Review Summary: Cube's best album and one of the greatest hip hop albums ever made.
Once upon a time Ice Cube the Hollywood star was once known as the most dangerous MC on the planet. In 1988, he was one of the forefront members of NWA who released an album that vividly depicted life in the streets resulting in wide open jaws, mainstream acceptance, and a letter from the FBI. When Ice Cube split after financial issues, he teamed up with Bomb Squad and released the classic AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted. But it was in 1991 when Cube reached the peak of his notoriety with Death Certificate, an album that dubbed him as a terrorist AND a racist.
Like other gangsta rap peers, Cube uses shock tactics through profanity and carefree attitude. Yet unlike other gangsta rap peers, Cube uses shock tactics by simply telling the truth albeit in his own way. He postures the gangsta mentality on "Summer Vacation" by spinning a graphic tale of drug dealing in St. Louis. Yet in the same track, he also laments the negative effects of drug dealing business like disunity between the blacks and prison. In "Givin Up the Nappy Dugout", he chastises a father for not looking carefully after his daughter who went from scholar to slut while in "Look Who's Burnin" he discusses the spread of STDs in the ghetto.
The first half of Death Certificate is the more gangsta side with Cube givin his brags on "The Wrong Nigga to *** Wit" and "Steady Mobbin'". Slowly and slowly however, he delves into more socially conscious territory while still keeping the gangsta personality. "A Bird in the Hand" portrays a poor man who sells drugs to earn some money for his family as every other option won't work. "Man's Best Friend" preaches that a gun is more practical than a dog. The turning point of the album is "Alive on Arrival". It tells the tense tale of a victim of neighborhood crime who struggles to get help from the meds ("Yo nurse, I'm gettin kinda warm/ bitch still made me fill out the ***in form").
From that point onward, the more political and socially conscious content begin to appear. "I Wanna Kill Sam" uses the Uncle Sam metaphor as a way of attacking America's injustice towards blacks. "True to the Game" criticizes those rappers who have turned "white" by going from street to pop (obvious jab at MC Hammer). Cube surprises us even more by actually advocating against the gangsta lifestyle in "Color Blind" and "Us". Both try to preach peace within the black community with the former against gang violence and the latter stating, "So don't point the finger you jiggaboo/ take a look at yourself ya dumb nigga you."
Yet Cube spares some time to make some more... specified jabs. "Black Korea" made him a racist for verbally attacking Asian shopowners after the Latasha Harlins incident. And "No Vaseline" saw him vent vengeance against his former bandmates of NWA and the "Jew" (Jerry Heller). The latter track however is still an excellent and far superior diss to the simple name-calling attempts of Ren, Dre, and Eazy ("Heard you both got the same bank account/ dumb nigga, what you thinkin about?".
With the crispy funk and the relentless rhymes, Death Certificate is Cube's defining album. Few rappers would ever dare to release such an album that spelled danger all over simply because it was telling the right thing in the wrong way.
