While rapper Ice Cube might have become more known in recent years for his acting (and producing) on projects like the “Friday” movies, Barbershop and more family-friendly fare like Are We There Yet? (which in turn led to a hit TV show), he first came on the scene in the mid-’80s as part of Compton, California’s legendary hip-hop group N.W.A. (short for “N*gg*z with Attitudes”) who pioneered a tougher and edgier style of rapping that’s still popular over 20 years since the group disbanded.
For some time, there’s been talk about a biopic recounting the history of the group, which came more to the forefront after Ice Cube’s ESPN doc “Straight Outta L.A.” played at the Tribeca Film Festival a few years back. New Line is already on board and a few names have been bandied about, including John Singleton, F. Gary Gray (The Italian Job), Craig Brewer (Footloose), and Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights).
When ComingSoon.net talked to Cube for his upcoming role in Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum’s 21 Jump Street, he told us that they’re still figuring out who will direct it, but
fans of the group may be happy to know that the rest of N.W.A. will be involved with the movie. Although Cube split from the group rather acrimoniously two years before their demise, he reunited with Dr. Dre and MC Ren for the “Up in Smoke” tour in 1999 and 2000.
“I’m producing it and I’m doing most of the heavy lifting but those guys have definitely participated in the interview process and just trying to get the script together,” Cube told us. “The more and more this thing starts to build up, the more and more you’ll see the guys around and involved in it.”
Cube also reflected on the impact the group had back in their days and how N.W.A. is still heavily-referenced (even in his upcoming movie 21 Jump Street):
“I knew we made a major impact on the trajectory of music in a lot of ways, and I would never know that people would still refer to that group and that time as a turning point in artistic expression in a lot of ways. I think with N.W.A., it made everybody who was coming out with something just like, ‘Yo, I’m just going to be myself. I’m not going to put a fake nothin’, not gonna pretend to be a nice guy and do great music and I feel this way,’ so people just decided to be themselves and do what they like.”
Ice Cube is also busy preparing for the next season of “Are We There Yet?” and has started writing the long-awaited fourth “Friday” movie.
You can see more of our interview with Cube before 21 Jump Street opens on March 16.
