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Onstage Monday night, Ice Cube took pains to remind all the folks packed into Moda Center that he’s been in the hip-hop game for a full four decades, a stretch that has seen the 56-year-old go from Public Enemy No.1 to family-friendly movie star. No small achievement considering how many of his contemporaries are no longer with us or have faded from cultural view. That level of stature has afforded Cube the ability to walk out onto a minimally decorated stage all alone with nothing but a microphone and his ego to support him.
That turned out to be more than enough. For two-plus hours, Cube walked us through the highlights of his long career, rolling from “Fuck Tha Police,” the incendiary track he made as a member of N.W.A to much less controversial fare like “We Be Clubbin’.” He commanded the stage, drawing attention away from even the flashy visuals that blinked around him during the whole set.
Ice Cube’s stage presence was so outsized that the momentum of the set noticeably dipped when he slipped through a door at the back of the stage and let a video roll walking fans through his life and career. (The voice-over in an early clip seemed to suggest that JFK faked the Apollo 11 moon landing, which…lol.) With stops at the 1992 L.A. riots and Cube’s much-publicized 1994 reunion with Dr. Dre, it was a nice history lesson for the surprisingly many under-21 concertgoers in the audience but otherwise dragged the pace of the night down. It didn’t take much for him to regain cruising altitude, though, when he stalked back into the spotlight. Just his booming voice, star power, and, yes, a mini Goodyear blimp that flashed the reminder, “Ice Cube’s a Pimp.”
