Race Jones
gangster. grace. alchemy
In 1991, the Hip-Hop world awaited Ice Cube’s follow-up to his 1990 solo debut, AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted. The former N.W.A. member had taken a bold step in pursuing a career of his own, and even more so by enlisting the help of definitively East Coast-sounding production crew, Bomb Squad, to assist him in his efforts. For those reasons and more, 1991’s Death Certificate would be where he would prove his staying power, and it remains one of his most celebrated efforts today, more than 25 years later. As one of music’s most outspoken and controversial players at the time, Ice Cube in many ways gave political voice to a generation of young Black Americans just one generation removed from the Black Panthers. Formed in the 1960s, they became one of the most influential political groups in American history, and undoubtedly inspired Ice Cube and others to argue for justice in their own lives.
Angela Davis, a political activist, educator, and Black Panther icon sat down with Cube in 1991 to discuss race, politics, Rap, and more, a meeting which resulted in a two-hour conversation that has been preservedby Indiana University Press and W.E.B. Du Bois Institute. As seen on Shadow & Act, a snippet of the interview was filmed for Rap City, and reportedly happened because Cube’s publicist at the time (Leyla Turkkan) hoped that the interview would “position Ice Cube as ‘an inheritor of the Black radical tradition,'” as cited from Jeff Chang’s book Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation.
#BonusBeat: Check out this 1992 footage of Ice Cube’s speech at Ohio State University, where he discussed racism in America, police brutality, and more.
