May 22, 2006 @ 10:38 pm

Ice Cube - Laugh Now, Cry Later (Lench Mob Records)

by: Serena Kim

Ever notice how he gets more relevant during Republican administrations? Released during Bush I, his early albums portrayed America as a corrupt and racist totalitarian regime. His vision of the ghetto festered with greedy pigs, trifling Korean merchants, and AK-wielding broughams. Yes, once upon a time, he was the “Nigga You Love to Hate,” with a genius for combining an uncompromising political stance with good ol’ fashioned gangster rap—and one of the best MCs in the game.

Then Clinton came into power, the economy improved, and Cube turned his attention to his spotty yet action-packed Hollywood career. The albums he released, War & Peace Vol. 1 (The War Disc) and Vol. 2 (The Peace Disc), were disappointing. The once prodigious mind seemed flaccid as he rapped about clubbing, groupies, and gangbanging. Sure, the lyrics were ignorant and misogynistic, but worse, they were just tacky.

Now that the Republicans are screwing everything up again and militancy is once again in vogue, Cube has stirred from his long slumber. Laugh Now, Cry Later is his best album in 13 years. His delivery is crisp and uncomplicated, but razor sharp, like gangster haikus. “Growin’ Up” tells the genesis story. He traces N.W.A’s beginnings, getting out of the group before he “got raped” (in music industry terms) and got lost artistically (“I used to be political, lyrical, now you want it sugarcoated like cereal,” he explains), and ultimately makes peace with the skeletons in his closet: “Never thought I’d see Eazy in a casket / Thanks for everything / That’s on everything / I learned a lot of game from you / I like your son / He got his name from you.”

Sounding very mature at age 36, a time when a lot of graying rappers are nostalgic for the Golden Era, he’s awakened to a blinged-out world and doesn’t like what he sees. Taking a page (ironically) from Common’s book, Cube anthropomorphizes gangster rap in “Child Support,” but instead of describing it as a ’round-the-way girl that sold out, rap is a bastard child with a deadbeat daddy. Cube reminds rappers born in the ’80s how he fathered the genre (not to espouse pointless violence, violence was in reaction to a senseless society) and calls out beef for profit: “Keep your ass out the casket / Interscope will spend your money / They don’t give a fuck / About a dead rapper nigga they’ll chop it up.”

While there’s a certain preachy-old-man grumpiness to his parables, his vividly sketched ghetto fables do illustrate consequences. On the title track, Cube satirizes that guy in the ’hood who spends his 7-month-old baby’s credit on cars and shopping sprees in the mall. His greed ultimately lands him in jail, where he finds God—too little, too late. “Why We Thugs” finds Cube invoking the haunting image of an old lady, Bible in tow, at her grandson’s trial. The judge’s gavel comes down, and the boy is carted off to a jail too far for her to visit.

Still, whereas the album makes poignant points and timely lyrical references to Dave Chappelle, California’s Governator, and Jacob the Jeweler, the beat selection feels outdated and monotonous at times. The Scott Storch tracks sound like defunct Dr. Dre knockoffs, while the Lil Jon joints come off like watered-down crunk for the lolo set. Throughout the album, predictable bass lines and handclaps give it a last-administration feel.

But even without Hank Shocklee’s richly textured samples or DJ Pooh’s elegant G-funk interpolations, Laugh Now, Cry Later shows the reawakening of the N.W.A upstart known for raging against the machine.

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Article tags: Ice Cube, Ice Cube Review, Ice Cube Revolutions, Ice Cube In Vibe Magazine June Issue, Ice Cube's Laugh Now, Cry Later Album