Ice Cube (@icecube) - "Man Up" (Album)

ce Cube is considered the creator of Gangsta Rap. His legacy has transitioned from rap to sports and film. Ice Cube has built a career on fearless truth-telling, and his latest project, Man Up, continues that legacy. Serving as the companion to last year’s chart-topping Man Down, the new album expands Cube’s uncompromising critique of politics, culture, and history. Together, the two projects form a sharp statement at a moment when hip-hop finds itself under renewed public scrutiny. The lead single, “Before Hip Hop,” embodies the project’s urgency. Over thunderous production, Cube dismantles a familiar accusation—that rap music created urban violence. Instead of sidestepping the argument, he confronts it directly, wielding history as proof that crime and injustice long predate the culture. “It’s easy and lazy to look at what’s going on in a lot of communities and blame hip hop for everything,” Cube declares. “But the reality is the violence, pain, and broken systems were already here. Before Hip Hop is calling out the revisionist, showing how crime and injustice existed long before hip hop music. We didn’t cause it — we just called it.” The single doubles as both warning and manifesto. For decades, politicians and media critics have weaponized rap as a scapegoat, treating it as shorthand for dysfunction. Cube flips that script, reminding listeners that hip-hop has always served as testimony rather than the origin of society’s fractures. With Man Up, Cube refuses nostalgia. Instead, he positions himself as a present-day critic, still using the mic as shield and sword. The album proves hip-hop remains his battlefield—and his sharpest weapon. - via HotNewHipHop