AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted

I didn’t mind this one at the start but it wore out its welcome fairly quickly. It’s nowhere near the worst rap album I’ve had so far but it just wasn’t for me.

576 albums in and you would think I would be in the habit of checking if there are bonus songs or not. I really liked a track called The Product so thought happy days at least that’s one really good one. Then realised it’s a bonus so I can’t count it.

It's interesting that this album still has that old school hip hop sound that would turn into the G-funk only a few years later. To my modern ears, it's quite dated and presents a funny contrast: politically conscious and aggressive lyricism mixed with funky, dance beats. Same for the delivery, I find myself trying to "correct" the cadence of the raps 😭.

Immer noch kein Fan von 90s Hip Hop

Feels like a weird limbo point in hip hop history between Straight Outta Compton and The Chronic where it made sense for members of NWA and Public Enemy to work together. It's odd and I can't say I enjoyed much of it. Apologies to O'Shea. In three short years, the Lakers will beat the Supersonics and inspire a song that's a million times better than anything on here.

This is solid 90s hip hop, but no individual track jumps out for me. Cube's best work is found elsewhere.

Love the production, the sexism has not aged well.

I like other hip hop albums of the time, not this.

The beats are good. Ice Cube does well to challenge the life of young black men in the projects. The machismo and sexism is a major negative. The rapping lacks variety and the words aren’t that inventive.

There is no hip-hop record, or album of any genre, this angry & this funky, not even Straight Outta Compton. While Dre's funk is sleek & tranquil, the Bomb Squad is as dirty as George Clinton & Isaac Hayes, & just as pull-no-punches as Bad Brains, which is exactly what the doctor ordered for Cube on his debut. 'It ain't wise to chastise and preach / Just open the eyes of each'; 'It's the American way / 'Cause I'm the G-A-N-G-S-T-A.' Ice Cube has one of the most recognizable voices in hip-hop history: like his mentor Chuck D, O'shea's vocals are clarity clarified. But what maters most here are the lyrics, and the fact that he's always assuming a persona that is no exaggeration but simply his country. I don't want to hear about the sexism.

A solid album of gangsta rap from Ice Cube, somewhat undercut by his goofy acting career in the years that have followed. The beats are the highlight of the record, though Ice Cube's political commentary is interesting. As with NWA, it is rather unsavory in its misogyny and violence, and doesn't quite live up to the magnitude of "Straight Outta Compton." I found "It's a Man's World" to be an interesting counterbalance to the sexist themes that had permeated the album up to that point.

Like most albums from the 90s, this is just tooooo long. At just over 49 minutes, I feel like this could've been such a better album if about 10-15 minutes had been trimmed. This is a fine album but the good tracks feel few and far between.

Much like the Public Enemy album I got previously, this feels a lot like a transition album from old-school to new school. It has some of the more new-school, complex rhyming and flow (Although still some of the old-school, simplistic = staccato flows). The beats are definitely on the more old-school side as well.

Overall, it's solid, but not what I really look for in hip hop. A little too old-school for me.

I'm not a massive fan of this, but it wasn't the worst thing.

Low 3/5

It’s rude AF, but it’s important. He doesn’t lie or sugar coat things. He will spit out misogynistic lyrics but then give Yo-Yo a chance to make her rebuttal. I appreciate Ice Cube for standing up and speaking out.

The Bomb Squad production is great but Ice Cube's aggressive machismo makes for a tough listen. I'd be able to tolerate it better if it wasn't constant, front and center, across basically every song. Respect to Cube for his place in hip hop history, but I'd love probably prefer an instrumental version.

His acting in 21 Jump Street is better than his whole discography

2 ⭐️

The misogynist content is so disagreeable that couldn't even think about enjoying anything else. I took the advice of a different review and listened to Masta Ace's album, Take a Look Around. I enjoyed it! (I found it on YouTube.)

I’m at a 3.5 that I will bump up to a 4, but barely. Definitely one I’d rather leave at a 3.5.

