My thing is, I know kids cuss, they do their thing, but I tell my kids, 'Don't do it in earshot of any adults, or you're in trouble.'
— Ice Cube
I did 'Are We There Yet?' because I wanted to do a movie for my fans' kids. Black kids don't really see movies on this budget for them, starring them. And there's so many white kids that love that movie.
I believe how you measure a good movie is how many times you can see it. With comedies, I like to be a producer, because comedies can get corny and go off track real fast. I'm always the 'less is more' guy when it comes to a scene. So I'ma be the one who will keep it grounded.
I never get tired of 'It Was A Good Day' references or jokes or anything like that. It's just, you know, keeping my biggest hit alive. Nothing wrong with that.
If it was all about me, I'd do a whole lot of pop records, make a whole lot of money, just rake in the dough. But it's never been all about me. It's all about being a voice for the voiceless. People who can't speak for themselves, who don't have a mic, don't have a say.
I'm not really into the political game as far as paying politicians and stuff like that, I'm not into that. You do your job, and I'll do mine.
What I learned from architectural drafting is that everything has to have a plan to work. You just can't wing it. I can't get all the materials I need for a house and just start building. Whether it's a career, family, life - you have to plan it out.
'Boyz-n-the-Hood' was actually supposed to be written for Eazy's group. He had a group out in New York called Home Boys Only, called HBO. One of them looked like LL Cool J. Eazy wanted to write a song for them, a street song, like what we were doing on the mix tapes. So when I wrote it, it was too West Coast for them.
Some people have a taboo about doing advertising in the States. You know, where they kind of make their bread and butter. But to me, that's crazy.
I've been caught in parachute pants. And on my high school yearbook, they used the wrong picture. They were supposed to use the picture of me with a nice suit on. They used me with my collar flipped up, in a fuchsia and white striped shirt. I blame Prince and Michael Jackson in the Eighties for that.
I never was in the Nation of Islam... I mean, what I call myself is a natural Muslim, 'cause it's just me and God.
I go light on breakfast. Sometimes it's a yogurt, but a lot of times it's leftovers from one of my wife's dinners.
Anything that got to do with a pig, I ain't eatin'.
I used to love to draw. I didn't want to go to art class because I felt that would be too corny when I was young, but architectural drafting was the cool thing to do because there was more precision. It taught me a lot about building and structures and doorways and frames and windowsills.
Music has done a lot to enhance the emotions of sports. It's played in arenas. Whenever there is footage cut together they're always using music. And it goes together, you know.
Sometimes when you're relegated to your neighborhood, you forget that there's more important things than your neighborhood going on out in the world.
There's a lot of potential that goes unused in places like South Central L.A., a lot of brilliant, smart people who just don't have that chance to show it.
Can't step from one movie set to the next. Only Samuel L. Jackson can do that. All us mere mortals can't do that!
I've done movies for certain reasons; I did 'Anaconda' because the black man lives. Simple. The black man isn't dead in the first three pages, like Jurassic Park. It's like, 'The black man kills the snake with a Latino girl? Damn! I got to do this.'
It never gets old. Working with somebody like Kevin Hart is rejuvenating in a lot of ways. He's such a pro. He's so good.
I used to game a lot, you know, back in the day. My gaming time done got so short that my skills ain't where they need to be to be online, you know what I'm saying? I just got that Xbox One. I gotta get my skills back, up the par to call myself a gamer.
I don't get nothing but love. In every ghetto all over the world. Nothing but love. They respect that I came outta there and I'm doing it the right way. You can't do nothing but respect that.
Obama reminds me of the black kid at a white school that don't nobody want to play with.
My grandmother worked at one of those Bel-Air mansions, and we would go - not too often, but every now and then - to pick her up. Hollywood was probably 12 miles from my house, but it might as well have been a million miles away. The only time I saw that world was on TV. Until I started making records.
I think rap music is brought up, gangster rap in particular, as well as video games, every other thing they try to hang the ills of society on as a scapegoat.
Quincy Jones' autobiography 'Q' is very good. Because he's a master at music, he's one of our greatest composers, and its good for him to have a book and tell the good ole days when he was with Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan and Ray Charles.
My worst ever car was a green Datsun B210, back when they called it 'Datsun' - now it's 'Nissan.' Very unsexy, unattractive. Girls hated the car. I was embarrassed to even be in it... but it was my transportation.
Don't worry about being a star, worry about doing good work, and all that will come to you.
I'm trying to cut down a little on eating, on sodium, keep my blood pressure down, which is tough. Because I love food! I do, but it's unfair how everything that's bad for you tastes so good, and all the good stuff, veggies and green things, doesn't match up.
Rap is just somebody getting something off his chest. That's all it is.
Music is where I have the most creative freedom, but I love producing. To me, that's kind of where all the action is. You get a chance to have your hands in every aspect of a film. From picking a director, sometimes picking a writer, to the actors, the wardrobe, set design, editing, music, and marketing.
Early in my career, people wanted to hear music about protest, about trying to change things.
I think, to me, reality is better than being fake.
I been all around the world and I haven't found a city that I'd rather be from or rather come back to than Los Angeles.
With film, I have to be a team player; it's a whole different thing. I can't just be a one-man show. I have to learn how to use people to the best of their ability and motivate them to be as passionate about the project as I am.
I'm a B-boy at heart. I still like rhyming. It's just the radio game is like Chinese arithmetic. It's hard to know what nuts to crack. But I still love music, been dropping music. Never stopped, really.
I never was in the Nation of Islam... I mean, what I call myself is a natural Muslim, 'cause it's just me and God. You know, going to the mosque, the ritual and the tradition, it's just not in me to do. So I don't do it.
I'm not actually from Compton - I'm from South Central Los Angeles, and my father still lives in the same house I grew up in, so I'm there all the time.
My son Darrel could recite 'Straight Outta Compton' at two years old. He loved it! You can expose your kids to anything as long as you sit there and explain it to them.
My son, O'Shea. He looks like me, and he can rhyme.
It's not like I'm the first man ever to do this, y'know? You gotta go back to Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby and Sammy Davis Jr. Those are people who've done music well and movies well, and y'know, Frank Sinatra and Elvis and all these dudes have made the transition. I don't know about Elvis, 'bout doin' 'em good, y'know? It's nothin' new.
I have a lot of milestones that I'm proud of when it comes to music, 'Amerikkka's Most Wanted,' I'm extremely proud of that. Just because of what I had to go through to get that music produced, that album produced.
Twerking has to end. Not for the ones that look good doing it, but for all the ones that you feel, 'You don't have enough to twerk back there. Your twerkin' look like jerkin.'
When people see the Cubevision logo, they should know it's something good, something worth checking out.
When I was in N.W.A. and didn't get paid all the money I was owed, that's when the business side of showbiz hit me.
I wake up at 5:30, 6 in the morning, but don't head into the office right away. I like to hang out with my wife, talk about things, get some coffee, you know.
Rap is always evolving. It's easy for the old school to hate the new school, but it's a music that got a little stifled I think, by the Internet a little bit.
I definitely support cop acting more than cops, but all of them ain't bad, just some of them.
The thing is with hip-hop, it has its waves and the waves crash against the beach and the new waves come in. So to stay relevant you have to roll with that.
When I did 'Boyz N The Hood', I never thought how we grew up in South Central was interesting enough for a movie.
