Ice Cube, Croydon and Sexual Guidance

Ice Cube always reminds me of Croydon. Back in the early '90s, my friend Blair Cowl (who lived in the leafy middle class estate of Forestdale, East Croydon) had ‘The Predator’ on tape. We used to sit in his bedroom when his parents were out, with the music blasting out. He was always prone to be a bit over the top, but he took a rare delight in quoting the outré lyrics of the chubby LA rapper. Obviously the extreme violence and swearing were a giggle for nice white boys like us.

Our favourite song was ‘It Was a Good Day’, a laidback number in which Cube recounts a delightful 24 hours where he didn’t have to kill anyone (“I didn't even have to use my A.K.”), eat pork (“momma cooked a breakfast with no hog”) or get stopped by the police (“Saw the police and they rolled right past me”). This is obviously a rare thing for Ice Cube – a bit like getting a seat on the tube and having no queue in Pret on the same day for me.



Just to top off his dream day, Ice also pulls “a girl been tryin’ to fuck since the 12th grade”. This is in the days before ‘Friends Reunited’, so it’s particularly impressive. This is where you wonder whether a generation of teenage white boys had their nascent sex lives wrecked by taking Ice Cube’s lyrics at face value. Particularly as the myth of black male potency is still current in white culture.

I’ll illustrate what I mean. Well, first of all his idea of a date is for her to puff a joint while he downs a beer and watches a bit of sport on telly (“The Lakers beat the Supersonics”). Then he gives her arse a bit of a grope (“felt on the big fat fanny”). Maybe the ladies in LA are particularly easily pleased, because before you know it they’re at it.

I do think Ice shows his feminist side here, as he’ll still make love to her despite the fact she’s on the blob (“Pulled out the jammy, and killed the punanny”). After this, I feel his understanding of female sexual pleasure is a little off-beam. He raps: “And my dick runs deep, so deep, so deep put her ass to sleep”. Oh dear, is he used to sending woman off to sleep with his lovemaking technique? Were there a whole load of lads out there who venerated Ice Cube and had complexes because their girlfriends weren’t nodding off as they banged them?

Mind you, having said that, after he wakes her up, his date doesn’t hesitate “to call Ice Cube the Top Gun”. So he must have been doing something right. Or perhaps she was being polite? Especially if she woke up to find him polishing his “nine” with a funny look on his face.

Sadly, the whole thing turns out to be a fantasy – an idealistic dream of what life should be. As we sat there in Blair’s suburban bolthole, it was a dream we couldn’t possibly relate to. After all, a nice pork sausage and bacon are the essential ingredients of any dream breakfast.