HOLLYWOOD -- Straight outta Compton, Ice Cube exploded into celebrity and infamy in 1989 as a rapper with the Los Angeles ghetto outfit N.W.A, or Niggaz With Attitude.

At 34, Cube still has attitude. Don't mess with this dude, even if he has a suburban L.A. lifestyle with his wife Kimberly and their four children. He fights for his rights, remains angry about exploitation, especially in the music business. But he also has gone mainstream, boasting success as a singer-songwriter, as an actor and as a movie producer who is shaping his career and changing black cinema.

Cube's latest film is Barbershop 2: Back In Business, which opens Friday. Cube -- a.k.a. O'Shea Jackson -- returns as Calvin, beleaguered owner of a Chicago barbershop now threatened by gentrification and redevelopment. He also serves as co-executive producer; his Cube Vision worked with MGM to mount the sequel to their original 2002 hit.

Cube now muses on the state of his world and his career:

On leadership: "When we did Boyz N The Hood, Laurence Fishburne, he was the guy who took the lead, you know. Three Kings, it was George Clooney. So I think, when you're the guy, you need to be The Guy, because things can get out whack and people tend to listen to the dude who's first on the call sheet, sometimes more than the director."

On rap fans who might find the Barbershop movies too family-oriented: "Want something hard, pick up a record."

On making music: "I'm still into music as much as I've always been into it. It's just that this movie career has overtaken my music. But I'm still going to do it. I'm going to do a solo record, hopefully start it in April."

On gangstas coming to see Barbershop: "Even the hardest thugs want to see good movies, you know."

On crossing over into multi-racial audiences: "I think the first Barbershop showed Hollywood a lot: If a movie's done well, promoted well, that everybody wants to see it."

On what Queen Latifah, who will soon shoot the spin-off Beauty Shop, brings to Barbershop 2: "What? Besides star power and energy? It's perfect for her character, kind of a girl who don't take no stuff. That's kind of her attitude."

On giving real-life haircuts: "No -- and I never will!"

On the gentrification issue in Barbershop 2: "It was only natural to see what happens outside of the barbershop, to the community. Out with the old, in with the new. Tradition vs. the future. These are some of the questions that I don't think have ever been raised within us (the black community as depicted on film). And I don't think we answered it in the movie, but we definitely raised the question."

On lacklustre reviews and box office for Torque: "It's a kids flick. Everybody who saw it liked it. That's all I'm really concerned with."

On watching his own movies: "I wouldn't watch Ghost Of Mars!" (Cube hates how it turned out.) "You just chalk it up to the game, you know. Some of the best actors have done lousy movies. All of the best actors!"

On why he doesn't want to kiss the girl and never makes love stories or traditional romantic comedies: "Because I hate to see that kind of movie. That kind of movie is just boring, sappy, sucky! I like comedies, dramas, action. That's what I love!"

On being sappy and sucky in his private life with Kimberly: "Sometimes -- but it's not on film!"