Name: O'Shea Jackson
Aliases: Ice Cube
DOB: June 15, 1969; Los Angeles, CA
Height: 5`8
Mother: Doris Jackson
Father: Hosea Jackson
Marital Status: Married to Kim Jackson (1992)
Affiliations: NWA, Westside Connection

One of the founding fathers of Ganster Rap and one of the greatest rappers of all time, Cube laid the groundwork for hardcore hip-hop with NWA.

A better-than- average student, he attended Hawthorne Christian School where he dabbled in sports. Like many of his friends, O'Shea committed a few petty crimes but was not involved in heavy gang violence.

While funk and soul dominated inner-city radio during his youth, nothing caught O'Shea's ear quite the new sounds of rap that arrived toward the end of the 1970s. "When I first heard [The Sugarhill Gang's}'Rappers Delight,' I couldn't stop rewinding it," he told Art Form Magazine. "It did nothing but grab me. By the age of 14, I was writing my own raps and seeing [influential "gangsta" rapper] Ice-T in concert for the first time."

O'Shea--who now called himself Ice Cube---was also hanging around with his friend Jinx, who shared his passion for rap. After hearing Cube's first rap--written during typing class--Jinx agreed to make a tape with him. Cube admitted to Rolling Sto ne that this early effort was "pathetic. The beat was going, and I was over in the left corner. The lyrics, they were cool, but they wasn't no exciting type of mind-boggling [stuff]. I was only 15, you know." In 1986 Jinx's cousin, Dr. Dre, hooked Cube up with Eric "Eazy E" Wright, who had financed an independent record label-Ruthless Records--with proceeds from his drug dealing. Eazy asked Cube to write material for a New York-based group called HBO, which had signed with Ruthless.

Cube collaborated with Dr. Dre on a track called "Boyz-n the-Hood," an uncompromising tune about life on the streets of Compton. HBO didn't want the song, so Eazy recorded the song himself in 1986. Then he, Cube, and Dr. Dre became Niggas With Attitude, or N.W.A. The group' records-many written and rapped by Cube-garnered them a following, and they seemed embarked on a lucrative career. But Cube's mother insisted that he get an education, so at age 18, he headed off for the Phoenix Institute of Technology. After a year-long drafting course, Cube returned to Los Angeles and started up with the group in earnest.

Cube wrote material for Eazy's solo effort, Eazy-Duz-It, which Ruthless released in 1988. N.W.A.'s first LP, Straight Outta Compton, appeared on the Priority label in 1989. Featuring the controversial single "F- tha Police," which prompted a threatening letter to the record company from the FBI, the album went platinum in three months without the benefit of any radio airplay.

Despite N.W.A.'s massive success, Ice Cube got into a dispute with the group's manager, Jerry Heller. After a 50-city tour and record grosses of over $3 million, Cube found he'd earned a mere $32,000. Following further negotiations he was compensated, but decided to leave the group. "N.W.A.'s still a strong group without Ice Cube," the rapper remarked to Musician. "But Ice Cube is not as strong with N.W.A. as he is by himself." He founded his own label, Street Knowledge, hiring new talent such as female rapper Yo-Yo. His first solo album, AmeriKKKas Most Wanted-released on Priority in 1990- was quickly certified platinum. Produced in collaboration with Public Enemy's Chuck D. and the Bomb Squad, the album convinced many that Cube was the real force behind N.W.A.'s hardest-hitting work, and that as a solo artist he would be a major force. Spin called it "a masterpiece." Yo-Yo debuted on the track "It's a Man's World," matching Cube's well-known sexism with savvy responses; some listeners viewed her inclusion as a tempering of Cube's alleged misogyny. Ice Cube also produced Yo-Yo's 1990 album Make Way for the Motherlode and would serve as executive producer on her 1992 sophomore effort, Black Pearl. Still, critics felt "the sexism found on [AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted] is counterproductive to the goals of the struggle" for black liberation.

In 1991 Priority released Cube's Kill At Will, another highly successful record that earned strong reviews. Art Form praised the single "Dead Homiez" as "a harrowing and sorrowful tale of a funeral for a friend," and also spoke highly of the song "The Product," about which Cube remarked "it says a kid is just a product of his social background. Put him around lawyers, he's gonna want to be a lawyer. Put him around gangbangers, he's gonna want to be a gangbanger." That same year, Cube made his acting debut in John Singleton's hit movie Boyz N' the Hood, playing the haunted, violent Doughboy to generally favorable reviews.

