Ice Cube Doesn't Care About Oscar Snub

My favourite quote from Ice Cube pertaining to the fact that Straight Outta Compton "only" got nominated for best screenplay at this year's Oscars is this one: "You can't boycott something you never went to". The rest of his pearls of wisdom are here, including descriptions on how fan and critical reaction was more important than a statuette.

In my mind, there isn't really a snub because it's not like it would have won Best Picture - it wasn't. It was the best biopic of the year, sure, by a long stretch, but biopics by their very definition usually sacrifice artistry and imagination in the name of telling the most accurate story or character personalization possible.

Was F. Gary Gray's (of Friday fame) work as a director worthy of being compared to that of Alejandro G. Innaritu (The Revenant), or even Ridley Scott (The Martian) or Steven Spielberg (Bridge Of Spies), who weren't even nominated themselves? No, absolutely not.

And though he was terrific as Eazy-E, Jason Mitchell's performance wasn't in the same league as that of Leonardo DiCaprio (The Revenant), who, himself, was leagues ahead of Matt Damon (The Martian), Bryan Cranston (Trumbo) and Eddie Redmayne (The Danish Girl) this year. Or even of Johnny Depp, whose performance in Black Mass was ignored, probably exactly for the sake of not letting voters hesitate between that performance and DiCaprio's.

There weren't many female parts in the film, let alone any stand-outs that deserved to take on the likes of Cate Blanchett (Carol), Jennifer Lawrence (Joy) or Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn) for Best Actress, nor to challenge Jennifer Jason Leigh (The Hateful Eight), Rooney Mara (Carol), Rachel McAdams (Spotlight), or Kate Winslet (Steve Jobs) in a supporting role.

Which leaves Ice Cube's son, O'Shea Jackson Jr. playing his father, who may have had a shot against Tom Hardy (The Revenant), Mark Ruffalo (Spotlight), and Sylvester Stallone (Creed). Hardy could also have been nominated for Best Actor and Supporting Actor for the same film - British picture Legend. So the younger Cube is the only one who can be deemed a snub - and his own father's like, "fuck it".

Which didn't stop the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to over-react and change its whole voting system to "increase diversity", which could very well prove to be a huge mistake later when less deserving films get awards just so that every shade of the colour and rainbow palette are represented.

Oh, wait, it's the fucking Oscars, the institution that gave Denzel Washington a trophy for the piece of shit that was Training Day instead of Malcolm X; the institution that gave Russell Crowe an award for wearing a skirt in Gladiator instead of his tour-de-force performance in The Insider; the institution that waited until Scent Of A Woman to give Al Pacino the recognition he derserved; the institution that thought Titanic was the best film of 1997 and that Forrest Gump was better in any way than Pulp Fiction in 1994. Oh, yeah, the fucking Oscars. Not rewarding the best piece of art is what they do (see: Birdman last year instead of Boyhood).

They were NEVER about rewarding the best of the indusry, but always about rewarding The Industry.

Cube knows. Cube speaks wisdom. Listen to Cube. Still, it'll be funny to hear Chris Rock tear the Academy a new one for 10 minutes.

Video Of The Week: N.W.A.

A couple of weeks ago, I went and saw Straight Outta Compton, the biopic telling the tale of rap group N.W.A., and figured I'd feature the song that inspired the title. But time passed, and I went a week without doing so.

Now is that time.

I recommend seeing the movie; as far as biopics go, I put it in the same category as Ray and Walk The Line, as good movies that tell a tale while taking a bit of liberties with history to make the story fit a two-hour time frame narrative. But if you're curious to find out about how Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, DJ Yella, and MC Ren got started (and got in trouble), how their relationships were torn apart, how hip hop feuds can get violent, the arrivals of Snoop Doggy Dogg, Suge Knight, Da Lench Mob and The D.O.C. to the mix and just the ambiance of early-1990s West Coast rap in general.

However, I'd already featured Straight Outta Compton at the time of the album's 20th anniversary, so instead I opted to show Express Yourself this week, featuring a lead rap by Dr. Dre and samples from the eponymous classic by Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band and a sweet cameo from Tone Loc:

Video of The Week: N.W.A.

This week marks the 20th anniversary of Eazy-E's passing (yesterday was the actual date), a victim of AIDS, a year before Tupac Shakur was shot down, in a down period for Snoop Doggy Dogg, at a time where Death Row Records were getting more recognition for their ''street work'' than their art, marking a decline in California/West Coast hip hop that would take years to get back on its feet.

And while rap originated from the streets of New York and was brought to the mainstream via Grandmaster Flash and Sugarhill Gang, then elevated to high art by the likes of Public Enemy (who gave it political legitimacy), it was West Coast rap that put a real sense of danger and impending doom to the old, white male politicians and their wives (hello, Tipper Gore).

And at the forefront of their fear was what would later emerge as having been a supergroup because most of its members had successful solo careers afterwards, N.W.A. - Niggaz With Attitudez. They were stirring shit up when they were underground and just playing shows and releasing mixtapes circa 1986-88, but when they released Straight Outta Compton on August 8th, 1988, it really hit the fan. Profanity-laced, talking about the violence that was actually happening in the streets of Los Angeles, with real and smart rhymes about the social divide between races and of people in a position of authority versus the poor, taking the word ''nigger'' that white policemen were screaming at black kids back with a vengeance - a real, actual call for vengeance, because if the song Straight Outta Compton is an introduction to their world, Fuck Tha Police is direct in its intention.

