Hip-Hop legend heats up Tribute Centre in downtown Oshawa

Iconic hip-hop superstar Ice Cube brought the heat to downtown Oshawa Thursday night.

The NWA founder, solo artist, prolific actor and hip-hop legend brought his Straight Into Canada tour to the Tribute Centre, with Ice Cube spitting out rhymes and rapping his unique prose for an appreciative crowd.

Ice Cube launched his music career at age 16 and founded the iconic NWA, where he was the primary lyricist on the group’s debut album, Straight Outta Compton.

The record cemented the ‘gangsta rap’ subgenre and he moved the Los Angeles music scene toward more serious depictions of urban culture. Self-styled as ‘the world’s most dangerous group,’ Straight Outta Compton not only depicted the violence, brutality and racism experienced by those living in the L.A. suburb of Compton, but it threatened to incite it,” said Rolling Stone magazine in ranking the album the 70th greatest of all time.

Opening act Peter Jackson, sporting the hometown colours. Photo William Balfour

Ice Cube left NWA shortly after the album and launched his solo career in 1990 with AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted and continued to pump out acclaimed and controversial records throughout the early 90s, broadening his music base with collaborations with rockstars like David Bowie and Nine Inch Nails’ Trant Reznor, as well as numerous artists in the hip-hop and rap culture, including  Snoop Dogg, Eminem and with Dr. Dre and MC Ren of NWA.

He also jumped into film and has appeared in more than 40 films in the past 25 years, including Boyz in the Hood, 21 and 22 Jump Street and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (as the villainous Superfly).

In 2015, he produced his own biopic, Straight Outta Compton. He’s received numerous honours over the years, including Grammys and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

With files from Liam O’Connell

Ice Cube: the West Coast Warlord. Photo William Balfour