As the release date for Ice Cube’s Everythang’s Corruptalbum inches closer, the N.W.A legend is busy doing the press rounds. On Monday (December 3), Cube FaceTimed Zane Lowe for an interview on his Beats 1 Radio show.
During their conversation, Cube opened up about the long awaited album and named “That New Funkedelic” producer T-Mix as his “secret weapon.”
“I got to do what I do best,” he says. “When you an artist that’s been in the game, you know, I’m on my tenth album, solo album, so I’ve been in the game a while. You got to do what you do best. You can’t go chasing trends. You’ve got to give them what they expect and what they want.
“My man T-Mix produced the beat. We’ve been working with him through Tony Draper outta Houston. If everybody remember Suave House and 8Ball and MJG. They created that you know that new age space kind of hip-hop. T-Mix been just a great producer for years. He did ‘Cheddar’ for WC. He’s been kind of like a secret weapon for years.”
Cube has been dangling a solo album in front of his fans for years, but it never quite came to fruition. Cube explained he’d simply been buried in his other endeavors and couldn’t give the album the attention it deserved.
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“I think my last record dropped in ’08, no ’10. Yeah, so, it’s been eight years,” he says. “I had to put this project down a few times, because I had to focus on doing the Straight Outta Compton movie. I’ve been working on a lot of 3-on-3 basketball the last couple years, too.
“I didn’t want to cheat the record, so I would put the record down, and pick it back up when I had the time to focus solely on music. It ended up taking longer than expected, but I’m glad it did, because the timing is perfect. Because if you look around, everything is corrupt. If you look at the situation on every level, there is corruption.”
While the lead single from the project — “Arrest The President” — is a scathing, politically-charged affair, Cube isn’t solely focused on government corruption — it’s much bigger than that.
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“It’s cool to just bring awareness to it and it’s not just corruption of the system,” he explains. “A lot of people … we are corrupting our bodies. We corrupting our neighborhoods. We corrupting our minds. There’s a lot of corruption going on that we got to figure out what kind of world we want to live in.”
The Hip Hop mogul also touches on his decision to have just one feature on the album — the inimitable Too $hort.
“I think when you buy a solo record you want to hit artist and it’s not a compilation record or is not a producer-driven album,” he says. “He’s always had his own style and stuck with it. To me, he’s the perfect example of artist knowing what they do best, staying in their wheelhouse. You respect him for that.
“He my homeboy, so doing a record with him is natural and just having homies in the game for this long and still being able to to make music with them and go on tour with them and hang out with them, and talk a little shit is always cool.”
Everythang’s Corrupt is expected to arrive on Friday (December 7) and, judging by the lead singles, will adhere to the West Coast G-Funk sound that’s made Cube a Hip Hop staple.
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“I try to be honest on my records,” he says. “They do, don’t get me wrong, tend to lean towards west cast hardcore Hip Hop, but at the end of the day, I’m trying to just tell my truth as I see it. And nobody’s exempt on my records. You know, I talk about everybody, even myself. I think every pencil needs to be sharpened every now and then, so hopefully my record is a pencil sharpener.”
Listen to the full interview below, including “That New Funkadelic.”
