Classics Discussion: Ice Cube

[JuvenileHell]

AMW and DC are both at 95%

That's my Booth forum

 

[DaveyDave]

first 2 are no brainers, i personally think Predator is a discussion

 

[dubsmith_nz]

Didn't you like Raw Footage? It's got some huge tracks on there, Cube come correct through the whole album, just skip the first song lol

To be honest I only listened to it a couple of times and outside of a song or two (Stand Tall, Take Me Away, Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It) there was nothing worth revisiting for me.

I'll give it another listen off the strength though breh,

 

[SirBiatch]

I remember my older brother and his potnas goin crazy over Amerikkka's Most, him uniting with PE, features on both albums, that summer shyt was

Even though the album ain't in the polls Cube hit nikkaz in the head with these 2 cuts right here off Kill At WilI, without even givin muthafukkaz a chance to breathe. I mean 90' hadn't even ended yet when that KAW. For the flabby n sick who remember how SICK Jackin 4 Beats was when that shyt dropped and the Dead Homiez single (One of his DOPESET most underrated cuts).....My gawd yall





Who else had that Kill At Will poster?

totally agree. These were the joints that really fukked with nikkas. Dead Homiez is a great track. Top 10 Ice Cube song easy.

 

[Inspect Her Deck]

Why The Groundbreaking ‘Supreme Clientele’ Should Always Be In The Discussion For Best Rap Album Ever

Why The Groundbreaking ‘Supreme Clientele’ Should Always Be In The Discussion For Best Rap Album Ever

nikkas know about Supreme Clientele. Method Man thinks it's probably the best solo Wu album. Apparently Vibe Magazine said it was top 10 rap albums of all time but I can't find a direct link.

Ghostface Killah



Stop it. Any Wu-tang fan that doesn't see the genius in Stroke of Death is not a Wu-tang fan. Respectfully. It's easily one of the best tracks on the entire album. and on a long list of best tracks Wu ever recorded. In fact, for the last year or so, it's been my favorite track off the album.

Cherchez La Ghost is super dope, too. I still hear that joint now and then when I go out.



Illmatic has no forced radio play and filler. Neither does SC (we can argue about the skits but there is no filler song on the entire album. Every single track on there is 9-10/10). Cherchez is not forced radio play. and it absolutely fits with the vibe of the album, especially after Child's Play.

Also, Illmatic is seen as brilliant because every single track stands on its own. No track bleeds into another because the production varies a lot (while being cohesive). Same with SC.

Meanwhile, with AMW and DC, there are tracks that bleed into each other. I don't remember them because they're not memorable. And frankly, that tends to happen when you have one producer who handles an entire album. shyt starts sounding the same after a while.



nah. You're trying too hard with Supreme Clientele. What you consider to be an easy target to show my so-called logical inconsistency when the fact of the matter is that SC could easily be considered to be one of the greatest rap albums ever.



nah. Because I think AMW and DC are noticeably flawed. There are a lot of tracks between those two albums that I don't like and that no one plays anywhere imo. However, because of the impact Cube had, and the fact that he's basically the west coast KRS, I can give him one classic. AMW is half a classic, and DC is half a classic. Which makes 1.

That was my reasoning.

To me, a classic is the pinnacle of the artform. If I was to introduce someone to hip hop, the best of the best. I wouldn't have them listen to both AMW and DC. They can get to it later but I'd pick one of the two.



I disagree. If you add up Nas's greatest album cuts with his greatest unreleased/rare stuff, he probably has the best discography in hip hop ever. Him and Jay-Z are at the top in sheer volume of great songs. I'm not sure who comes next after them.

I'm sure if I look I can find articles about any album saying why it should be in the GOAT conversation. And I agree with you, Supreme Clientele is in that conversation, and it isn't ME complaining about Stroke of Death or Cherchez, but I've heard others do so. Like, we cannot pretend every track is on the same level.

I agree with you about the tracks bleeding in versus standalone tracks, but I disagree in that it matters, especially for an ALBUM. So what if one track fuses into the next? I actually prefer that for the sake of an album. Sure I won't bump an individual Cube track as much as maybe a Ghost one, but the album as a whole is just as focused if not more so. If that's the flaws you perceive AMW and DC to possess, those are awfully great flaws to have, and tbh they aren't flaws at all.

Also wtf is a half classic?

You see, even with the pinnacle argument, which I have understood from you and that's why you'd always say no classic to a LOT of albums, Cube's albums are still pinnacle works. These two at least. The same way Tribe have 2 with MM and LET and the same way 36 Chambers is a pinnacle work and so on...but just because you don't like them that much, that doesn't detract from their perception in hip-hop circles as two of the greatest albums ever made. These two are very comparable to Public Enemy's back to back releases of It Takes a Nation and Fear of a Black Planet.

