Album Review: Ice Cube - Raw Footage

Grade: B

The last time I drove home from the record store, I did something I hadn’t done in a very long time: I opened up a CD I just bought and immediately put it in my deck to listen to on the way home. There’s very little material that comes out these days that can excite me like that. What was even more surprising to me is that the album that inspired me was Raw Footage by Ice Cube. At one time my favorite rapper, Cube is someone who I hadn't cared about musically since I was in college. The best thing he's has his name on the past 15 years with Three Kings. And while the album isn’t a throwback to Cube’s golden age, it’s better than I ever realistically could have hoped it would be, and probably as good as he could be expected to have released.

It’s no secret that hip-hop artists do not age well. Ice Cube is no exception. Twenty years ago (damn, did I just type that?), Ice Cube was undoubtedly one of the baddest motherfuckas on the planet. Now, as The Boondocks cartoon noted, he’s mostly known as the guy who does family films. Bad ones at that. Not so coincidentally, his latest one bombed over the weekend. The last time I bought a full-length album of original material by my once favorite rapper was 15 years ago (damn, did I just type that?). Sadly, Cube hadn’t much in the way of good music between then and now: a pair of concept albums (War and Peace), two ill-conceived albums with the “super-group” Westside Connection, one aborted N.W.A. reunion, and one uneven independent album, Laugh Now, Cry Later.

But Cube has bucked the odds, and creates a solid album with Raw Footage. Is it outstanding? No. Does it make you forget about the bullshit that he pumped out for the last decade or so? No. But it does show that Cube still has the ability to craft dope songs, a cohesive album, and be a different sort of bad motherfucka, all while staying “raw as a dirty needle.”

One reason Raw Footage is successful is because Cube lyrically doesn’t try too hard to remake himself to be “relevant” to 16-yea-olds. There’s little more painful to watch these days than rappers in their late thirties or early forties trying to be young and hip. As one of the few rappers that has actually achieved lasting success inside and outside hip-hop, Cube doesn’t spend Raw Footage bragging about his riches. He spends much of the album saying how unimpressed he is with the crop of “bling” rappers flossing on Cribs and making jackasses of themselves.

There are moments of Raw Footage where Cube’s progression over the last 20 year is crystal clear. Cube spits fire on “It Takes a Nation,” “Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It,” and “Here He Come,” where Cube damn near recaptures his golden age magic. “Get Used To It,” featuring WC and The Game, is another winner; the track is remarkable in the sense that The Game doesn’t came off like a whiny bitch. Cube also spends time rapping about hope, closing the album with the fairly inspiring “Stand Tall” and “Take Me Away,” and are only minimal in their heavy-handedness (a Hilary Clinton dis is unnecessary at this point).

The album isn’t perfect. The album actually begins on a sour note with “I Got My Locs On,” a dull track featuring Young Jeezy. Another is “Why Me?” featuring the vocal stylings of Musiq Soulchild. I’m sorry, but songs with R&B crooners, much less neo-soul singers, have NO place on an Ice Cube album. The production is also a weak spot, as too many tracks lay on thick layers of heavy keyboards and synths. It’s not offensively bad, but it’s pretty generic fare, best suited for rappers with “Lil’” or “Yung” in front of their names. There’s also an inordinate amount of Don Imus references, which seem really dated after only a year or so.

In a perfect world, Raw Footage would been a complete return to form for a revitalized Ice Cube, once again ready to put his foot squarely in the collective asses of the American power structure. And while I’m aware this isn’t a perfect world, it puts a smile on my face that Cube still has the ability to make good music and kick a little ass when he wants too. And in this world of lowered expectations, I’m happy enough with my once favorite rapper releasing something respectable 15 years past his prime.

He wasn't scared of you motherf@#$as...

