Ice Cube is a West Coast legend who has been not only at the forefront of music but also a prominent actor and filmmaker. The emcee 9real name O’Shea Jackson) is known for his iconic albums, such as AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted and Death Certificate.
However, before he embarked on a solo career, he was part of the epic gangster rap group NWA alongside Dr Dre, Eazy-E, DJ Yella and MC Ren. As part of the group, he made history and put California on the map.
The group, which was formed in 1986, had massive commercial success. However, in 1989, Jackson decided to break away from the collective after becoming frustrated with the crew’s manager and founder of Ruthless Records, Jerry Heller.
Ice Cube (real name O’Shea Jackson) grew frustrated with the fact that Dr Dre, Eazy-E and MC Ren were being happily subservient to Jerry Heller when he was, in fact, exploiting them and robbing them of a lot of money. This culminated in the crew’s breakup and the iconic 1991 Ice Cube diss track ‘No Vaseline’.
In 1991, Cube released said diss track, taking aim at his former bandmates, Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, MC Ren, DJ Yella and their manager, Jerry Heller. In the track, he tells Dr Dre to stop rapping and “stick to producing” and, on multiple occasions, accuses the crew members of sodomy. ‘No Vaseline’ is a ruthless and vicious diss track. It’s main line is “You’re gettin’ fucked out your green (money) by a white boy with no Vaseline”.
However, Ice Cube has no issue with any of the surviving members of the crew, and in the leadup to the release of the collective’s 2015 Straight Outta Compton, Jackson answered some fan questions about his involvement with the group.
One fan asked the ‘You Can Do It’ emcee the last track he ever recorded as part of NWA to which he responded, “The last song I recorded with NWA it would have to be ‘Parental Discretion Advised’. That was the last song we recorded on the Straight Outta Compton record. You know, we definitely put our foot in it. I remember there was a whole bunch of competition around that record.”
He continued, “Everybody wanted to have the dopest verse. I think a few people, after they heard my verse, had to rewrite theirs, so I was proud of that. I sent them back to the drawing board, but that’s what NWA was about. It was a friendly competition. We used to get into big-ass arguments about what was going on the track, who was fresh, who was wack, what ideas were dope, what ideas weren’t.”
He concluded by explaining how he and the other members only took six weeks to record the entire album and assured fans that NWA was always prepared when they hit the studio.
You can watch Ice Cube answer fan questions about his time in NWA in the video below.
