Death Certificate

weirdly I am leaning towards "a bird in the hand"

maybe "us" or "givin' up the nappy dug out"

my favorite cube album anyway

My Summer Vacation

i didn't do a thing
don't wanna go out like my man rodney king

ooh this is tough

I always liked "Doing Dumb Shit" the most from this one.

it's tough cuz there's no standout track, quality level is pretty consistent here

does anybody remember when the bowtie editor guy from billboard was all up in arms about the album's racism?

it has to be "no vaseline"

funny to read about the conniptions critics had over this album... luckily they had all resolved their moral qualms by the time eminem came around

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE2DF173DF93BA35751C1A967958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/rock/cube-91.php

weirdly I am leaning towards "a bird in the hand"

Yep. Just incredible.

3rded

'my summer vacation' would be my pick though 'the wrong nigga to fuck wit', 'a bird in the hand', 'alive on arrival', 'true to the game', 'color blind', 'us', and 'no vaseline' are all pretty dope.

I was super pissy on the bus ride home yesterday until "Steady Mobbin'" came up on shuffle and I got all smiley.

It's not just the name of this jam, after all, but a way of life. Bound together by motherfuckers that's known to break 'em off some. Give it to me.

went with The Wrong Nigga to Fuck Wit

amazing album. i cant pick.

ugh that Xgau review is unreadable. It always bothered me that critical focus on Cube was always on the "offensive" content of his lyrics and almost NEVER on how amazing the records actually sound. The production on Cube's early records is mindblowing.

I mean considering how much critical jizm was spilled over the Public Enemy's "sonic density", this stuff was the next logical step but hardly anybody seems to have cared

critics have to warn readers against that sort of lyrical content cos if they dont readers might think it is okay.

lolz

"Steady Mobbin"

get innnnnnn bitch

i need to see how the lench mob and kam albums from this era have fared.

don't get me wrong there are some Cube songs I can't listen to ("Black Korea" is just stupid from start to finish, ditto "Cave Bitch") but in general I find most of his stuff not nearly as offensive as a lot of critics appear to have taken it. It's like they take Cube's vilification of "devils" personally, as if its devoid of context or divorced from any kind of narrative or character and is just an insult to all white listeners everywhere.

first Lench Mob album is pretty good ("A to the K", "All on My Nutsack" = A++), second one has a few bright moments ("Chocolate City", the track with Bootsy) but is lacking overall.

'No Vaseline' came up on shuffle on my way home so I'm inclined to pick that - then again it could as easily be 'Alive On Arrival' or 'Doing Dumb Shit' or two or three others probably.

I remember an exchange between somebody and vernon reid from living color at a panel discussing hip-hop around this time. the panel was beating up on ice cube, somebody tried to defend him by saying "his albums are put together so cleverly" and vernon responded with "hitler was a clever motherfucker, too"

aggghhhhhhhhhh

lolz rockist

It's like they take Cube's vilification of "devils" personally, as if its devoid of context or divorced from any kind of narrative or character and is just an insult to all white listeners everywhere.

^ this ^

vernon reid can get back to me when he's made an album one-third as good as Death Certificate

"is just an insult to all white listeners everywhere"

he did say 'you devils are all the same".

and yet, I would not actually gun down a congregation in Jesus' name

as i've said before i was always a huge 5 percent fan, even though like obv it's a batshit cult, but aesthetically the whole religion is super fucking awesome for rap music.....like the idea that some crazy scientist invented white ppl in a lab in the caucus mountains and stuff like that...how could you not like that?

plus as a teen, it made the whole thing even more mysterious and awesome, this idea that your heroes belonged to a weird sect that talked in coded language and thought that you were the living embodiment of the devil...like it's just awesome.

censors tend to do what only psychotics do, they confuse reality with illusion.

- cronenberg

critics have to warn readers against that sort of lyrical content cos if they dont readers might think it is okay.

cos apparently readers are stupid

(lurkers voting for "horny little devil" or "black korea" as an ultimate challops?!?)

i'm leaning towards "steady mobbin'"

greasy ass ribs, now i gotsa take a shit ...

xpost. I bet you Black Korea gets at least 2 votes.

