Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University

Nappy Happy Author(s): Ice Cube and Angela Y. Davis Source: Transition, No. 58 (1992), pp. 174-192 Published by: Indiana University Press on behalf of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2934976 Accessed: 04-05-2017 18:36 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted

digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about

JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

 

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at

Indiana University Press, Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Transition

This content downloaded from 128.114.228.120 on Thu, 04 May 2017 18:36:33 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

 

 

T R A N S I T I ON Conversation

NAPPY HAPPY

A Conversation with Ice Cube and Angela Y. Davis.

You may love him or loathe him, but you have to take him seriously. O’Shea

Jackson-better known by his nom de mi-

crophone, Ice Cube-may be the most successful “hardcore” rap artist in the re-

cording industry. And his influence as a

trendsetter in black youth culture is un-

rivaled. According to some academic analysts, Ice Cube qualifies as an “or- ganic intellectual” (in Antonio Gramsci’s

famous phrase): someone organically connected to the community he would

uplift.

He is, at the same time, an American

success story. It was as a member of the

Compton-based rap group NWA that he

first came to prominence in 1988 at the

age of 18. Less than two years later, he

left the group over a dispute about money, and went solo. Amerikkka’s Most

Wanted, his gritty debut album, went

platinum-and the rest is recording his-

tory.

Ice Cube is also a multimedia phe- nomenon. Artless, powerful perfor- mances in films by John Singleton and Walter Hill have established him as a

commanding screen presence. That, combined with his streetwise credibility,

has been a boon for St. Ides malt liquor,

which has paid generously for his ongo-

ing “celebrity endorsement.” Naturally,

it’s a relationship that has aroused some

skepticism. While Public Enemy’s Chuck D, for example, has inveighed against an industry that exacts a tragic

toll in America’s inner cities, even suing

a malt liquor company that used one of

his cuts to promote its product, Ice Cube

defends his role in touting booze in the

‘hood-even though, having joined the Nation of Islam, he says he’s now a tee-

totaller. “I do what I want to do,” he says

of his malt liquor ads.

Some of his other celebrity endorse-

ments have raised eyebrows as well. For

example, at the end of a press conference

last year, Ice Cube held up a copy of a book entitled The Secret Relationship Be-

tween Blacks and Jews, which purports to reveal the “massive” and “inordinate”

role of the Jews in a genocidal campaign

against blacks. “Try to find this book,”

he exhorted, “everybody.”

But then Ice Cube is no stranger to

controversy, and his second album Death

Certificate has certainly not been without

its critics. The album, which has sold

174 TRANSITION ISSUE 58

This content downloaded from 128.114.228.120 on Thu, 04 May 2017 18:36:33 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

 

 

over a million copies, delivers a strong

message of uplift and affirmation . . .

unless you happen to be female, Asian,

Jewish, gay, white, black, whatever.

So, for instance, in the song “No Va- seline,” Ice Cube calls for the death of

Jerry Heller, his former manager, and

imagines torching NWA rapper Eazy-E

for having “let a Jew break up your crew.” In “Horny Lil’ Devil,” Cube speaks of castrating white men who go out with black women. (“True Niggers

ain’t gay,” he advises in the course of this

cut.) In “Black Korea,” he warns Korean

grocers to “pay respect to the black fist,

or we’ll burn your store down to a crisp.” You get the picture. Not exactly “It’s a Small World After All.”

Still, Ice Cube’s champions-and stalwart defenders-are legion. “I have

seen the future of American culture and

he’s wearing a Raiders hat,” proclaimed the music criticJames Bernard. “Cube’s

album isn’t about racial hatred,” opined Dane L. Webb, then executive editor of

Larry Flynt’s Rappages. “It’s about have-

nots pointing fingers at those who have.

