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TORONTO - He might have starred in a couple of big-name movies, but Ice Cube wants you to know he's still chilling.
Sliding back from the balcony overlooking the lobby at his Richmond Street hotel, the 37-year-old movie star-rapper says his latest CD - "Laugh Now, Cry Later" - should catch some people off guard.
"Somebody who knows me from 'Are We There Yet?' is going to stumble across this album and boy they're going to get a real education," he smirks.
"Rap is dangerous," he continues, his mouth curling into a smile. "It's not safe."
Since his last record - "War & Peace Vol. 2 (The Peace Disc)" - dropped in 2000, Cube's been so busy making movies that he hasn't been able to string together a full-length release. So when he got the incredible itch to settle down and make his seventh solo album, what did he do? He took a break.
"I wasn't away from the game totally," he clarifies. "I did 'Terrorist Threats' (with Westside Connection) in '03, performed on a couple songs with Lil John ("Real N**** Roll Call" and "Grand Finale"), and did other cameos here and there. But I knew I wasn't playing the game hardcore like it should be played.
"So, while I was shooting Triple X ("xXx: State Of The Union"), I said to myself, 'I'm not going to take another movie 'til I finish my record.'"
When filming wrapped in 2005, Cube used some leftover beats from his sessions with Lil John in 2004, headed into the studio, and didn't come out for nearly 12 months.
"It wasn't done in the old way, where it was me workin' on the album one minute and then gettin' pulled away to do a movie," he says. "Something suffers when you do it like that, and it's the music.
"And when I decided to push movies aside to do the record, I realized how much fun I used to have. It got my blood flowing again,'cause I took it back to how I started in the game with Eazy E and Dr Dre, which is, do a good record, pound the concrete. Simple as that."
Released in June, the album's 20 tracks features production work from hitmakers Scott Storch and Lil John, offering up king-sized raps over bare-boned beats. But when Cube started penning tracks for "Laugh Now, Cry Later," he was sure he didn't want to make a record in the same mold as today's artists. "Rap right now is more fantasy. It mostly talks about partying, materialism, bull****, clothes, jewelry, which is all cool, but I wanted to bring a balance. I wanted to talk about the real issues that people are dealing with that's listenin' to the record, not just, 'Listen to what I got.' Not just bragging and boasting, but hitting people in their mind as well as making the record fun too.
"In a way, I needed to do an album that my fans would dig point blank. The rap fan that was with me back when I started? I wanted them to feel like they were being taken back. So, it's like vintage Ice Cube over new music.
"I was more concerned with the fans that are my age," he goes on. "Nobody does records for that intelligent rap fan, who still want their dose of rap, but they don't want that dose to be 12 songs of bull****. They want it to have some substance to it."
Cube's blistering rhymes still touch on the partying and cars (the bouncy "Smoke Some Weed," and radio-ready "Chrome & Paint"), but the record veers into political territory on the Storch-produced, "Why We Thugs." Backed by creepy synth lines and gut-punching bass pops, Cube sets his sights on George W.
"Since I was little, ain't a goddamn thing changed/ It's the same ol same/ Bush run shit like Saddam Hussein," he snarls, before cockily dissing right-wing talking heads with the line, "Who's the animal that invented lower living?"
Later, on the menacing, "N**** Trap," Bush junior is in his cross-hairs again, and this time Cube's pulling no punches: "Recognize who's a hustler, George Dubya/ He's the one that's sittin back, f*****' ya/ With a big d*** stuck in ya/ I'm from a place where the f*****' Terminator is the Governor."
"If an MC is on their game, their music should be a snapshot of that year or that time period," he says levelly. "That's why 'Laugh Now, Cry Later' is a perfect title, 'cause the record has laughs and the record has cries. Being able to rap about Katrina (on the poignant, Minnie Riperton-sampling 'Growin' Up') as well as hanging out and having big rims is part of what I do."
But what about lyrics that cross the line? Cube sparked a media firestorm in the early '90s when he was accused of anti-Semitism (on "No Vaseline") and fanning anti-Korean sentiments with his racially charged "Black Korea" (both from 1991's "Death Certificate").
"People always ask me, 'You're grown now, would you go back and change any of your lyrics?' And I'm like, 'F*** no.' 'Cause that's how I felt. That time, that place, boom, it's captured. Why change it?"
Back when he started with N.W.A. in the '80s, Cube says rappers chronicled the social and economic fragmentation plaguing American's biggest cities. Tugging on the brim of his black Washington Nationals cap, the bearded artist says that nowadays the ingredients are still the same.
"I always look to have a record that pulls from current events. To me it's street knowledge. It's connecting the streets with the political climate and tone of the day. Some people, if they don't get it out of their music, they ain't gonna get it 'cause they not at home watching the news or reading no newspaper. They out hustling, trying to get theirs, they bumping music and sometimes that's the only place they can get any of their information. So I always keep that in mind. I try to put shit in people's mind that they maybe ain't trippin' on. Or something that's right in front of their face that they still can't comprehend."
In Toronto for a one-off show, on a two-day break from shooting "Are We Done Yet?" in Vancouver, Cube's gregarious amiability turns to exasperation though when he's asked how he reconciles his street cred with a Hollywood career that's anything but.
"People have tried to pigeonhole me my whole life, and I've always been able to shake out of it. When people think I'm going one way, I show 'em the other side of who I am. People thought I was all gangsta, and then I did 'Friday.' People think I'm political as hell, but I do movies like 'Are We There Yet?' But that's OK. I wanna shock 'em."
"Laugh Now, Cry Later" is in stores now.