N.W.A. rapper Ice Cube has always courted controversy starting in his early artist days in the late '80s and early '90s with headline-grabbing songs like “F*** Tha Police” and “Straight Outta Compton.” And to this day, he’s still courting controversy.The summer and fall of 2020 saw Ice Cube (real name O’Shea Jackson) seemingly align himself with American POTUS Donald Trump and also tweet a couple remarks that many found to be anti-Semitic. So when Trevor Noah spoke with him on
The Daily Show (Mon-Thurs at 11pET on CTV Comedy), he didn’t shy away from answering the tough questions.After speaking about his social and political initiative
Contract With Black America (a 13 bullet point contract with the country that Ice Cube feels will stop unfair treatment of Black people in America, encompassing everything from inability to access public funds, to jobs, to reparations), Ice Cube wouldn't confirm or deny his allyship with Trump in the name of cooperation with whichever party is elected on November 3.“I put out a plan, both campaigns wanted to talk to me about it, and I was eager to talk to both campaigns,” he explained via video-chat on
Wednesday's episode.
“I'm done playing this politic game,” he continued. “Joining sides, to me that, that doesn't get the job done. What gets the job done is to try to make a deal with whoever is in power.”“People get mad because they pick their sides…. They want me to pick a side and they’re upset because I haven’t. But if I pick a side, I don't think talking about the issues of the Black community would still be on the tongues and on the minds and on the consciousness of both of these campaigns. I think everybody knows that both of these campaigns are going after white women voters in this point in time, I think we would have been put in the back pockets. I want to keep our issues top of mind and at the forefront of everyone,” Ice Cube explained.“You know, the Trump campaign
put out those headlines,” he added. “But you know, you got both the sides putting out headlines.”While he was tight-lipped on his political leanings, he did recently
refuse to speak with Vice Presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris over Zoom because he felt it was pointless. Read into that what you will.[video_embed id='2063716']RELATED: Garrett Bradley's new documentary tells the story of a family separated by the prison system [/video_embed]Ice Cube also addressed his
series of tweets over the summer (now deleted) which critics called out as anti-Semitic rhetoric. One tweet from June 6
th showed an image of "six old white men with hook noses playing a board game over several black and brown men." Another tweet contained a meme depicting the Jewish Star of David coupled with the Black Cube of Saturn, which could be construed as equating Judaism with occult worship.While Ice Cube has since retracted those statements, he wouldn’t go so far as to apologize. “I never said I was misguided or misinformed. I just thought I was being clumped in with other people. I put up a piece of art that pained me for my reasons. And then I realized it pained other people for their reasons,” he said.Watch
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah Monday-Thursday at 11pET on CTV Comedy.[video_embed id='-1']BEFORE YOU GO: Puppy attempts to figure out water bowl and cuteness ensues [/video_embed]