I know, I know, “it just hasn’t aged well” is often used too much as a catch-all to try and cover all excuses without elaborating further on what’s been done to try & actually fix the parts that haven’t aged well, but in this case, I think it’s a little warranted. A big part of it is the misogyny (perhaps most exemplified by “What I need to do is kick the bitch in the tummy” on “You Can’t Fade Me”), but even still, I’m inclined to think Ice Cube is just portraying himself as a hyper-sexist here to give some proper buildup to him finally “meeting his match” on “It’s A Man’s World” (which is a great track, by the way). That said, willingly portraying yourself as a hyper-sexist is still a little too bold of a choice, even for 1990, and it’s done in a way that carries over the worst aspects of N.W.A.’s group work at the time. Ice Cube’s worst lines on “Straight Outta Compton” feel amplified here, but that’s just it: he’s amplifying EVERYTHING about himself here. Bigger, bolder callouts in his verses, more unique production (shoutout to the Bomb Squad), skits between tracks, and his vocal tone as a rapper really comes across well here. It’s a super technically sound album, & at its most compelling, it stands up pretty well with some of the other early ‘90s rap albums we’ve gotten.

The issue is that it’s only compelling about 75% of the time to my ears – never outright bad, but occasionally, I just don’t really believe in the tough guy act he’s putting on. Part of that is just modern day perception of the guy as someone who was acting in War of the Worlds & doing Minecraft ads on TikTok, so I can’t take his more violent threats here seriously. That said, I’m still willing to imagine his 1990 self, & when he’s got the proper conviction in his voice, I can feel Ice Cube’s frustration boiling through in a way that you can’t fake. It’s that level of conviction that makes & breaks this album, since it’s used on some really horrid lines & some really strong ones with a point to make too. That’s why it’s only compelling to me about 75% of the time, because the horrid lines just kinda pulled me out at points, though he generally recovered well.

Ultimately, I think it’s a good album that “hasn’t aged well” for a couple of big reasons, but it’s also just a product of its time that can’t be changed, and frankly, it shouldn’t be criticized on that mark. You gotta take this era as it was, for better or worse, & trying to whitewash that at all cuts out some of the edge that brought these guys their notoriety. I did like it, for the most part, but a lot of these tracks can’t really be played nowadays, at least not in full. It’s enjoyable for what it is, and probably did a good job at “modernizing” the rap album in the 1990s, given the skits & transitions & the general pacing. I just think other albums of the era do it better & without the baggage this album brings with it, hence, it’s a 3.5 that I’ll bump up to a 4, even if I’d rather leave it there.

I hated having to hear a woman sing '"this is a man's world" over and over

Good album cover; I'd read your 'zine, Ice Cube. But I won't listen to your album again, even though the tracks are perfectly serviceable... minus the lyrics, which to be fair, is at least half of this whole rap thing, surely? Not just the form (slur count = 113) but also the content is pretty offensive. It's too bad that all the "America is racist" tracks are so often combined with what feels like mandatory misogyny. The genre has evolved on this front (a little bit) since 1990, at least. The track with Yo-Yo ('It's a Man's World') almost makes things worse because it's like, yes, Cube is self-aware and happy about it. Apropos of nothing, he really like S-P-E-L-L-I-N-G things!

Non-slur lowlight: the high frequency hearing test noises throughout 'Endangered Species (Tales from the Darkside)' !!

Linguistic intrigue: the line "if I look and see another brother/On the video trying to out-dance each other"; I always wondered where "mack" came from so I finally looked it up after hearing 'Who's the mack?', and it's a clipping of "mackerel" (meaning "pimp", not "fish")!

Vocal intrigue: the outro of 'AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted' (the song) and the Ricky Harris(?) bit on 'Turn Off the Radio' (which was supposed to be an "obvious imitation of Arsenio Hall" per some guy online) sound so much like the "Invocation For Judgement Against And Destruction of Rock Music"! Code-switching to the "laughable white declaration" voice??