Death Certificate [Bonus Track] [PA] (CD - 1991)

Producers: Sir Jinx, Ice Cube, The Boogie Men.

Includes liner notes by Alan Light.

Audio Mixers: DJ Pooh; Daryll Dobson; Ice Cube; Sir Jinx.

Audio Remasterer: Kris Solem.

Liner Note Author: Alan Light.

Recording information: Paramount Studios, Hollywood, CA.

Photographer: Mario Castellanos.

Once a member of N.W.A., Ice Cube has consistently put out hits and, throughout his music and film career, has remained admired by the hip-hop community. Rough and rugged, but true and to the point, only Ice Cube can address certain issues facing black, urban America, and he does just that on DEATH CERTIFICATE.

DEATH CERTIFICATE is co-produced by Ice Cube with the help of The Boogie Men and Sir Jinx, and the beats they come up with are hard, funky and fast, resembling Cube's own energy. George Clinton's "Atomic Dog" is revived through "My Summer Vacation" and, along with Cube's threatening lyrics, gives the track a funky, gangsta-party appeal. Ice Cube sums up his values and way of life on the single, "Steady Mobbin'": "Bustin' caps in the mix/Rather be judged by twelve than carried by six." "Look Who's Burnin'" is a story on the results of sexually-transmitted diseases; and though the lyrics are harsh, the song relays a positive message of the need to practice safe sex. In "True To The Game," Ice Cube lets all sell-outs know that there's no room in his world for those who crossover.

Uncensored and raw, DEATH CERTIFICATE is life and death through the eyes of an artist who has seen his share of both.

If Ice Cube's debut was a shocking attack that proved the N.W.A legacy would be stronger divided, his sophomore effort was a new kind of superstar pulling off the miraculous, a follow-up that equals its classic predecessor and tops it in some people's books. With a million copies of Death Certificate preordered, Cube was no longer the rock critics' darling. A million people listening was dangerous, especially since he was now slithering his influence into the suburbs. If the black rage didn't get you, the misogyny of "I'm gonna do my thing, with your daughter" probably would. Here, one of rap's greatest storytellers is able to draw hatred in under a minute with the short and direct "Black Korea," an angry protest song concerning Korean grocers that got him dubbed "racist" and "Ice KKKube" by some. The track is an extreme representation of how a much sharper and cutting this album is when compared with his debut, and even though the intro announces the full-length is divided into a "Death Side" and "Life Side," both are equally bleak. With the CD format, the two sides are indistinguishable and run over the listener with fast tales of drug dealing, drive-by shootings, and women who go from "Ms. Thing to Ms. Gonorrhea." This would be numbing if it weren't for the rapper's amazing lyrics, ground-shaking delivery, and insight like when "A Bird in the Hand" deals with the irony of selling crap to buy diapers ("Gotta serve you food that might give you cancer/Cuz my son doesn't take no for answer"). A bit of sweet relief comes with the brightness of the great single "Steady Mobbin'" and with the nostalgia and slow tempo of "Doing Dumb Shit." "True to the Game" ("Ain't that a bitch/They hate to see a young nigga rich") is arguably the quintessential Cube track and if all this weren't enough already, the N.W.A diss "No Vaseline" hangs off the album like a crowd-pleasing, Brick-sampling encore. Although next year's Predator would be a bigger hit, Death Certificate brings to a close the man's trilogy of perfect albums that began with N.W.A's Compton and explodes into a supernova right here. [The 2003 reissue adds "How to Survive in South Central" from the soundtrack to Ice Cube's first film, Boyz in the Hood.] ~ David Jeffries minimize