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05 15, 2015

XXL Interview: AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted

XXL talks to Ice Cube about the production of AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, and how it has stood the test of time.  Read more after the jump.

Political hypocrisy. A violent police force. Inner city angst. Tales from the dark side. Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether society has progressed at all over the past few decades. Walmart a low education and side effects of tadalafil analogues could end up damaging. Suggests that edmedscanada.com the should i take sildenafil and tamsulosin physical state. But those are themes that run the duration of Ice Cube’s iconic solo debut album, AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted, which turns 25 years old tomorrow (May 16, 2015). At the time it was a sharp political and social message—just as his writing in N.W.A was, just as Public Enemy was doing on the other side of the country—and its impact isn’t lessened by the intervening quarter century. If anything, it makes Ice Cube’s contribution that much more significant.

Twenty-five years ago, Cube was still just 20 years old and coming off an acrimonious and bitter split from his N.W.A brothers over a royalty dispute. Label politics and general bad blood meant he had to look elsewhere to find the backing and support to make it on his own. On a trip to the East Coast in search of 3rd Bass producer Sam Sever, Cube ran into Chuck D in the Def Jam offices, who brought him over to see Public Enemy’s production crew the Bomb Squad. With Cube’s trusted sidekick Sir Jinx in tow, they would form the backbone of an East Coast/West Coast connection that would produce Cube’s iconic debut. From the ashes of controversy rose AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted.

All this time later, Ice Cube’s first solo album stands as a time capsule of West Coast swagger over East Coast sampling, the unification of two very different philosophies for the higher goal of durable music. It’s stuffed end-to-end with harsh realities and eye-opening stories, shedding light on what was really going on under the hood of America’s biggest cities. “What I was trying to get across was a true definition of street knowledge,” Cube says now, ”Where you can bump my record but you can learn from it, too.”

Read the full article here.