As for Nas, again idk where you're going with this. I don't care about unreleased shyt. I was talking about classic albums, what he has to show in the form of studio albums. Pac has a ton of unreleased shyt too. Maybe I shouldn't have used the word discography, if we wanna count mixtapes, EP's, unreleased, compilations etc. I'm talking about albums. Nas doesn't have the strongest studio album discography. There are better...Ghostface for one.

 

[SirBiatch]

I'm sure if I look I can find articles about any album saying why it should be in the GOAT conversation. And I agree with you, Supreme Clientele is in that conversation, and it isn't ME complaining about Stroke of Death or Cherchez, but I've heard others do so. Like, we cannot pretend every track is on the same level.

But in most classics, they kinda are. I've been obsessed with every track on Supreme Clientele (with the exception of Malcolm) at one point. Playing it endlessly.

Whereas there are albums like AMW, DC, AEOM and others that have tracks I never ever play.

I agree with you about the tracks bleeding in versus standalone tracks, but I disagree in that it matters, especially for an ALBUM. So what if one track fuses into the next? I actually prefer that for the sake of an album. Sure I won't bump an individual Cube track as much as maybe a Ghost one, but the album as a whole is just as focused if not more so. If that's the flaws you perceive AMW and DC to possess, those are awfully great flaws to have, and tbh they aren't flaws at all.

fair enough. I respect your stance.

It's a flaw to me because it's much harder to make tracks stand out while being cohesive as an entire album. It's the ultimate juggling act. Which is why I can't listen to a single album from the 80s, early 90s in full. All of them were single producer albums, and tracks bled into each other. Too many similar sonic ideas that were executed to perfection on some tracks, and not so much on the rest. So yes, that limits the amount of albums I call classic.

Besides, just because people listened to an album endlessly in 89 doesn't mean it's a classic. I used to listen to MC Hammer's Funky Headhunter endlessly. Back then, there just wasn't as much hip hop being released commercially. There were fewer rappers. So if someone released an album with 3 stunning songs, you'd buy the album and run the entire album anyway.

It's not until the late 90s that people started thinking: "you know what? I only love this one song. The fukk am I listening to the rest of these songs for?"

By the way, the tracks-too-similar scenario with Cube will repeat itself for me with KRS-1. I never listen to KRS-1 albums in full. I consider Criminal Minded classic for what it brought to the game (which is A LOT), but in a way, half a classic because not all tracks are dope for me in 2016 (The Bridge is Over is one of my all-time favorite songs to this day, but the rest of the album? Nah. Don't get me wrong. Almost every song has been sampled a million times in other subsequent songs. The album as a whole is super classic. Super influential. I just don't like those songs, and I feel like Bridge is Over is ultimate. It stands the fukk out. Then...there are number of heads that would consider By All Means Necessary a classic. I see why. I wouldn't call it a classic. Outside of "My Philosophy" and "I'm Still #1", I don't care for the rest of the album. I don't think those beats hold up. So I understand that my tough approach will leave out some classics but I've always felt that classics endure and are GOAT contenders. I can't say in 2016 that By All Means Necessary is a GOAT contender even if it was instrumental for the rap game in 1988.

I dunno how RZA did it, but he's probably the only producer to make multiple GOAT level albums all on his own. And each track is noticeably different from the next. It's fukking incredible.

Also wtf is a half classic?

Make sense now?

You see, even with the pinnacle argument, which I have understood from you and that's why you'd always say no classic to a LOT of albums, Cube's albums are still pinnacle works. These two at least. The same way Tribe have 2 with MM and LET and the same way 36 Chambers is a pinnacle work and so on...but just because you don't like them that much, that doesn't detract from their perception in hip-hop circles as two of the greatest albums ever made. These two are very comparable to Public Enemy's back to back releases of It Takes a Nation and Fear of a Black Planet.

I doubt your average hip hop head can sit through PE's classic catalog the same way they can sit through Tribe or Wu. Breh, hip hop albums didn't become GOAT level till the mid 90s. And there's a reason for that. The 90s cats learned from the 80s. Knew what to keep and what to improve on.

Breh, I know an OG who was well into his 20s when KRS and them came out. Worked in the business. Met these guys. If you ask him his classics, front-to-back brilliance, they're all 90s albums.

As for Nas, again idk where you're going with this. I don't care about unreleased shyt. I was talking about classic albums, what he has to show in the form of studio albums.

