AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted

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Part of what makes <i>AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted</i> essential is how ugly it i. Ugly in its observations about race (“Endangered Species (Tales From the Darkside)”) and ugly in its casual hatred of women (“You Can’t Fade Me”). Ugly when it’s being playful (“Who’s the Mack?”) and really ugly when it isn’t (“AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted”). At a time when artists like Public Enemy and Ice-T were exploring rap as something that could be explicitly political, Cube sounded less like a philosopher or reporter than a participant in the same societal corrosion that made him a victim in the first place—a gangsta because “gangsta” was all he thought he could be. Couch this in some of the most dynamic and musically entertaining hip-hop of its time (courtesy the Public Enemy production team The Bomb Squad) and you have a problem: An angry Black man with a gift for the spotlight. Or as an ABC interview put it by way of introduction: “Even if you’ve never heard of him, your kids have.” .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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