Is Ice Cube embarrassed of “Gorilla’s in the Mist”

[Baka's Weird Case]

the song and a lot of early west coast early 90s stuff is pretty juvenile. so i can kinda see why a grown man in his 40s would be embarrassed - its part of becoming more mature and growing up past dikk jokes.
but like other people said here, the song is clearly social commentary on how white america views black men.
plus its got BOOM SHACKA LACKA BOOM
thats the sound of a twenty gauge
lock us up and the lench mob can break out of any cage
nah i fukked with this song a lot in high school

 

[TripleAgent]

THE PRIDE OF AFRICA

 

[blankstairz]

Forced upon him?

They were still saying stuff on the record, similar to his Death Certificate stuff.

pro-black themes, Buck the devil, whitey, all that stuff.

I think Shorty was an NOI member at the time.

These were Cube's Junior Mafia. J-Dee could rap though.

He said later on (around Playa's Club's release?) he was gonna stop hooking up homeboys and friends, and just work with people based on talent. Keeping it business. If they were friends AND had legit talent, he'd f*ck with them.

Most of the people he worked with back then were friends/homeboys Yo-Yo, WC, K-Dee, Jinx, J-Dee, Kam.

That whole phase of Da Lench Mob and Predator is where Cube lost it a little bit.

After Death Certificate and Boyz In Da Hood movie, Cube was walking on water.

Then he drops "Wicked".

Then he was doing little things like Das Efx, who was hot at the time. Even had them on the Predator album for the original and remix of Check Your self. Sampled them for the Wicked song.

"it was a good day" saved him from going off the deep end. That was vintage Cube. Same with the remix to Check Ya self and video. "dirty mack", "who got the camera" were fire too.

When "lethal injection" dropped, he was a shell of his former self. "Ghetto bird" was cool and "you know how we do it" was impeccable. The rest just missed that old Cube. That fire in his belly was gone.

He came back to life with the "Bow Down" album, though. Hadn't heard Cube that raw and hungry since Death Certificate.

EDIT: Cube's verses on Westside Slaughterhouse were . That gave you a window of what was about to come with the "Bow Down" album.

 

[FeloniousMonk]

I think I get where you're going now. The delivery, and all the yelling. I'm fairly sure it's because them nikkas couldn't rap likenthat. Those are probably Cube's nikkas he got a few checks, along with publishing for him because I assume he wrote a chunk of that shyt. I actually like it. Just sounded raw. Beat was great, too. I could listen for the Cube verses if nothing else.

J-Dee and Shorty are primarily the subjects of most of Cubes rhymes.

What better way to have protection AND create a image, to sign on actual gangbangers as rappers

Interview w/ Shorty of Da Lench Mob 9-5-02

Soon after in 1991, Shorty finally met with Ice Cube through J-Dee who fraudulently told Cube the two gangbangers were cousins. Not knowing much more than what he saw on Yo! MTV Raps, Shorty assumed Cube was a gangbanger like himself. “The style of dress that they had, you’d think, damn, these nikkaz gangbanging,” Shorty said about N.W.A. and Cube from his West Side L.A. home. “We went over to Cube’s momma’s house and I’m sizing him up. I’m looking like, ‘O.K.,’I don’t know. It’s a trip how TV can lie to you. I’m like damn. This dude is square as hell.”

Square or not, Shorty leapt at an opportunity to tour with Cube as a member of his security team on Cube’s first series of solo concerts. The early touring crew was deep—sometimes as many as twenty--and full of Cube’s Street Knowledge posse including Yo Yo, Sir Jinx, J-Dee, T-Bone and Chilly Chill.

As Shorty tells it, a typical tour stop went like this: Shorty and J-Dee would venture into the hoods and hang with local ghetto dwellers representing Ice Cube, thereby validating Cube’s gangster persona in the absence of Cube himself. “This is something I grew up with all my life,” Shorty said. “Hanging around cutthroats and weed smokers and heroin addicts, alcoholics. This is all we knew. So of course, any state we go to, that’s what we comfortable with…but Cube, it was uncomfortable for him.”

Shorty maintains that he and his pals legitimized Cube’s gangster character on tour. “We made it comfortable for Cube to go to these states man. Because, now they seeing tattoos all over my back. They seeing J-Dee’s tattoos. They like damn. Keep in mind, everyone hear about Crips and Bloods, but damn, when you like in Oklahoma or in fukking Nebraska, they up front close talking to a Crip…It’s like damn. These Lench Mob nikkaz is real.”

According to Shorty, future thespian Ice Cube kept his rep through what might be described as stellar acting. “Brother was never a street dude man,” he said. “He would never let nobody see him out of character. Hear me? He would always be in character when you see him.”

Despite serving as Cube’s shield from the public, Shorty didn’t have a problem with his methodology. “We wasn’t really trippin’ like ‘Damn homie, you using our image to capitalize on. We didn’t trip because we felt that it was family.”

And of course, it was business. Shorty admits to being cool with the situation because he was promised a record deal (Da Lench Mob released two LPs on East West records) and the allure of seeing all of America was too great to pass up for someone that rarely crossed the California border.

 

[blankstairz]

J-Dee and Shorty are primarily the subjects of most of Cubes rhymes.

What better way to have protection AND create a image, to sign on actual gangbangers as rappers

Interview w/ Shorty of Da Lench Mob 9-5-02

All of NWA was like this except for Eazy.

They wrote and produced based on Eazy's image and the guys they grew up with.

Cube is like Kendrick,growing up in it and around it. Kendrick has "friends" around him too.The difference is Cube rapped as if he lived the life, instead of just being an observer like Kendrick.