Ice Cube has never hesitated to share opinions, thoughts and views through lyrics, songs, work, life, tweets, interviews and public expressions. The man responsible for some of the biggest rap records of the 20th century always has plenty to say surrounding a controversial yet highly successful career in the entertainment industry.
Ice Cube or O’Shea Jackson Sr, was born in California in 1969. The American rapper, actor, producer, director and writer gained extreme notoriety when he formed the group N.W.A with Dr. Dre and Eazy E. He became one of the founding artists of gangsta rap, pushing the boundaries of lyrical content in mainstream popular music. His reputation established the launch of his solo career which included five platinum albums and one platinum EP. His first two solo albums, AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted (1990) and Death Certificate (1991) were critically acclaimed.
While Ice Cube is known by hip-hop critics and fans as one of the greatest and most influential rappers of all time, he is best known as a television and movie star to others. His acting career has remained consistent since 1991, with roles in dozens of highly regarded films including the Friday franchise and the Barbershop franchise. From thrillers such as Trespass to comedies including Ride Along, his diverse on screen characters demonstrate his superb ability to entertain.
In 2020, Ice Cube’s net worth was estimated to be $140 million, showing just how impressive his career has been. His words reflect his influential journey and confirm without a doubt, Ice Cube is a man who gets it done.
1. Doing it your own way, not having to go exactly by the book to be successful.
2. verybody that wants to be successful should always be careful of what you wish for. A lot of artists and entertainers want to put the genie back in the bottle and wish they could go back to being what they were.
3. Don’t worry about being a star, worry about doing good work, and all that will come to you.
4. My thing is: stay creative. And just because somebody starts to pay you, that doesn’t mean all your creativity goes to that, and you don’t save none for yourself to be able to do other, bigger and better things and still follow your dreams even if you start off inside of a box.
5. I have a really beautiful life right now, so there is no reason to be hostile. I’m a husband, a father and a man who tries to do the right thing in life and in my work
6. It’s always great when you’re able to give fans what they expect and even a little more.
7. You don’t wanna mess up what you’ve done. It’s like Jordan coming back: You’re scared to mess up the legacy.
8. If you give anybody the chance, they can always make a decent human being out of themselves. It’s the people that don’t have a chance, that we look down at like they’re monsters or they’re animals or that they want something different than the rest of us.
9. No matter what part of the country you come from, you can always come together to make ground-breaking hip-hop.
10. I’m just an entertainer, man. I don’t like to pigeonhole myself to anything. I love to do it all.
11. We should love the fact that we’re not just getting one point of view. That we have this diversity in entertainment, and people are not scared to be themselves, and people are not scared to make people uncomfortable, and that’s all part of it. That’s all part of being free.
12. I can’t believe, today was a good day.
13. People wanted to have fun more than they wanted to learn from their music, and that’s where the shift started to happen.
14. You can do anything in the world if you say, Hey man, don’t blame me, the devil made me do it. It’s an easy way to escape responsibility.
15. Sometimes you got to start somewhere. And it’s cool, as long as where you start is not where you plan on finishing.
16. Anything that got to do with a pig, I ain’t eatin’.
17. People associate clothes with actual behavior, and it’s kind of crazy. If you get shot in some Levi’s you don’t go after Levi’s. It’s not the clothes. It’s always the people.
18. Young people are dying for no reason all over the world that don’t know why. It’s ugly, everywhere.
19. Success really comes down to the product, not to me, my personality, or what club I’m seen going into or coming out of. None of that matters. What’s important is whether or not people feel like they wasted their time or money when they pay for a movie or a CD.
20. Truth is the ultimate power. When the truth comes around, all the lies have to run and hide.
21. The biggest change in the government’s behavior has been because of TV and its ability to show to the world what has happened in this community, that’s the biggest change. But without TV, the separation between the government and the people would be much worse than it is.
22. I think reading is important in any form. I think a person who’s trying to learn to like reading should start off reading about a topic they are interested in, or a person they are interested in.
23. I don’t get nothing but love. In every ghetto all over the world. Nothing but love. They respect that I came outta there and I’m doing it the right way. You can’t do nothing but respect that.