It was pure of heart, and it was genuine, and it was genius. The words Ice Cube wrote for himself as well as for Eazy-E (the group's leader, a terrific showman and personality but sub-par writer) and Dr. Dre (a master producer), and those MC Ren and Yella wrote themselves hit White America and the Establishment in the face, with nothing but the cold, hard truth. They were Bob Dylan, they were John Lennon, but they were angry, and without them there probably could never have been a Tupac, or a Rage Against The Machine, or a System Of A Down.

The Man tried to kill the movement with ''Parental Advisory'' stickers on their tapes and records, but the trials and news coverage led to exactly the opposite of what the narrow-minded politicians had hoped for: instead of ''protecting'' their children from the ''threat'' of angry rap, it just drove suburban kids to buy more of it, and thus began a cultural shift that is still (very slowly) taking place in the States. It's as if these politicians didn't recall when their own grandparents called Elvis Presley ''the Devil's music'' and how that just gave him more traction. Except this time, Elvis was a black man with a gun. (And, like Elvis, Ice Cube did gain some weight and go on to make terrible films; in his defense, his music has remained relevant pretty much the whole time, though).

So here's their introduction to the world, their calling card, if you will, directed by Rupert Wainwright:

Lux Interior Of The Cramps: R.I.P.

It was late in 1989 or early in 1990 and for the second time I went to Sam The Record Man, a popular chain of record stores at the time, to exchange what I thought was a defective Love And Rockets cassette, its then-unknown to me lo-finess sounding more like a muddy copy of a muddy copy of a muddy tape than the clean sounds I was more accustomed to, be it the pop crap of MC Hammer of the hard rock of Guns N' Roses or the new gangsta sounds of N.W.A.

My mother had given me a ride there and was waiting in the car as I brought the 'defective' cassette back to exchange it for the final time. I went straight to the rack, grabbed the tape and went straight to the cash where I was fourth or fifth in line, receipt in hand, ready for the exchange. I took a look into the Bargain Bin, in case I would find that elusive Samantha Fox cassette that wasn't a good seller and maybe they had lost patience with and would finally let me leave with at a price I could afford, hopefully 99 cents. It was part of the experience of going to Sam's, searching the Bargain Bin for that rare, obscure find that would forever change your life.

Alas, all I could find as I was nearing the bottom of the bin was the Chess soundtrack with the Murray Head track One Night In Bangkok - for $4.99, about $4.50 more than I would have been willing to pay for an already-old One Hit Wonder. And that's when SHE appeared.


Topless, wearing a thong and high-heel shoes, redheaded and - most important - $1.99, a price I could afford. The Cramps was the name of the band, and I knew absolutely nothing about them, but I didn't need to. She had stolen my heart and was likely to step all over it. ''Stay Sick!'' was the name of the record, and I was sure it would live up to its title, and I was sure she would, too. I took her home and couldn't wait to get there.

Oh, I had gone there for Love And Rockets, but what mattered most now was to find out what The Cramps were all about. I was eleven years old and I didn't dare take the cassette out of the bag and show it to my mom, who even inquired if I wanted to use the car's tape deck to test for sound quality, and the only excuse I could find for not opening my bag was ''no, really, I want to keep it suspenseful all the way home''.

The second the car was parked in front of the house, I ran straight into my room, reached in the bag and pulled the tape out, unwrapped it in record time and stuck it into my dual tape deck - and that's when the shock came. There was a punk-rockabilly band, tight as all heck, with an Elvis impersonator singing, but not the cheesy Elvis my mom liked, a dangerous one who was likely to drive up to elementary schools and offer kids some candy if they get into his car.

And I opened the booklet to find out that these guys were dressed like girls. Not wanna-be girls, not gay-for-eyeliner drag queens like Poison, no: actual hot, highly fuckable young-adult-looking horny secretary girls wearing leather, vinyl and animal patterns, the type that if they didn't take your virginity away would help you get Samantha Fox in your bed 'cause they were that cool.

And that's the way The Cramps were built. Lux Interior once said that when they played CBGB's, they thought it was a one-night thing, they wanted to see what would happen if they went on stage doing what they did, see if they would get beat up, or what.

What happened is they rocked. They could shock you into getting your attention, but once they had it, they were going to keep it with their chops. They did it with mine - and with many others.

Today, we learned the death of the one and only Lux Interior, which very likely means the end of The Cramps. After Ron Asheton of The Stooges, we lose another very important figure in meaningful music. The link above will lead to a bunch of videos and quotes on the man, do yourselves a favour and check some of them out.

I feel lucky to have seen them live in NYC in 2005 at Avalon, which was none other than the rechristened Limelight I had played in 6 years before, a redesigned and recycled church become palace of rock. Even if the outside line-up made it so that we only saw the last few minutes of the show, those minutes were enough to make the night worthwhile.

I have a feeling I'll be listening to a lot of Cramps stuff for the next while and, if history repeats itself, maybe I won't be listening to Love And Rockets at all for the next two or three weeks.