With the success of “Straight Outta Compton,” Ice Cube is enjoying the moment and taking on interviews to express this gratitude. The film broke records by being the highest domestic box office smash for a black director, which was F. Gary Gray. According to his recent interview with Variety, the film recently picked up a Screen Actors Guild nomination as well and there’s whispers that additional nominations may arise out of Hollywood. For Ice Cube, this was like a dream come true for the iconic rapper and filmmaker extraordinaire. And he thanks Universal for doing all that they could to make sure the movie was a hit. “Universal to do everything in their power to blow this movie up and for all of our marketing ideas to work to a T and to have the No. 1 grossing movie by a black director is pretty awesome.” The underlying theme of the film was all about having a voice. As N.W.A. voiced their opinions about police injustices, for example, it was allowing Ice Cube and the others to get out what they felt inside. They had something to say. But, over the years Ice Cube feels that hip-hop lost the strength it once had. He feels that “escapism rap” became the lick and, for that, he says hip-hop took the easy way out. “I think it’s always going to have the potential to have something to say. It’s really up to the artists. The “something to say” has been really kind of drained out of hip-hop. It started to lose its steam in about ’93 and escapism rap became the top dog. When I say “escapism rap,” I mean talking about weed, getting high, cars, women, jewelry, money — a whole bunch of excess. Don’t worry about your real problems, just go to the strip club and smoke them away. So that started to take over and we ain’t really came out of that, because all that stuff is fun. It’s cool to do. There ain’t no struggle in it. It ain’t hard. Anybody can do it. So I think hip-hop heads have taken the easy way out.” But, Ice Cube believes the music business makes it difficult for artists to be who they are, say what they want to say. Plus, the labels and radio programmers don’t do a great job at promoting the music that has substance. “Some artists hold onto their integrity as much as they can. New artists, sometimes they’re just going to do what they hear on the radio. Until the airwaves start to promote music that is saying something and show the young rappers that that’s where it’s at, then they’re going to continue to talk about what’s being played, which is booty strip clubs, get your drink on, get high. Artists have to make a decision. Do you want to hold onto your integrity and maybe starve, or do you want to go with the flow? Few artists hold onto their integrity. But a lot of artists doing records, they’ve got to deal with the record companies and they’ve got to conform in some kind of way to keep their budgets coming in, so it’s a catch-22.”
