There's no other musical style that vibrates your physical organs and your soul quite like hip hop.
Its pulsating rhythmic snares juxtaposed with low-end bass and mechanical beats, making speakers in cars and clubs tremble with power.There's also an attitude which comes with rap unlike any other poetic art form, where the MC commands your attention and tells their life stories with skilful rhymes and tight flow, allowing the listener to go into the most unimaginable, fictional scenarios while at the same, confronting uncomfortable truths and dangerous realities.
In the last four decades, legendary rapper Ice Cube has accomplished all the above attributes, making him a truly great hip hop artist who ushered in the era of some of the most controversial and iconoclastic rap songs ever written; stretching from his adolescent days with the subversive outfit N.W.A, to his solo albums which speak of the racial and economic divisions plaguing America in the 21st century.
O'Shea Jackson Sr aka Ice Cube has worn many creative hats throughout his illustrious career, including that of an acclaimed actor, and in 2017 he co-founded the BIG3 basketball league. His impact as a rapper has undoubtably shaped urban culture globally in the different mediums of music, film, tv, art, fashion, sports and even politics.
Ice Cube - image © Aaron Leslie/ICC Sydney Theatre
Hip hop music coming out of America's West Coast in the late '80s and early '90s would infamously become labelled as gangster rap and while Ice Cube has consistently maintained a rough street edge to his lyrics, he has always had an honest portrayal about lived experiences rather than a superficial act to sell records.
This sonic template of rap music has gone on to especially influence rappers from Western Sydney who have forged careers within the Australian music industry including Liverpool's B Wise who had the privilege of being selected to support Ice Cube's Friday night Sydney show (7 March) at the ICC Sydney.
B Wise's dynamism and passion proved his worth as an opening act; he made sure to mention 'The Up In Smoke Tour' DVD having a huge influence on him as a young, aspiring rapper and acknowledging how getting the opportunity to share the stage all these years later with his hero, in his hometown is living proof that hip-hop dreams can be realised.
B Wise - image © Aaron Leslie/ICC Sydney Theatre
A regular touring artist down under, Ice Cube has always meant a lot to Australian audiences. He was last in the country just two years ago with Cypress Hill, so for long-time fans, it was a special show celebrating all the old hits plus performing brand new music from his late 2024 album 'Man Down', which has many 'bangers' as rappers like to say.
This was a concert where fans were treated to a multi-sensory experience with three massive screens behind the stage and gigantic, three dimensional, blow-up west coast hand signs. Ice Cube and fellow rapper WC came onstage with confidence and swagger, letting Sydney fans know they meant business from the get-go.
From the front row to way at the back end, the audience waved their hands from side to side and were transported to a vision of Californian palm trees and low-rider cars, soundtracked by Ice Cube's smooth G Funk anthems 'You Know How We Do It' and 'Ghetto Bird'.
Ice Cube - image © Aaron Leslie/ICC Sydney Theatre
As the show landed at the end of the workweek, Ice Cube could not help but perform the self-titled theme song to his 1995 comedy cult classic film 'Friday', rattling everyone's skeletons with its seductive sax loop.
What made this concert stand out from other hip hop shows was its visual quality as every song was like a scene from a movie, conjuring up burning palm trees and erupting volcanos. Ice Cube performed his most rage-centric, hard-core anthems, pouring out his lyrical genius and performing like a man just released from the penitentiary, strutting on a staircase perfectly centred between the pulsating images being projected so evocatively to the audience.
In recent years, Ice Cube's popularity has increased thanks to the 2015 N.W.A biopic and box office smash hit movie 'Straight Outta Compton', where his son O'Shea Jackson Jr plays the Ice Cube role.
Younger fans of the movie and older fans who have supported Ice Cube from day one were all wildin' out as he busted out N.W.A classics such as 'Straight Outta Compton' and 'F... Tha Police'. These highly provocative songs still sound fresh today and have always sparked heated conversations around social and racial justice.
Ice Cube - image © Aaron Leslie/ICC Sydney Theatre
While Ice Cube's music has resided somewhere within the worlds of gang crime, corruption and the inequalities of African-Americans living in the ghettos, he's no stranger to making songs for the ladies and openly self-proclaimed to be a romantic man to the Sydney crowd. He broke into his dance-floor party anthem and R&B influenced smash hit single 'You Can Do It', which instantly had people out of their seats and dancing their asses off.
An entertaining, superstar-like performance by a maverick artist, was capped with his '90s feel-good and mood-uplifting single 'It Was A Good Day' complete with a beautiful sunset screen projection of the City of Los Angeles and a Zeppelin gliding over with the words 'Good Day'.
This song rounded out a fantastic night of music-career highlights by a master rapper who still has a whole lot of tenacity onstage and is still gaining respect from a younger generation of hip hop fans more accustomed to Kendrick Lamar or Drake, but nevertheless did their homework and came to witness a true veteran of hip hop.
