Los Angeles emcee, songwriter, actor, film producer, CubeVision founder & BIG3 founder Ice Cube not slowing down musically with his 12th album. The cousin of Del the Funky Homosapien & Kam, he started as part of the C.I.A. gained notoriety as a member of N.W.A until departing after their historic debut Straight Outta Compton. Cube later got his own Priority Records deal as a solo artist, teaming with The Bomb Squad for his own debutAmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted & later Kill at Will. Death Certificate went on to become another west coast hip hop landmark due to some of its racially & politically charged content, with his Lench Mob Records debut The Predator mainly addressing a lot of the racial tensions in the United States at the time. Lethal Injection was more g-funk heavy and the War & Peace double-disc effort marked the end of the former Westside Connection member’s Priority contract. Laugh Now, Cry Later distributed by Virgin Music & EMI Records was a solid comeback almost 2 decades ago next summer after mainly focusing on acting during the first half of the 2000s & then Raw Footage had it’s highlights although it was decent as a whole. I’m the West became his most negatively received body of work & the Interscope Records-distributed Everythang’s Corrupt showed to be an improvement although still average. Man Down last fall was a pretty great homage to his Day 1s & the sequel Man Up is here 10 months later.
“Man Power” produced by E-A-Ski starts by asking if one has masculine abilities from within whereas “What You Gonna Do About It?” disses the kind of people who only speak of doing things instead acting upon it. “Freedumb” consciously discusses how people are getting spied on through their smartphones while “Guess What?” talks about being in the cut figuring out if the targeted suspects are either for or against him.
We have Cube making it clear as day that one should “Forget Me If You Ain’t wit Me” leading into the only single “Before Hip Hop” talking about life prior to making music over a Hallway Productionz instrumental. “Act My Age” featuring Scarface dabbles with trap a bit for an ode to MCs over 35 just before “Ratchet Ass Mouth” cautions about the kind of women you shouldn’t date.
“Respect My Space” poses the question if anyone wants to battle him while “California Dreamin’” gives off a g-funk vibe for a tribute to the sunshine state. “That Salt & Pepper” shows off his grown man status for 115 seconds over a funky Erick Sermon beat & after “Bring Everybody” charismatically talks about being untouchable, “All Work No Play” finishes with a message to the O.G.s who feel the same way he does.
In spite of what others have to say about Ice Cube’s music in past 2 decades or so & don’t get me started with War of the Worlds flopping, I’d say that Man Down is the better of the 2 albums we’ve gotten from him in the past 10 months although Man Up’s very much decent. I appreciate that he only got 1 guest on here in contrast to the amount Man Down had, but the production here is a little weaker as a whole.
Score: 6/10