I half-agree with you. Studio albums aren't everything. In fact, that's why mixtapes have the allure they do. Because there's something in hip hop where we know that studios almost fukk up the artform. The rare unreleased stuff is really 'in the street'. My perception of Nas completely changed when I heard his unreleased/rare stuff. So why wouldn't it matter?

Pac has a ton of unreleased shyt too.

His unreleased stuff is nowhere near as good as Nas's.

Maybe I shouldn't have used the word discography, if we wanna count mixtapes, EP's, unreleased, compilations etc. I'm talking about albums. Nas doesn't have the strongest studio album discography. There are better...Ghostface for one.

Agreed. I'd throw Jay-Z in there, too.

 

[Northern Son]

first 2 are no brainers, i personally think Predator is a discussion

Exactly how I see it.

 

[IAmListenin']

nikkas know about Supreme Clientele. Method Man thinks it's probably the best solo Wu album. Apparently Vibe Magazine said it was top 10 rap albums of all time but I can't find a direct link.

I don't have a link, but I used to have that issue and can post the list verbatim:

1. IT TAKES A NATION OF MILLIONS TO HOLD US BACK, by Public Enemy
Def Jam, 1988
Put away the trigger-happy middle fingers and gangsta swagger, Nation of Millions is the definition of dangerous. In an era of crack and complacency, Public Enemy’s revolutionary call to arms maintain America’s warning bells like a fire alarm. When Chuck D laid down the law with his commanding oratory (“Here is a land that never gave a damn / About a brother like me…”), and Flavor Flav added his signature antics, these rebels without a pause unleashed an explosive soul-sonic force unlike anything ever heard before.

2. AMERIKKKA’S MOST WANTED, by Ice Cube
Priority, 1990
If one album encapsulates the racial strife in L.A.’s concrete jungle before the 1992 riots, AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted is it. The densely sequenced, frenetic Bomb Squad production laid down the the rich sonic terrain for Ice Cube to rage against Oreo-cookie sellouts, gestapo tactics, and female manipulation on this West Coast counterpart to Public Enemy’s Nation of Millions. Humor and vitriol are juxtaposed, producing a visceral classic: “I think back when I was robbin’ my own kind / The police didn’t pay it no mind / But when I started robbin’ the white folks / Now I’m in the pen with the soap-on-a-rope.”

3. CRIMINAL MINDED, by Boogie Down Productions
Sugar Hill/B-Boy, 1987
Hip-hop, in its mid-20s now, has never gotten much better than the 10-track bomb dropped by the Bronx’s blast-master KRS-One and DJ Scott La Rock. Has there ever been a better self-defining rhyme than “Poetry”? Ever a better dis record than “The Bridge is Over,” with biting humor like, “You better change what comes out your speaker / You’re better off talkin’ bout your wack Puma sneaker?” A better gangsta story than “9mm Goes Bang”? Better beats than Scott La Rock’s sparse, echoey manipulations of James Brown samples? Nope. Sounds just as great today.

4. ILLMATIC, by Nas
Columbia, 1994
This album is as perfect as 39 hip hop minutes get. Narrated by an insomniac from the city that never sleeps, it ain’t sweet dreams and pleasant thoughts. Indeed, Illmatic is stressed-out and tightly coiled—a taut combination of lyrical eloquence (“Stay civilized, time flies / While incarcerated your mind dies”) and voluptuous hard-core beats from the finest producers. The then 20-year-old Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones displayed the alternately world-weary and wounded wisdom of a much older man, crafting compelling bodega narratives that have since become rap gospel.

5. READY TO DIE, by The Notorious B.I.G.
Bad Boy, 1994
At 22, Biggie distilled art out of the rage and despair that pervaded his young life. Offering an intense internal dialogue and supreme storytelling skills, he took turns contemplating self-destruction (“Suicidal Tendencies”) and reveling in his love of the rap game (“Juicy”). Despite the profound pressures and insecurities that his lyrics revealed (“Baby on the way, mad bills to pay / That’s why you drink Tanqueray / So you can reminisce and wish you wasn’t livin’ so devilish”), the fans who loved his music knew from this debut that Biggie was indeed a born winner.

6. THE CHRONIC, by Dr. Dre
Death Row, 1992
Created with premium production values, brimming with mellifluous melodies and sweetly sung choruses, The Chronic could almost be described as “easy listening” (if not for the graphic details of execution-style murder and misogynistic, self-gratifying sexual encounters). Dre’s decade-defining opus introduced the world to the laid-back luxury of Californian “G-funk”–its main inspiration being George Clinton’s ’70s P-Funk records–and a sly, sleepy-voiced young’un named Snoop Doggy Dogg, who was “Gettin’ funky on the mike like an old batch of collard greens.” The game would never be the same.

