Death Certificate

     Ice Cube’s “Death Certificate” was and still is one of my favorite albums. It was Ice Cube without NWA, being mentored and produced by the Chuck D and the Bomb Squad, on some everyday street isht with a positive message to it. Cube married rowdy, gangster street mentality, with Islamic ideals, common sense, and righteousness. He found a way to take one side of the album to play towards the streets who wanted to hear the gangsterism, but with that, he put it in the air that “As you listen to this, pay attention to what is being said and decide if this is what you want for your life”. The other side directly addressed the issues and plainly stated what positive changes needed to made in the Black and Hispanic communities. The two were named the “Life” and “Death” sides, a concept that was genius and allowed him to give different points of views with without being considered contradictory with songs like “Dead Homies”, Steady Mobbin’”, "A Bird In The Hand", and “Givinupthenappydugout”.


    Now let’s get to the meat of this discussion, “My Summer Vacation”. The song is FAR from “Are We There Yet?” It basically tells a story about some cats from LA spreading their love for making money by bringing dirt cheap Cocaine to St. Louis and while setting up shop, running into a few problems and converting the locals to Bloods and Crips to make the process a bit simpler. The song hit home for me because I was in St. Louis often with friends and family and had a few experiences with the gangs; some cool, some not so much. What I didn’t know until I got older is that was the real reason why every time I went to Northwest Plaza, Saints, and rode through U-City the blue and red flags were so prevalent. Ice Cube was not only giving us an oral history lesson, he was spittin’.

    It all brings back good memories of good music and good times in one of my favorite towns. Of course I have the video below, so check that out, follow me on Facebook and on Twitter @TheMarcusObrien and TELL SOMEBODY. The link to the archives are below.