R.I.P. Mr. Mac

In a great moment in the documentary/concert film King of Comedy, Bernie Mac looks right into the camera and says he’s tired of white America fucking with him, proclaiming he’s lived clean all his life and still doesn’t have a television show. He adds that Hollywood probably won’t ever give him a show because they’re scared of him and scared he’s going to “say something.” Without breaking his gaze, he chuckles and adds, “Ya motherafuckin’ right. Think I won’t say something?” Then, with this just the slightest change in expression and a break in his voice, he pleads, “White folks, I didn’t mean that, I’m just playing. If you give me a chance…”

It pretty much encapsulated the brilliance of Bernie Mac’s stand-up (even though it takes place during an interlude with him shooting the shit with the other Kings of Comedy). It showcased everything the recently deceased comedian did best: talk a gang of shit, but still manage to be self-effacing. Mac was a monster at stand-up, and was the funniest part of a hilarious Kings of Comedy film. I remember almost falling out my seat in the theater laughing watching his riff on a child with a stutter, as wrong as that sounds. He had a pitch-perfect comic presence on stage, and an immense amount of talent that few properly harvested when he was on a set.

Most people are going to remember Mac for the Bernie Mac Show, which he earned based on the success of the Kings of Comedy stand-up tour and film. The show was based on an extended routine in his about him taking care of his sister’s kid, and it did a very good job at showing highly sanitized, but still pretty funny version of Bernie Mac. The show was initially pretty funny, and puttered along for six seasons, overstaying it’s welcome for about a season or two. Even though the show did a good job at showing the essentially wholesome guy underneath the biting wit and swagger, the comedic edge rapidly dulled, and it didn’t show how funny Mac could be.

Of the Def Comedy Jam alumni, in terms of sheer stand-up skill, Mac sat comfortably in the upper echelon in the upper-echelon. In fact, I’d probably rank him or #2 or #3, and #1, Dave Chappelle, didn’t get really good until years later. Regardless, Mac’s first appearance on Def Comedy Jam is one of the best routines ever broadcast on the show. Everyone who watched the routine and saw Mac in his Cross Color jacket and airbrushed-pants glory, probably agreed that he was a star in the making, and it was only a matter of time before Hollywood came calling.

And like most stand-up comedians that make it big, Mac began his film career doing time in a mish-mash of lousy comedies that gave him a chance to do his schtick. His track record during this initial phase was better than guys like Lewis Black and Dane Cook, but that’s not saying much. Still, he was hilarious as Uncle Vester in the atrocious House Party 3. He had a great scene as Officer Self Hatred in The Wayans Brothers’ Don’t Be a Menace (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ip_gVSl46xI&feature=related). And he was the only thing remotely watchable in stinkers like Player’s Club and How to Be a Player. Friday and Life were the only of these comedies that were any good. Oddly enough, early in his career Mac also had small parts of dramas like Walking Dead, Above the Rim, Get on the Bus, and the Only in America TV movie. The later two were pretty good, but, again, he was interesting in all of them.

The overall quality of films that Mac had roles in increased post Kings of Comedy, but few of these films did anything to capitalize on his talent. Bad Santa was a clear winner, a very funny film that he was very funny in. The Ocean’s trilogy were all good movies (fuck what y’all think, I like Ocean’s 12), but only the first one used Mac’s talents in any meaningful way. However, the less said about stuff like Head of State and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, the better. However, I am interested in seeing how Soul Men, which he stars in with Samuel L. Jackson, turns out.

What made Mac funny was a combination of manic energy and supreme focus (witness the “motherfucka” speech that caps off Kings of Comedy), all with an underlying rock-solid sincerity. Prime time T.V. captured the latter, but Hollywood never found a way to harness the other two. Truth is the attitude of Mac’s comedy was probably never going to translate well into the sitcom or conventional film medium.

I’m not one that believes stand-up comedians should toil in obscurity or live on the road for years in order to make ends meet. These guys gotta take whatever opportunities they get from Hollywood, and that’s fine by me. I’d just be happy if Mac was remembered more for what he was really good at that for what Hollywood tried to make him into. He was as talented of a stand-up comedian that been around in the past 20 years, and that’s a damn good legacy to have.