In the case of "Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It," though, the video was painfully dated, with visual references to Warren Jeffs, Michael Richards' racist stand-up set outburst and Michael Vick's dogfighting scandal going back to the mid-2000s. Most of his songs were accompanied by music videos, which offered suitable, uninspired visuals. During the song itself, a montage of absurd clips from Ice Cube action movies (complete with slow-mo shootouts, car chases and Ice Cube using a taser on a man's crotch) was more interesting than anything he was doing on stage. Following "No Vaseline" and ahead of "Check Yo Self," for instance, Ice Cube made a forced reference to not eating dinner with the president, which didn't make much sense as out-of-the-blue, between song banter.
His animated, audience-baiting efforts often lacked authenticity, frequently structured around lyrics that appeared in the setlist.
days, Ice Cube performed pieces of hits such as "Straight Outta Compton" and "(Expletive) Tha Police" with actorly command but short of the explosiveness and urgency that made those songs so striking in their time, and still relevant in today's sociopolitical climate. Instead, accompanied by rapper WC, an off-stage DJ and old video clips, Ice Cube coasted on nostalgia, his set coming across like a checklist in pursuit of a check.Ībout three decades and a world apart from his N.W.A. It's been reported that Ice Cube's first album since 2010 will come out this year, but he didn't do any new tunes at his 70-minute Milwaukee concert, saying there was too much history to unpack.