History & Now, Music

Songs where Ice Cube flips a middle finger to the system

words by: Kai Acevedo

Dec 1, 2020

Coming straight out of South Central, Ice Cube has always stood up for what he’s believed in. In tweets and in interviews the legendary rapper and Hollywood power player has continued to clap back at haters and misguided naysayers that have called him a sellout and compared him to supporters of former President Donald Trump like Kanye West, Lil Wayne and Lil Pump after Cube presented his “Contract with Black America” to the Trump Administration. The “Contract with Black America,” which attempts to “address the root causes of racism in our society and develop a roadmap for a comprehensive solution,” while focusing on “banking and finance, justice, policing, education, Hollywood depictions,” is just another example of Cube taking things into his own hands. For those who may have forgotten what Ice Cube has always been about, here’s a few tracks to refresh your memory.

“Fuck tha Police”

Year: 1988

Album: Straight Outta Compton

Lethal Lyrics: “Fuck the police coming straight from the underground/A young nigga got it bad because I’m brown/And not the other color, so police think they have the authority/To kill a minority”

“Turn Off the Radio”

Year: 1990

Album: AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted

Lethal Lyrics: “What I’m kicking to you won’t get rotation/Nowhere in the nation/Program directors and DJ’s ignored me/Because I simply said fuck Top Forty/And top thirty, top twenty and top ten/Until you put more hip-hop in”

“Black Korea”

Year: 1991

Album: Death Certificate

Lethal Lyrics: “So don’t follow me up and down your market/Or your little chop suey ass will be a target/Of the nationwide boycott”

“No Vaseline”

Year: 1991

Album: Death Certificate

Lethal Lyrics: “You’re getting fucked out your green/By a white boy, with no vaseline”

“When Will They Shoot”

Year: 1992

Album: The Predator

Lethal Lyrics: “Uncle Sam is Hitler without an oven/Burning our black skin/Buy my neighborhood, then push the crack in”

“Why We Thugs”

Year: 2006

Album: Laugh Now, Cry Later

Lethal Lyrics: “It’s the same old saying/Bush run shit like Saddam Hussein”

“Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It”

Year: 2008

Album: Raw Footage

Lethal Lyrics: “So if I act like a pimp, ain’t nothing to it/Gangsta rap made me do it/If I call you a nappy-headed ho, ain’t nothing to it/Gangsta rap made me do it/If I shoot up your college, ain’t nothing to it/Gangsta rap made me do it”