POP MUSIC REVIEW : Gangster-Rapper Ice Cube Puts On a Mean Show

Gangster-rap might be Los Angeles’ most profitable musical export since glam rock, but gangster-rap shows are hard to find, partly because the music’s violent reputation makes some promoters skittish. When Ice-T does a show, it’s usually as a small part of a multi-act revue.

N.W.A, for all its notoriety, has performed only one two-night stand in the area since it reached maturity as a group two years ago. More FBI agents than Angelenos have probably seen them. If there are three or four big shows by Los Angeles rappers in 12 months in Southern California, it’s been a very good year.

So the L.A. debut of gangster virtuoso Ice Cube, the apostate member of N.W.A, was a big deal in the rap community, which is why the Palace was crammed Thursday night with a multiracial crowd.

The Ice Cube-N.W.A divorce a few months ago created a major rift in L.A. hip-hop. Ice Cube friends and N.W.A loyalists reportedly had a battle royal at the recent New Music Seminar in New York--and the energy in the Palace seemed as tense and grim as Ice Cube’s stark tales of life in the projects.

Opening the show was Yo-Yo--a young hard-core female rapper, whose upcoming album will be produced by Ice Cube--ferally pouncing, tough beats meshing oddly with what sounded like the world’s highest rap voice. She’s obviously talented, but just as obviously inexperienced as a performer.

Low Profile, a posse led by DJ Aladdin, another ex-N.W.A member, followed. The two loose-limbed front men rapped in an old-fashioned, Run-DMC style and managed to squeeze every conceivable hip-hop cliche into a very short set. They were amiable, but Aladdin was spectacular, doing to a bank of turntables what Michael Jordan does with a basketball.

Finally, around 11:30, it was time for Ice Cube. The curtain lifted, the music started, a big banner picturing a noose came into view, and off to one side of the stage Ice Cube twirled in a rotating electric chair.

He leaped up to raucous applause and launched into “Amerikkka’s Most Wanted,” the title track of his Public Enemy-produced solo LP, stalking the stage until he hit an invisible bumper and then reversing direction, looking as angry as it’s possible to look while performing for all your friends.

Ice Cube’s basic rapping style these days consists of a lot of barking at the top of his lungs, fluent polysyllabic and four-letter words flowing seamlessly together, but not with much subtlety. The anger is largely aimed at gold-digging women and racist cops.

He led the audience in chants so sexist they would have made Eddie Murphy blush, but somehow the audience seemed more merry than vicious. There was a strange echo on his voice, almost unidentifiable until he stopped rapping for a moment and the words continued, yelled out by hundreds of fans.

He identified celebrities in the audience--Tone-Loc, the Boo-Ya Tribe and the D.O.C.--and dressed up in a mink coat as he rapped “Who’s the Mack.”

When the tension in the room led to a few random fistfights, Ice Cube stopped the music and lectured the crowd on the stupidity of black-on-black violence. The fighting ceased.

Near the end of the 45-minute set, Ice Cube brought Yo-Yo onstage and smiled smugly as she rapped her half of the battle-of-the-sexes duet. The number was the highlight of the evening--and Ice Cube’s signaled it was over by ordering Yo-Yo to get off his stage. Misogyny is to Ice Cube what paint was to Van Gogh.