24. The moral is that a career can be gone in an instant. And all you have in this world are the people you love.
25. The best thing to do is to write about what you know, and if you write about what you know you can always pull those nice little tidbits that hook people, that shows that you know about this world and can bring people into a world that they may not know nothing about.
26. I been all around the world and I haven’t found a city that I’d rather be from or rather come back to than Los Angeles.
27. I think, to me, reality is better than being fake.
28. If you think about stuff that happened when you were young, it stays with you forever.
29. I do what I do. You like it, great. You don’t, go listen to somebody else. I’m stickin’ with the people who stuck with me.
30. I think the worst thing you can do about a situation is nothing.
31. Drink some coffee, put some gangsta rap on, and handle it.
32. I have great people, smart people that are around me and we love the challenge. I guess it’s like climbing a mountain or building a building. It’s a challenge but you love every challenge that it brings or presents itself.
33. You have to resist falling in love with the money they [producers] want to give you. You have to really resist that, and you have to just think about the work and whether it’s a movie that you would want to see.
34. Ice Cube is the piece of me that I give away to the public.
35. I really appreciate family. I really can’t imagine life without them!
36. I think I’m unique to the game ’cause of my versatility.
37. Music has done a lot to enhance the emotions of sports. It’s played in arenas. Whenever there is footage cut together they’re always using music. And it goes together, you know.
38. If it was all about me, I’d do a whole lot of pop records, make a whole lot of money, just rake in the dough. But it’s never been all about me. It’s all about being a voice for the voiceless. People who can’t speak for themselves, who don’t have a mic, don’t have a say.
39. Early in my career, people wanted to hear music about protest, about trying to change things.
40. Sometimes when you’re relegated to your neighborhood, you forget that there’s more important things than your neighborhood going on out in the world.
41. Rap is always evolving. It’s easy for the old school to hate the new school, but it’s music that got a little stifled I think, by the Internet a little bit.
42. You better check yourself before you wreck yourself.
43. It’s funny how people who ain’t never been down there can think that America is so fair and that we should be alright. It’s funny that the people who have their foot on our neck are telling us, ‘Get up. What’s wrong with you?
44. The thing is with hip-hop, it has its waves and the waves crash against the beach and the new waves come in. So to stay relevant you have to roll with that.
45. I still enjoy doing music. I’m not going to stop doing it, and doing it the way that I feel it should be done.
46. I love music. It’s freedom, a way to deal with pent-up frustration.
47. My thing is, I know kids cuss, they do their thing, but I tell my kids, ‘Don’t do it in earshot of any adults, or you’re in trouble.
48. With film, I have to be a team player; it’s a whole different thing. I can’t just be a one-man show. I have to learn how to use people to the best of their ability and motivate them to be as passionate about the project as I am.
49. If you love what you do, and you believe in your talent, there’s nothing better than breaking through. There’s no better feeling than breaking through.
50. For me, rappers and dancers are poets and artists and often times the most interesting performances are given by them.
51. Embrace what makes up you. Some stereotypes are true – I love chicken, but that’s a stereotype, I love basketball, but that’s a stereotype, too. But who cares? Embrace it. Be who you are, and don’t be ashamed of what that is.
52. I love any time you can enlighten people to mistakes, that’s how I started my career.
53. Do not turn into just cookie-cutter producer, cookie-cutter this, but a producer that people say wow, when they do something it’s great or just unique or whatever.
54. Rap is just somebody getting something off his chest. That’s all it is.
55. A lot of people have a misconception of what the ghetto is all about. You know, it’s only a small percentage of the people that are bad. Everybody else is good.
56. I think people, if you really want to be happy, you have to find God yourself, and you’re going to have to have a personal, one-on-one relationship and not look to get through these traditions or these rituals and all this crazy stuff when you could talk to him right here, right now, anytime, anywhere, any place, from any position. And that’s the kind of relationship you want, not a standard.
57. The best thing I’ve done with my money is buying a house for my family. You wake up to a house you love and you feel like somebody.