True to the Game: Ice Cube's 'Death Certificate' | PopMatters

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True to the Game BY DEAN VAN NGUYEN

18 October 2011
Ice Cube's 'Death Certificate' Me gusta 6

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IT WAS DURING THE PERIOD BETWEEN THE RODNEY KING BEATING

AND SUBSEQUENT COURT VERDICT THAT ICE CUBE CUT DEATH
CERTIFICATE, A CHILLING GLIMPSE INTO THE ANGER AND
FRUSTRATION SOUTH CENTRAL ANGELINOS WERE FEELING.

In
the early hours of March 3, 1991, George Holliday, a citizen of Los

Angeles, California, filmed the arrest of Rodney King. Unbeknown to
the four LAPD officers involved, Hollidays camera captured an

apprehension that saw 56 baton blows, six kicks, 11 skull fractures,

broken bones, broken teeth, and kidney damage; all suffered by the

African-American suspect King. Two weeks later, Latasha Harlins, a

15-year-old African-American student, was shot in the back of the
head from a distance of about three feet as she turned to exit a store
ICE CUBE
after an altercation with middle-aged female Korean store owner DEATH CERTIFICATE
Soon Ja Du. (PRIORITY)
US: 6 NOV 1991
UK: 6 NOV 1991
Little over a year later, the officers involved in the Rodney King

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True to the Game: Ice Cube's 'Death Certificate' | PopMatters

AMAZON

beating were acquitted of assault and Du had just begun serving five
ITUNES

years probation for voluntary manslaughter with no jail time. On April

29, 1992, almost immediately after the officers acquittal, the Los Angeles riots broke out.

It was during this period between the King beating and subsequent court verdict that Ice Cube cut Death
Certificate,
a chilling glimpse into the anger and frustration South Central Angelinos were feeling. Years of
systematic racism and urban mismanagement had taken its toll on LAs African American communities. While
the King and Harlins incidents proved to be the final
catalysts, the riots were a result of decades of institutional
and structural neglect that had led to conditions of poverty, racial segregation, lack of educational and
employment opportunities, and shocking police abuse.

While Death Certificate was only Cubes second stab at making a solo recordhis first being the chilling and
prophetic AmeriKKKas Most Wantedthe
22-year-old had been already been around for a number of years
as a member of the influential gangsta rap collective NWA. But despite its success, the group didnt make its
members rich and when Cube broke from NWA in December 1989 over financial disputes, he was still living in
the same South Central home he had grown up in. Very much embedded in the area and suffering with the
same problems his local community faced, Cube had been a ticking time bomb of rage. In NWA, he had
teased out some of these frustrations, most notably setting his sights on the LAPD on the controversial Fuck
Tha Police. But in 1991, Bruce Banner was about to go full on Incredible Hulk, as OShea Jacksons
transformation into the snarling, heated monster that was Ice Cube hit its peak.

Approaching Death Certificate, Cube had just finished up work on the film Boyz N the Hood.
Written and
directed by 23-year-old South Central native John Singleton, the film opens with the chilling statistic that one
in 21 black American males will be assassinated in their lifetime and ends with Cubes character Doughboy
meditating on whether most of America had abandoned the region completely. Either they dont know, dont
show, or dont care about whats going on in the hood, he says about the mainstream media when they failed
to cover the murder of his brother Ricky in the movie. The film was an early case of South Central residents
channelling
their anger into art, and perhaps helped chisel Cubes thoughts as he reconnected with the area
after his excursion to New York, where he created AmeriKKKas Most Wanted with the Bomb Squad the
previous year.

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True to the Game: Ice Cube's 'Death Certificate' | PopMatters

After finishing up work on Boyz N The Hood, Cube shaved off his jheri curl, began associating with the Nation
of Islam, and adopted a
more militant image. Posing with a dead body draped in an American flag
and tagged
as Uncle Sam on the cover of Death Certificate,
he represented a scathing deconstruction of the American
Dream. The album is thematically split into two halves. During the intro, Cube clarifies that The Death Side
would be a mirror image of where we are today. The Life Side would be
a vision of where we need to go.
Both equally bleak, he sets his sights on just about every targetwhites, Asian Americans, Jews, gays, race
traitors, former friends, and women. The self-proclaimed nigga ya love to hate now referred to himself as
the wrong nigga to fuck with and seemingly no one was safe from his crosshairs.

Opening with a funeral, and a speech from the Nation of Islams

Dr. Khallid Muhammad, Cube explodes out of
the coffin on The Wrong Nigga to Fuck With. In the wake of the King beating, he instantly sets his sights on
the LAPD, specifically calling out the chief of police: Dont let me catch Daryl Gates in traffic /
I gotta have it,
to peel his cap backwards. On the following track, My Summer Vacation, he gets more specific about police
harassment: Police looking at niggas through a microscope /
In L.A. everybody and they momma sell dope.

These opening skirmishes set the tone for the record, not just lyrically, but musically. While AmeriKKKas Most
Wanted had fused the sound of both coasts at a time when they were experiencing creative explosions in hip
hop, Death Certificate
was a return to Cubes west coast roots. Long-time Cube collaborator Sir Jinx took
primary production duties. Moving away from the east-coast sounds of the Bomb Squad, his beats leaned
heavily on funk music of two decades previous, extensively sampling Parliament, Funkadelic, and Zapp,
helping to bring about the birth of G-Funk, which would dominate California hip hop for the next five years.

