Ice Cube has been sharing the mic and his camera time with a host of A-list talent for decades. But, in his latest video, he shares the spotlight by paying tribute to dozens of victims of violent crimes. “Why Me?” which is featured on Cube‘s Raw Footage, finds the ex-NWA pioneer dedicating the following bars to senseless violence:
“Why the fuck you wanna murder me/your punk ass never heard of me/I never did nothing to your family/still you wanna kill a young nigga randomly.”
The Benny Boom directed clip features the family of Jamiel Shaw, a 17-year-old who was shot to death outside his Arlington Heights home in March. Shaw, who was on track to receive a college sports scholarship, was approached and killed by an alleged gang member who had been released from jail the previous day on weapons charges. During the video, Ice Cube is shown looking at photos of Shaw and others who were slain.
“It just was a tragic, tragic story of why,”Ice Cube told the Hollywood Reporter, when asked about the incident and others like it. “Young people are dying for no reason all over the world that don’t know why. It’s ugly, everywhere. To drive this home, it was only right to use real family and not use a bunch of actors.”
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The video for “Why Me?” was released in late September, but it began making additional headlines after Shaw‘s parents pushed for legislation giving harsher penalties to illegal immigrant gang members. For his part, Cube says the video isn’t related to the Shaw‘s legislative battle.
“It ain’t really a commentary on that,”Cube says. “You’ve got a person being killed by a person he don’t know for a reason he don’t know … Who cares if it was an immigrant or if it was a taxpaying citizen?”
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