The Song of the Day is:
Ice Cube – “Friday”
From the soundtrack to the film Friday (1995)
We leave scars,
Out of G ride cars,
Livin like stars.
Might hit tha highway,
On tha Vegas run fool ’cause its FridayO’Shea Jackson – Gael Barbieri – Jimmy Castor -Jay Pruitt
How can you describe Ice Cube’s style? Well I don’t think that there is any rapper who so succinctly brings menace and good times to his music in equal measure. Ice Cube was of course the most militantly minded member of NWA, and instantly assembled a barrage of insults that he hurled onto his former bandmates. He could be quite ruthless. In 1990, he was one of the most feared rappers in the land, and he had released four solo albums by 1994. He had been acting in movies, including John Singleton’s seminal Boyz n the Hood (which took its name from a song by one of Ice Cube’s fellow NWA members, Eazy-E). While he’d shown hints of a much lighter personality behind the hard persona, it wasn’t on full display until 1995’s Friday. Ice Cube wrote and starred in the film. The whole idea behind the comedy was to show a lighter take on life in the hood, one that didn’t shy away from the dangers and illicit aspects of life, but also wasn’t out to make a major statement. Friday was a hit in theaters, but really became a success on home video, where repeated views endeared it into the hearts of millions (RIP actor John Witherspoon, who passed last year). The film’s soundtrack was about a 50/50 split between then-modern hip-hop and funk and soul classics from the seventies. Naturally, Ice Cube provided the film’s theme song, and it’s kind of bonkers. Ice Cube doesn’t really stray to far from his normal rhymes, but there’s a lot of guttural grunting (lifted from a Jimmy Castor Bunch record), vocalization taken directly from Dr. Dre’s “F— With Dre Day” (courtesy of Jewell…not the folk singer), and the famous saxophone of Lafayette Afro Rock Band’s “Darkest Light”. Other songs that sample this saxophone include Public Enemy’s “Show ‘Em Whatcha Got”, Wreckx-n-Effects “Rumpshaker”, and Jay-Z’s “Show Me What You Got”. I’m sure Ice Cube would…ahem…object to me saying this, but his image would soften with further movie roles that included parts in the films “Are We There Yet?”, “Anaconda” and “Barbershop”. He still retained as much vitriol as ever on his ten studio albums through 2018. In 2015, Friday‘s director, F. Gary Gray, helmed the NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton. The film starred Ice Cube’s son O’Shea Jackson Jr. as his father. Other songs considered today were The Cure’s “Friday, I’m in Love”, the Easybeats’ “Friday on My Mind” and Katy Perry’s “Last Friday Night”.
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