“Ice Cube is not for the pop charts.”
Twenty seven years ago, Ice Cube’s dropped those eight words on “Express Yourself”, and they would be a prophetic description of what was to happen two years later.
A quarter of a century ago today (May 16, 1990), Ice Cube released his solo debut. AmeriKKKas Most Wanted signaled his post-N.W.A. career, and the acrimonious split left fans eager to hear Cubes perspective. However, what those supporters received was more dynamic than one mans tale of anger and revenge, and the album remains one of the most complete, well-rounded debuts in Hip-Hop history. Produced almost entirely by Public Enemys beat-making team the Bomb Squad (with supervision from his longtime affiliate Sir Jinx), the album allowed Cube to step outside of the West Coast sound in which he had been so deeply entrenched and its release just one month after Fear Of A Black Planet made its themes of racism and disenfranchisement particularly apropos.
Read the full story from our friends at Ambrosia For Heads here.