"No Vaseline" has the biggest beats, but I gotta say nothing makes me smile like "Giving Up The Nappy Dugout".

it still knocks boots from here to czechoslovakia

Been in so many rooms, she got a dot on her forehead

^^^never understood this line

xpost. I bet you Black Korea gets at least 2 votes.

― Women can be captains too, you know? (jim), Friday, January 16, 2009 10:27 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

cankles = 1

like the idea that some crazy scientist invented white ppl in a lab in the caucus mountains and stuff like that...how could you not like that?

ya rly - see also: rastafarianism, sun ra, george clinton/p-funk, etc.

i'll see your rastafarian, sun ra & george clinton and raise you one curvy colombian wife

^^^never understood this line

me neither, but suspect it's more of the jaw-dropping, ill-reasoned racism that fills this fantastic, fantastic record: the girl in the song has been in lots of hotel rooms, for the purposes of sucking nigga's dicks and acting as a terminus for various train lines; hotel maids may often be immigrants from the indian subcontinent; she is in so many hotel rooms sucking nigga's dicks that she has taken on surface characteristics of the only other kind of woman that is in many hotel rooms, frequently: that is, she has become Hindu, by transitive properties.

voted No Vaseline, but if that had been skipped for thematic unity it would have been really hard to pick.

holy god xp

Steady Mobbin' for the beat that manages to be dope and obnoxious at the same time

(squeak squeak squeak squeak!)

^^^never understood this line

me neither, but suspect it's more of the jaw-dropping, ill-reasoned racism that fills this fantastic, fantastic record: the girl in the song has been in lots of hotel rooms, for the purposes of sucking nigga's dicks and acting as a terminus for various train lines; hotel maids may often be immigrants from the indian subcontinent; she is in so many hotel rooms sucking nigga's dicks that she has taken on surface characteristics of the only other kind of woman that is in many hotel rooms, frequently: that is, she has become Hindu, by transitive properties.

I can CONFIRM this! It's my best name dropping story! I was doing some minor recording stuff in a home studio with a producer who had worked on a bunch of Ice Cube albums. The guy was amused that I loved Ice Cube and could cite long passages of lyrics and stuff. One day I said, in a conversation about how I think 'Death Certificate' is the best rap album ever, "I wonder what Cube meant on 'Giving Up the Nappy Dugout' with the 'dot on her forehead' line?!" The producer said "let's call him!" He dialled him, and Cube picked up, and the producer said "I've got this guy here who loves you and has a question about one of your lyrics" and then he passed the phone to me.

Frozen with sudden terror, I stammered the question out to Ice Cube, and then he laughed (nervously, I remember thinking) and said "yeah... uh... all the staffs at all the hour-rental motels in South Central are Indian." I thanked him and passed the phone back. I may have muttered "big fan..." awkwardly.

So yes - another small touch of racism! But what a song...

I would KILL for a 33 1/3rd Continuum book on this album, incidentally.

wooooooow

racism, but with layers.

not really i think its just racism

didnt say that made it better. just that even racist punning in rap lyrics = layers.

"more of the jaw-dropping, ill-reasoned racism that fills this fantastic, fantastic record"

i suppose for guys like xgau, its like how many times can your jaw drop before you stop appreciating the fantasticness.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

okay who voted for Black Korea

xpost. I bet you Black Korea gets at least 2 votes.

― Women can be captains too, you know? (jim)

looool

no votes for "horny li'l devil" though -- so that's encouraging?!?

This is such a great album (that I have somehow discovered only recently).
It sounds so good, with so many hooks and great/funny lines (and some terrible, also, of course).
It's far from being my favourite track but one of my favourite moments on the record is Cube's angry and sarcastic laugh at the beginning of "I Wanna Kill Sam", after the line "Because we do more before 7 A.M than most niggers do in their whole lifetime"... Most of the times, I listen to that track ONLY for that laugh !