With the release of Death Certificate, Ice Cube once again plunged into controversy. Apparently anti-Semitic references to Heller in "No Vaseline" and hostile words for Korean grocers in "Black Korea" triggered a wave of protests from organizations like the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; even Billboard condemned the record in an editorial. Cube's apparent racism and misogyny sparked considerable comment, though he and some of his defenders noticed that critics were silent on the subject of black-on-black violence.

At the same time, however, Cube impressed many critics with his prowess as a rapper and observer of life on the streets: Entertainment Weekly called 1991's Death Certificate "20 tracks of the most visceral music ever allowed in public," awarding it an "A-" grade. Spin admired the record's "big, slap-happy beats" but took Cube to task for what critic Dimitri Ehrlich deemed racist, sexist, and homophobic material. Side one, the "Death Side," begins with the sound of a funeral; "the life side" commences with a birth. "The 'death' side is the condition we're in now," Cube explained to Ehrlich in Interview, adding that "There are more positive records on the 'life' side, because while the 'death' side shows you where we at, 'life' shows you where we going."

Following Ice-T's successful run on the first Lollapalooza traveling rock festival in 1991, Cube appeared on the bill for Lollapalooza 2 in 1992, sharing the stage with funk-rockers the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Seattle-based grungemeisters Soundgarden, and Pearl Jam, among many others. Almost every rock act on the bill heaped praise on Cube, and the Chili Peppers went so far as to appear in a video for his 1992 album The Predator. Another, much more important event came between Death Certificate and The Predator, however: the Los Angeles riots in the spring of 1992. After a group of white police officers who were videotaped beating black motorist Rodney King were acquitted by an all-white jury, the city exploded in acts of random violence. Fans looked to Cube for a definitive statement on the riots.

The Predator earned an "A-" from Entertainment Weekly's Greg Sandow, who observed that "what's most striking here are songs-Ice Cube's strongest, most cohesive work yet- about the perils of everyday South Central life." Robert Hilbum of the Los Angeles Times-who called Cube's first and second LPs "two of the most compelling albums ever in rap"-found that despite its inconsistencies, the album's best moments make it "essential listening. " Still, Hilbum criticized the rapper for "failing to deal more directly with the events of [the riots]. The album debuted at Number One on the Billboard pop and rhythm and blues charts simultaneously, the first album to do so since Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life in 1976.

On top of enhanced fame from his new hit record, Cube would soon become even better known thanks to another film role. This time he starred with lce-T in the film Trespass, a crime thriller whose working title had been Looters but was changed in response to the 1992 riots. Meanwhile, Reflex magazine reported that Ice Cube had donated $25,000 to the Los Angeles-based Minority AIDS Project, and Option noted his donation of proceeds from a new single to post-riot relief efforts.

Just as The Predator was raiding the charts, Rolling Stone announced that N.W.A. had apparently disbanded. Ice Cube, however, appeared on top of his game. His 1993 release Lethal Injection was one of the year' s most eagerly anticipated albums. While some critics praised it, Kevin Powell of Vibe declared it "not the masterpiece it could have been." Time, meanwhile, claimed that "Ice Cube's raps about police brutality and white immorality enter the ear and expand in the brain like a Black Talon bullet; his lyrics are sometimes inexcusable, but his logic is often inescapable. Ignore his high-caliber insights at your peril."

bell hooks, a black feminist theorist, explored Cube's perceived misogyny and thoughts on attaining black self-love in an interview with the rapper published in Spin. "Black women have always been the backbone of the community," he declared, and it's up to the black man to support the backbone." He also insisted that "I do records for black kids, and white kids are basically eavesdropping. White kids need to hear what we got to say about them, and their forefathers, and uncles, and everybody that's done us wrong." Additionally, he admitted wanting to move into "straight political records" but didn't want to change the content of his records too abruptly.

By 1994, Cube's life had undergone some changes. Reported Vibe, "He's happily married, a follower of the beliefs of the Nation of Islam, and the father of a little namesake (O'Shea Jackson, Jr.), with a baby girl on the way. Fans and detractors alike will tell you that Cube seems a lot less angry these days." He starred in Singleton's feature Higher Learning, directed some music videos, and announced plans to eventually move into feature film direction. "I don't want to do nothing weak," Cube insisted. "I want to make sure I win. " Although the scourge of white America appeared to have gone mainstream, Lethal Injection had done little to rehabilitate Cube in the eyes of his critics; in interviews, Cube's more conciliatory remarks were still tempered with flareups of the old fury. He also trumpeted the Nation of Islam's demand for a separate black country. Yet the "new" Cube reflected a more pragmatic sensibility; as he insisted to Vibe, "I know that killing a nigga' down the street ain't going to solve none of my problems at all. And I don't put that into my records, unless I'm explaining a situation. I ain't stupid no more. And some people can't deal with that."