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Alex Henderson, All Music Guide
After leaving N.W.A on anything but good terms with Dr. Dre and Eazy-E, Ice Cube launched his solo career with the hard-hitting and impressive AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted. While the Angelino continued to embrace gangsta rap -- a style in which MCs provide violent, graphic, first-person portrayals of thugs, gang members, drug dealers, and so on -- there's a lot more to this riveting CD than its controversial approach. As much as Cube thrives on the shocking and the profane, it's clear that he isn't glamorizing the harsh urban realities he raps about, but rather, protesting them. "Once Upon a Time in the Projects" is about being arrested for being in the wrong place (a crack house) at the wrong time (during a drug bust), while "Endangered Species" (a duet with Public Enemy leader Chuck D) is a sobering reflection on the high mortality rate among young African-American males. On some of his subsequent recordings, Cube would, artistically speaking, become a victim of his own anger. But on AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, a more lucid Cube quite effectively articulates just how bad things are in the America's inner cities -- and how badly things need to change.