7. REASONABLE DOUBT, by Jay-Z
Roc-A-Fella, 1996
Cinematic yet introspective, Reasonable Doubt captured the zeitgeist of the post-Native Tongue, pre-bling-bling era. On classics like “Regrets” and “Brooklyn’s Finest,” Jay-Z described an underworld populated by hustlers, hos, and snakes all prostrate before the almighty dollar. With Primo’s tragic beat complementing Jigga’s skillful wordplay, “D’evils” is the debut’s crowning glory: “We used to fight for building blocks / Now we fight blocks with buildings that make a killing.” Though he often culled from well-worn mafioso imagery, Jay-Z’s flawless execution made the clichés sexy and provocative.

8. DE LA SOUL IS DEAD, by De La Soul
Tommy Boy, 1991
A tribute to the power of defying expectations, De La Soul left the hippie-flavored “daisy age” of their debut, Three Feet High and Rising, behind, and followed up with one of the most progressive, complex, and boldly experimental albums hip-hop has ever seen. Mature discussions of fame, sex, love, violence, drug addiction, and child molestation–all buttressed by the production prowess of maestro Prince Paul and a delightfully weird sense of humor. “Lingerin’ / I can tell / She’s a BK mademoiselle / Wrinkled uniform and bottomed bell / And some jelly stuff on her sleeve.”

9. AQUEMINI, by OutKast
LaFace, 1998
The crowning achievement (so far) of southwest Atlanta’s hugely talented hip hop community, OutKast’s third album proves that an expansive artistic vision can coexist with both true-school fundamentalism and popular accessibility. From the sinister synth poison of “Return of the ‘G’” to the downhome country-funk of “Rosa Parks” to the gospel-tinged free jazz of “Liberation,” Aquemini somehow stays as coherent as it is throughout. Every rhyme, thought provoking. Every beat, bumping. Every tune, hummable. “Let’s talk about time travelin’ / Rhyme javelin’ / Something mind unravelin’ / Get down?”

10. SUPREME CLIENTELE, by Ghostface Killah
Epic, 2000
Real men do cry. Ghostface Killah is perhaps the first MC to weep on wax, and he’s still harder than most. When Ghost rhymes, his vocal cords strain under the weight of the world, saturating his work with gutsy emotionality. On his second album, Supreme Clientele, Ghost cobbles juicy, tabloid-worthy tales from free-associated verses, spiked with occasional sobs–B-boy becomes B-man. “Ghetto poodles / Fingers sticky from Cheez Doodles / Starving for a 50-cent bag of Oodles of Noodles / Neighborhood sick with it / Clinton ’bout to cut WIC / Maybe one of y’all rich rap nikkas need to politic.”

 

[SirBiatch]

I don't have a link, but I used to have that issue and can post the list verbatim:

breh. There are some fantastic posters on The Coli. I'd rep you if I could.

@Inspect Her Deck, looks like I made the right decision going with AMW. Reading Vibe's opinion, I have to agree. AMW is just rawer. I like raw shyt. The nikka Ya Love to Hate... raw. Rollin With the Lench Mob.... raw. Endangered Species... I genuinely fukk with those songs. Whereas with DC, there's no song I love on that album.

Actually, another reason I went with AMW was because an older friend of mine always said Ice Cube was his favorite rapper, and his favorite Ice Cube track was "Get off my dikk and tell your bytch to come here" or something like that. I heard that title years before I even heard AMW. So AMW had a real effect on people. Whereas with DC, it's Obviously it's a great album in its own right, but I wanted to vote only one Cube classic. AMW was it.

 

[Ukbrotha]

Dope. Can't wait for Kanye as I had a heated discussion on this topic with my boys.

 

[Inspect Her Deck]

But in most classics, they kinda are. I've been obsessed with every track on Supreme Clientele (with the exception of Malcolm) at one point. Playing it endlessly.

Whereas there are albums like AMW, DC, AEOM and others that have tracks I never ever play.

fair enough. I respect your stance.

It's a flaw to me because it's much harder to make tracks stand out while being cohesive as an entire album. It's the ultimate juggling act. Which is why I can't listen to a single album from the 80s, early 90s in full. All of them were single producer albums, and tracks bled into each other. Too many similar sonic ideas that were executed to perfection on some tracks, and not so much on the rest. So yes, that limits the amount of albums I call classic.

Besides, just because people listened to an album endlessly in 89 doesn't mean it's a classic. I used to listen to MC Hammer's Funky Headhunter endlessly. Back then, there just wasn't as much hip hop being released commercially. There were fewer rappers. So if someone released an album with 3 stunning songs, you'd buy the album and run the entire album anyway.

