Ice Cube has shut down Candace Owens’ wild claim that gangsta rap was “created by the feds.”
The controversial right-wing political commentator took to X (formerly Twitter) last week and claimed that the popular yet polarizing Hip Hop subgenre originated not from the streets but directly from the U.S. government.
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She wrote: “Gangster rap was never black culture. It was created by the Feds, who proferred deals to homosexual black men in prison and then turned them into artificial celebrities. The goal was to create false idols to destroy black American values.
“I will never change my mind on this,” she added.
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After Ice Cube, who helped pioneer and popularize gangsta rap in the 1980s as a member of N.W.A, was alerted to Owens’ hot take, it didn’t take long for him to set the record straight.
The rap veteran rebutted: “We called it Reality Rap the industry coined it Gangsta Rap. The fans wanted gangsta rap and that’s what they got. The Feds didn’t write none of my shit. I’m a real MC.”
Gangster rap was never black culture. It was created by the Feds, who proferred deals to homosexual black men in prison and then turned them into artificial celebrities. The goal was to create false idols to destroy black American values.
I will never change my mind on this.
— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) September 20, 2024
We called it Reality Rap the industry coined it Gangsta Rap. The fans wanted gangsta rap and that’s what they got. The Feds didn’t write none of my shit. I’m a real MC. https://t.co/8ILsp4sFhw
— Ice Cube (@icecube) September 20, 2024
Ice Cube is no stranger to conspiracy theories tied to the history of Hip Hop.
Earlier this year, the “It Was a Good Day” rapper addressed claims that he was aware of a “secret meeting that changed rap” — and again, he didn’t pull any punches.
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The idea of a “Secret Meeting That Changed Rap” stems from a blog post first popularized about a decade ago, in which an anonymous source claimed that a group of 25 to 30 “decision makers” in the music business conspired together in 1991 to create a prison pipeline of sorts through rap music.
According to this conspiracy theory, the executives would hire a group of Black men and women to create music that encouraged criminal behavior, thus supplying the privately owned prisons (who were also alleged investors in the music industry) with much-needed free labor.
When one user on social media claimed that Cube had “direct knowledge” of this alleged meeting and that N.W.A were either “directly involved in the matter” or “at least the model that all other groups were to mimic,” the rap legend hit back.
“Opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one and they all stink! What evidence do you have to make a statement like that?” he replied on X.
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Reputable scholars have concluded that the “music industry to prison pipeline” is an urban legend, albeit one that touches on complicated issues.
