Ice Cube says there was a time when hard-core rap more closely reflected life in the inner city. But as years passed, it became more commercial and less in touch with reality. He wanted to bring back that old feel with his eighth solo album, “Raw Footage.”
“This is uncut hip-hop for the brain, not the booty,” says Ice Cube (aka O’Shea Jackson), 39. Around 1993 or 1994, “that kind of music got put on the back burner and it became about what I call escapism rap. That’s where all you talk about is money, jewelry, clubs and women and don’t talk about the problems around you.”
The album coincides with a 22-city tour that wraps in Reno on Saturday, and his role in “The Longshots,” the Fred Durst-directed family drama that co-stars Keke Palmer as Jasmine Plummer, 11, the first female to quarterback in a Pop Warner football tournament. It was released in August and just came to DVD.
“Raw Footage,” which was released on Ice Cube’s independent Lench Mob Records, covers a broad range of topics, looking at random violence through a victim’s eyes (“Why Me?”) and challenging complacency in poor neighborhoods (“Hood Mentality”). On “Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It,” he takes on hip-hop detractors, who he says blamed the music for everything from the Don Imus controversy to NFL star Michael Vick’s dogfighting ring.
“I just wanted to show how hypocritical it is to think like that,” says Ice Cube. “Rap is a mirror. And if you’re ugly, you can’t blame the mirror.”
Ice Cube has maintained dual careers in music and film, though those personas are somewhat different. The scowling rapper who has authored such incendiary albums as “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted,” “Lethal Injection” and “Death Certificate” is also the likable star of multi-film comedy franchises “Friday,” “Barbershop” and “Are We There Yet?”
Since making his debut in John Singleton’s groundbreaking “Boyz N the Hood” in 1991, he has appeared in more than 25 movies, writing and producing many of them through his production company, CubeVision. He just finished “Janky Promoters,” in which he and Mike Epps play shady promoters who book Young Jeezy for a concert but can’t pay him. Ice Cube also wants to assume the Mr. T role in Singleton’s remake of “The A-Team.” Both are due in 2009.
“Rapping is real and movies are make-believe,” Ice Cube says about juggling the two.
He says his role as a down-on-his-luck former player who coaches his pigtailed niece in “Longshots” gave him a rare chance to be in a drama.
“This is a movie where you have a couple of people who don’t know where they fit in,” says Ice Cube, who produced the film. “Through football, they get their self-esteem back.”
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