It's not until the late 90s that people started thinking: "you know what? I only love this one song. The fukk am I listening to the rest of these songs for?"

By the way, the tracks-too-similar scenario with Cube will repeat itself for me with KRS-1. I never listen to KRS-1 albums in full. I consider Criminal Minded classic for what it brought to the game (which is A LOT), but in a way, half a classic because not all tracks are dope for me in 2016 (The Bridge is Over is one of my all-time favorite songs to this day, but the rest of the album? Nah. Don't get me wrong. Almost every song has been sampled a million times in other subsequent songs. The album as a whole is super classic. Super influential. I just don't like those songs, and I feel like Bridge is Over is ultimate. It stands the fukk out. Then...there are number of heads that would consider By All Means Necessary a classic. I see why. I wouldn't call it a classic. Outside of "My Philosophy" and "I'm Still #1", I don't care for the rest of the album. I don't think those beats hold up. So I understand that my tough approach will leave out some classics but I've always felt that classics endure and are GOAT contenders. I can't say in 2016 that By All Means Necessary is a GOAT contender even if it was instrumental for the rap game in 1988.

I dunno how RZA did it, but he's probably the only producer to make multiple GOAT level albums all on his own. And each track is noticeably different from the next. It's fukking incredible.


Make sense now?


I doubt your average hip hop head can sit through PE's classic catalog the same way they can sit through Tribe or Wu. Breh, hip hop albums didn't become GOAT level till the mid 90s. And there's a reason for that. The 90s cats learned from the 80s. Knew what to keep and what to improve on.

Breh, I know an OG who was well into his 20s when KRS and them came out. Worked in the business. Met these guys. If you ask him his classics, front-to-back brilliance, they're all 90s albums.

I half-agree with you. Studio albums aren't everything. In fact, that's why mixtapes have the allure they do. Because there's something in hip hop where we know that studios almost fukk up the artform. The rare unreleased stuff is really 'in the street'. My perception of Nas completely changed when I heard his unreleased/rare stuff. So why wouldn't it matter?

His unreleased stuff is nowhere near as good as Nas's.

Agreed. I'd throw Jay-Z in there, too.

Yeah but the same way you're obsessed with every SC track (I am as well kinda), I'm the same with AMW and DC.

But thanks for explaining the track bleeding thing from your perspective, and actually you'll be surprised at how similar our tastes are. In my top 50, I can only think of two 80s albums that make the list: ITANOMTHUB and Paid in Full.

I'm a 90's dude through and through, believe me. I'm a Wu stan ffs, that should tell you enough. But I think I find it easier to appreciate both forums of track sequencing, whereas you are way more preferential towards the standalone kinda tracks thing.

Regarding the KRS vs Cube thing, for me I can see the same sorta dynamic, but purely because I prefer Ice Cube more, I'm more likely to enjoy ever song regardless, hearing his voice, or the production or whatever just makes it better for me. Those kinda bleed in tracks like What They Hitting Foe or whatever aren't fantastic standalone tracks, but I wouldn't dare skip them, because they're enjoyable. Then you have some of the tracks you mentioned e.g. Endangered Species which are just pure brilliance as bleed ins or standalone.

So I understand your half classic point, that's how I feel about 3 Ft. High & Rising or Criminal Minded myself. Sometimes I feel I have to offset personal preference because an album is just a classic off huge impact, and I sometimes tell myself just because I don't appreciate the quality, doesn't make it a project lacking in quality. Others bump those albums start to finish with ease. Albums DEFINITELY got better in terms of crafting an album as we got through the 90s, and then kinda fell off again in the mid-2000s.

Yeah RZA is GOAT, it boggles my mind tbh...

As for Nas and unreleased, well yeah I get what you're saying. I'm just talking about for the purposes of this discussion, because we're talking about albums and classics. But yeah of course all things considered, Nas has a tremendous body of work, sometimes I like to forget the mediocre/bad shyt because of how much great stuff there is.

Yeah Jay's discog is better.

Completely respect your opinion bro, always good debating with you.

 

[Inspect Her Deck]

Dope. Can't wait for Kanye as I had a heated discussion on this topic with my boys.

Kanye's been done breh...you may/may not like the results

 

[SirBiatch]

Completely respect your opinion bro, always good debating with you.

likewise breh

 

[patscorpio]

ill never understand the hate for lethal injection...yes he toned down the content a little but it was still there..shyt is still dope as fukk

shyt when i get to heaven can easily fit in with the other earlier albums

and i know you cant front on

 

[Ukbrotha]

Kanye's been done breh...you may/may not like the results

Damn, link me please?