hop historical analysis.
Most mainstream music lists on hip-hop are whack. Rakim is perhaps the greatest MC of all time. Nas’ Illmatic is perhaps the greatest album of all time, or, at the least, represented what a hip-hop album should feel or sound like. 2Pac should not be anywhere near the top of the list. Both Eminem and Jay-Z’s careers are like if Tiger Woods won that 2000-stretch of majors, but spent the rest of his career dominating regular tournament play, but only winning one or two more majors.
Lost in this commentary, I feel, is one MC who does not get as nearly enough critical props for his contribution to hip-hop. That man is Ice Cube.
Bursting on the scene with NWA, a super group that arguably only had one truly competent rapper (guess who?), NWA is a great study in music and the human condition. They had absolute very little to say redeeming to say about the plight of the inner city, but conveyed such a raw, emotional reaction to the environment that made everyone else overreact to think that NWA’s popularity portended a rise against the police and government. In reality, many people dug NWA the way that frat boys dug Rage Against the Machine: a form of amping oneself up. I don’t doubt there are plenty of Bush-supporting conservatives with RATM still in their stereo, despite its obvious anti-establishment pathos.
Ice Cube, as a neighborhood storyteller, is surprisingly unparalleled (save for Nas’ early work, Slick Rick, and Ghostface Killah). His evocations of a protagonist's thoughts of the day can seem as rich and realistic as any poet. Save for the few murderous daydream scenarios involving his Tech-9, Cube applies a sociologist approach to his rap craft. Unfortunately, Cube’s (and his narrators') viewpoints are incredibly misogynistic, racist, and anti-Semitic. As I am in the not putting myself in the position of critiquing the positive contribution of his overall world view, these facts, while important, do not apply much here. But what is most fascinating about Ice Cube is that he HAS that world view, devoid in a music community today where mainstream acts celebrate the spoils of the victors (all fine, in my opinion), but fail to contemplate what that means for anything (wasted effort).
If you listen to today’s rap, it is surprisingly collegial. Unidentified foes (haters) always lurk, but it’s oft “all good in the hood” and females are clean, sexy, and suppliant. Not so, in Cube’s world vision, where real enemies were the next block over, hos had mass sexual diseases, and the world was incorrect in its assumptions. Cube’s anthems were not salutary, but quite the opposite: his fear was that everyone would willingly accept the world as a Champagne-toting affair had he not speak.
Ice Cube hated (or feared) nearly everyone, but the Nation of Islam and ten percenters. He even hated (of feared) Ice Cube: some of his sharpest incisions felt Cube-ward. Many salute Enimen for his elucidating the confusion of the human condition in his songs, but his mea culpa seem too clean, too calculated, too non-freestyle. Cube was (no longer is) a crazy mutherfucker who said any and everything, and what it wrought was a muddled mess that holds no shape other than the human form. As if it wasn't clear before, much of what actually popped out of Ice Cube's mouth is indefensible. But it is art.
As Jeff Chang wrote in his inhumanly brilliant book Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, “It was as if Cube had taken Public Enemy’s gunsight off the young Black male, and was waving the weapon from target to target, at each and all those lined up around and against him.”
Thanks to the Cornerstone Mixtape series, I will post some snippets of some tracks and an analysis.
Look Who’s Burnin’ – Ice Cube visits the free clinic and tells stories about the afflicted denizens.
How to Survive in South Central LA- The wordplay is just brilliant – “Rule number one: get yourself a gun; a nine in your ass will do fine.”
A bird in the hand - “Fresh out of school, cuz I was a high school grad; got to get a job because I was a high school dad.” Find any modern day rapper on Hot 97 speaking about out-of-wedlock children in the first person.
And, perhaps, the catchiest song about murderous rage: When Will They Shoot? So bouncy, it will have white men mouthing “White man is something I tried to study, but I got my hands bloody.”
You may not like you attraction to the song, but it's there nonetheless.
Ice Cube does not deserve to be in the top five MCs of all time, but a case could be made for top ten, if using the arguments above.
Posted by Keith O'Brien at August 28, 2006 07:40 AM
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Comments
nicely done. "Summer Vacation" is one of my favorites and Ice Cube has reappeared in my rotation within the last few months. classic.
Posted by: Jay at August 28, 2006 05:34 PM
