What Happened to Ice Cube?

For anyone who grew up with pre-Friday Ice Cube, it’s been hard to reconcile the firebrand behind Amerikkka’s Most Wanted and Death Certificate with the man we see today. Joel Anderson doesn’t just mourn that tension; he litigates Cube’s ideological trajectory, making a strong case that behind the rhetoric has been a man who’s attuned, above all, to the art of the deal.

Instead, there was no politics, no searing social critiques, not even an offhand reference to his weird right-wing media tour in the previous months, which included stops on Tucker Carlson’s online show and Joe Rogan’s podcast. (At least an “I just wanted to remind Rogan’s fans that I too have things to sell” would have been honest.) But no, it was just partying and gangbanging. I should have been happy enough with the secondhand high. But as I walked back to the parking lot that night, I felt like a fool for expecting Cube to reach 30 years back into his fiery past, back when he had converted to Islam and had made a strong case for being one of the most controversial artists in the country, back when I was a teenager looking to make sense of the isolation I felt at my mostly white schools.