And the reality for most Black people is that the few that have in our communities

are mostly Asian or Jewish. And when a Black man tells the truth about their

oppressive brand of democracy in our community, they ‘Shut ‘Em Down.'” “When Ice Cube says that NWA is con-

trolled by a Jew,” Chuck D protested, “how is that anti-Semitism, when Heller

is a Jew?” The journalist Scott Poulson-

Bryant pointedly observed that most of Cube’s critics are unconcerned when he

advocates hatred and violence toward

NAPPY HAPPY 175

Angela Y. Davis

and Ice Cube

(O’Shea Jackson)

Courtesy Set To Run

This content downloaded from 128.114.228.120 on Thu, 04 May 2017 18:36:33 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

 

 

other blacks. “All the cries of Ice Cube’s

racism, then, seem dreadfully racist themselves,” he argued. “Dismissing the

context of Death Certificate’s name- calling and venom, critics assume a police-like stance and fire away from be- hind the smoke screen.”

Not all black intellectuals have been as

charitable. Thus Manning Marable, the

radical scholar and commentator, ques-

tions the rap artist’s “political maturity

and insight” and insists that “people of color must transcend the terrible ten-

dency to blame each other, to empha- size their differences, to trash one

another. … A truly multicultural de-

mocracy which empowers people of color will never be won if we tolerate

bigotry with our own ranks, and turn

our energies to undermine each other.”

And what of the legendary Angela Y.

Davis? In some ways, hers, too, was an

American success story, but with a twist.

Raised in Birmingham, Alabama, Davis

went on to graduate magna cum laude from Brandeis University and work on her doctorate under Herbert Marcuse at

the University of California, San Diego,

and teach philosophy at the University of

California, Los Angeles. In a few short

years, however, her political commit- ments made her a casualty of the gov-

ernment’s war against black radicalism:

the philosopher was turned into a fugi-

tive from justice. In 1970, by the age of

twenty-six, she had made the FBI’s Ten

Most Wanted List (which described her

as “armed and dangerous”) and appeared on the cover of Newsweek-in chains.

Now a professor in the History of Consciousness program at the Univer- sity of California, Santa Cruz, Davis has made her mark as a social theorist, elab-

orating her views on the need for a trans-

racial politics of alliance and transfor-

mation in two widely cited collections of essays, Women, Race, & Class and Women, Culture, & Politics. Cautioning

against the narrow-gauged black nation-

alism of the street, Davis is wont to decry

anti-Semitism and homophobia in the same breath as racism. “We do not draw

the color line,” she writes in her latest

book. “The only line we draw is one based on our political principles.”

So the encounter between them-a

two hour conversation held at Street

Knowledge, Cube’s company offices- was an encounter between two different

perspectives, two different activist tradi-

tions, and, of course, two different gen-

erations. While Davis’s background has

disposed her to seek common ground with others, these differences may have

been both constraining and productive.

Davis notes with misgivings that Death Certificate was not released until after the

conversation was recorded, so that she

did not have the opportunity to listen to

more than a few songs. She writes: “Considering the extremely problematic

content of ‘Black Korea,’ I regret that I was then unaware of its inclusion on the

album. My current political work in- volves the negotiation of cross-cultural

alliances-especially among people of color-in developing opposition to hate violence. Had I been aware of this song,

it would have certainly provided a the-

matic focus for a number of questions

that unfortunately remain unexplored in this conversation.”

Angela Y. Davis: I want to begin by acknowledging our very different posi-

tions. We represent different generations

176 TRANSITION ISSUE 58

This content downloaded from 128.114.228.120 on Thu, 04 May 2017 18:36:33 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

 

 

and genders: you are a young man and I am a mature woman. But I also want to

acknowledge our affinities. We are both African Americans, who share a cultural

tradition as well as a passionate concern

for our people. So, in exploring our dif- ferences in the course of this conversa-

tion, I hope we will discover common ground. Now, I am of the same gener-

ation as your mother. Hip-hop culture is

a product of the younger generation of

sisters and brothers in our community. I

am curious about your attitude toward

the older generation. How do you and your peers see us?

Ice Cube: When I look at older people, I don’t think they feel that they can learn

from the younger generation. I try and

tell my mother things that she just doesn’t want to hear sometimes. She is so

used to being a certain way: she’s from

the South and grew up at a time when the

South was a very dangerous place. I was

born in Los Angeles in 1969. When I started school, it was totally different from when she went to school. What she