-
- The Guardian, Friday 18 July 2008
"I haven't been in London for a long motherfuckin' time," booms Ice Cube, an artist not normally given to understatement. It has been 15 years since the founder member of NWA last set foot on a British stage; 15 years during which O'Shea Jackson has improbably transformed himself from gangsta rap pioneer to the producer, director and star of family-friendly Hollywood comedies.
It's not a duality Cube wastes much time addressing. Dressed in black shirt, black jeans and a black LA Dodgers baseball cap, he looks like someone with time to make up and a reputation to reconstitute. The highs are intense: he thrashes through NWA anthems Straight Outta Compton and Gangsta, Gangsta; enjoins his fans to raise their middle fingers and shout "Fuck you, Ice Cube!" during the chorus of The Nigga Ya Love to Hate; and briefly stands still behind a mic stand to help focus attention on the sardonic lyrics of his current single, Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It. The song is a pointed defence of the embattled art form he helped create, its humour every bit as acid and biting, the anger just as raw as on the epochal records he wrote in his teens; the only differences are that now Cube's youthful impetuosity and daring have been replaced by a wider world view, and an already assured self-belief has become indomitable.
Yet the greatest cause for celebration is over something that's missing. Despite his easygoing confidence on stage, and the frequent physical interpretations he gives to his lyrics, there isn't a single moment where you sense the actor in Cube taking over. It's all about, as he says in Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It, "dope lyrics and delivery", about the passion and commitment he still feels for the music that made him.