These energetic, aggressive beats were just the catalyst Cube required to maintain his onslaught. True to the
Game criticises those who Cube believes to be sellout blacks, while A Bird in the Hand bemoans the jobs
available to young men with criminal records and little education. On Alive on
Arrival, a lowly drug pusher is
interrogated by police as he lies dying in a hospital waiting room after being shot. Receiving only a
fraction of
this attention from doctors, the character dies confused and upset: Why oh why cant I get help? / Cause Im

black, I gots to go for self, he muses shortly before flatlining.

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True to the Game: Ice Cube's 'Death Certificate' | PopMatters

Indeed, at times Cubes imagery is truly startling, though equally shocking are some of his opinions. He attacks
former NWA allies and their manager Jerry Heller, referring to him as cracker and Jew on No Vaseline
(Its a case of divide-and-conquer / Cos you let a Jew break up my crew / House nigga gotta run and hide /
Yellin Compton, but you moved to Riverside.) He also lays local STD outbreaks primarily at the door of
neighbourhood women: On Givin Up the Nappy Dug Out, Cube, greeted at a legally underage girls door by
her father, proceeds to spell out in no uncertain terms her sexual history. The song goes on to warn of the
consequences of messing with such girls, before a trip to the clinic
on Look Whos Burnin confirms Cubes

fears.

But perhaps the most notorious song on Death Certificate was Black Korea, a track that reflected rising
tensions between L.A.s African American and Korean American communities at
the boiling point. Hassled by
distrusting store owners as he attempts to buy a 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor, Cube confronts the Korean

entrepreneurs, first threatening them with boycott (So dont follow me up and down your market / Or your little
chop suey
assll be a target of the nationwide boycott) and then arson (So pay respect to the black fist / Or
well burn your store, right down to a crisp.).

To call Ice Cube out for his impossible-to-endorse opinions is perhaps to miss the point. Cube was the voice of
black discontent, whether it was anger that was defensible or not. He channelled attitudes
that ran throughout
the community from where he hailed, and for speaking up, he was slated a bigot, misogynist, anti-Semite, and
was accused of inciting racial hatred. To many African-Americans, Latasha Harlins killer Soon Ja Du was
typical of Asian liquor store owners in South Central. In this instance, their distrust had led to an unnecessary
death. On Black Korea, Cube is confronted in a
similar fashion to Harlins, and the thousands of locals for
whom he spoke for.

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True to the Game: Ice Cube's 'Death Certificate' | PopMatters

However, Cube resisted being a voice of a generation. When Death Certificate

was released, it immediately
became to most controversial rap album of all time, attracting political attention and minor boycotts. The

following year, Boyz N The Hood came out and Cube sought refuge in Hollywood. Meanwhile, talks between
local black and Korean organisations, partially sparked by the controversy surrounding Black Korea proved
fruitful.

But on April 29, 1992, tensions finally boiled over in the L.A. Riots. Fifty-three people would lose their lives
during six days of rioting and property damage would hit the one-billion-dollar mark. Two decades on, Death
Certificate remains the definitive document to understanding why.

Dean Van Nguyen is a writer and editor based in Dublin, Ireland. Specialising in lifestyle, media and pop, his work appears in The Deli,
AU, Wax Poetics, Stylesiren.ie and The Evening
Herald, among others. Hes also the editor and publisher of pop culture print magazine
One More Robot. Twitter: @deanvannguyen.

Dean
Van Nguyen is a music journalist and cultural critic based in Dublin, Ireland. In addition to PopMatters his work has appeared in The Irish Times,
The Dubliner, Wax Poetics, AU, The Deli, Clash, AllHipHop.com and
various others. He also the Founder, Editor and Publisher of One More Robot
magazine, a Dublin-based pop culture print magazine. Twitter: @deanvannguyen

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Nevermind Nostalgia: The Music of 1991... 20 Years Later

Introduction
From Touring Carnival to Destination Festival: Lollapalooza at 20
Lollapalooza 1991: The Underground As a Community
More Than Music: How Going Underground Kept Punk From Breaking in 1991
True to the Game: Ice Cube's 'Death Certificate'
'Screamadelica' and the Altered State
Rock 'n' Roll with Chinese Characteristics: Nirvana Behind the Great Wall
The Album That Changed Everything: Massive Attack's 'Blue Lines'
"Something in the Way": 'Loveless' and the Un-Invention of Cock Rock
It's All Right, It's All Right, Alllllll Right: U2's 'Achtung Baby'
An Album Found in a Trashcan: De La Soul Is Dead
New Jack Black: Contemporary Urbanity and Blackness in New Jack City
New Jack Swing Forever: How a Movement Redefined an Era
R.E.M's 'Out of Time' Over Time
High Flying: Pop Goes Country
Exquisite Corpse: Guns N' Roses' 'Use Your Illusion I and II'
Was Grunge the Last American Musical Revolution?
Right There, Right Then: Jesus Jones' Alternative History of 1991

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True to the Game: Ice Cube's 'Death Certificate' | PopMatters

The 20 Most Memorable Songs of 1991

The Year Alternative Went Massive and Defined a Decade
Nirvana: Nevermind (Deluxe Edition)
Id N Ego Killed the Pop Metal Star... and the Alternative Rocker, Too
Michael Jackson, Dangerous, and the Reinvention of Pop
Smells Like MTV: Music Video and the Rise of Grunge
Pearl Jam's 'Ten', 20 Years On
Between the Grooves of Nirvana's 'Nevermind'

Topics: 1991 | ice cube | l.a. riots | nwa | rodney king

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True to the Game: Ice Cube's 'Death Certificate' | PopMatters

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True to the Game: Ice Cube's 'Death Certificate' | PopMatters

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