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Ice Cube

Ice Cube was born O'Shea Jackson on June 15, 1969 in Los Angeles, California. He was raised in South Central LA by his parents, both of whom were employed at UCLA.

it all began with

a challenge made in a ninth grade typing class ...

Cube caught the rap bug while attending ninth grade at William Howard Taft High School when a classmate named Kiddo challenged him in a typing class. "One day, he asked me if I ever wrote a rap before. I told him, you write one, I write one and we'll see which one comes out better, and I won," recalls Cube. He later graduated from William Howard Taft High School, as pictured here.

... & continued with rhyming about

what's going on "in the hood"

After studying architecture in Phoenix, Ariz., Ice Cube returned to Los Angeles and rapping in 1987. He formed his own crew, the CIA, and began hanging around the South Central Club Scene where he met Dr. Dre, and they began rapping about what was going on in the neighborhood. Cube also worked with the World Class Wrecking Crew before joining the controversial rap group N.W.A. (Niggaz With Attitudes), which included Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, DJ Yella, MC Ren, and the Arabian Prince. Ice Cube wrote a song called Boyz-N-The-Hood that wound up on their first album, N.W.A. and the Posse. Later, Cube left N.W.A because he found himself at loggerheads with Eazy-E and his manager Jerry Heller.

Released in the spring of 1990, Ice Cube's debut solo album, AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, was an instant hit, going gold within its first two weeks of release. While the record's production and Cube's rhythmic skills were praised, his often violent, homophobic, and "women-hating" lyrics were criticized by the rock press and moral watchdogs. Even amid such controversy, the album was hailed as a groundbreaking classic within hip-hop, and it established Cube as an individual force.

Released on June 6, 2006, Ice Cube's Laugh Now, Cry Later album could be considered a comeback album since it's his first solo album in six years. In an interview Cube says that Laugh Now, Cry Later is really about the state of hip-hop, urban America, and all of America.

"Everybody's in this happy mood in their own world.  Consumerism and materialism is taking over. Nobody's worried about what's going on overseas. I didn’t want to make a record that was like a history book. I wanted to make a record that does what all good hip-hop does: It makes you feel good; it kind of pumps you up, but it also shows you a part of life that you might not have been paying attention to or might not even know exists."

film career takes cube into the mainstream

Ice Cube's film career began with his critically acclaimed role in Boyz N the Hood, a 1991 film by John Singleton. Before the opening scene of Boys N' the Hood, two important messages flash across the screen. The first is a statistic: 1 in 21 African American males will die of murder in their lifetime. The second expounds upon this point: “Most will be killed by other black males.” Director Singleton clearly wants the audience to keep these two points in mind during the film.

Cube plays aggressive and street smart Darin (nicknamed Doughboy) who has just been released from prison and seems to have changed, realizing that his drug dealing and crime played a part in the ongoing violence in the ghetto. But he also seems resigned to his fate and despondent about the overall situation in the neighborhood. Before the credits roll, it is mentioned that Doughboy is murdered two weeks after a friend's funeral, but that both Tre (played by Cuba Gooding, Jr.) and his girlfriend, Brandi, go on to college.

In 2002, Ice Cube starred in the commercially successful movie, Barbershop. In it Cube plays Calvin Palmer, Jr. who decides he's had enough of trying to  keep open the barbershop his father handed down to him, and he wants to earn some "real" money. So, without telling his employees or the customers, Calvin sells his barbershop to a greedy loan shark who promptly makes plans to turn the place into a strip club. After spending a day realizing how vital the barbershop is to the community, Calvin rethinks his decision, but has only a few hours to raise enough money to save the shop.

key to his success:

following a plan & seizing opportunities

When Ice Cube first appeared on the scene as a member of N.W.A., he quickly became one of the legends of the rap business. But, for Ice Cube, that just wasn't enough. He knew he had tapped into something that could be much bigger than just a career as another rapper.

When asked if, in making this transition, he ever had a master plan, Ice Cube said:

"The master plan comes after you learn the business. After the music business, what I did was tried to seize opportunities ... you know, tried to see what was out there for me. My pops always told me that 'the world is full of opportunities. You either take them or you deny them.' I always kept that in mind, so when I saw opportunities - opportunities like to write the video instead of just hiring somebody, or like the opportunity to see what the camera guy's doing - you either take advantage of them ... or you just hang out in your trailer."