EWA100 - #56. Ice Cube - It Was A Good Day

56. Ice Cube - It Was A Good Day (Priority. 1992. From the LP The Predator)

Mike Dikk: In an extreme act of typical Expert Whiteboy know-it-all hoity-toityness, I tried my damndest to get “Steady Mobbin’” on this list over “It Was A Good Day”. Content-wise, it’s basically the same damn song to me, except one is more angry than happy, though I can see how this could have been viewed as a subtle way for me to prove how Rilly Rill I am by not bowing down to the single that would propel Ice Cube to mainstream status.
Truthfully though, I understand that if you were to randomly hear an old Ice Cube song, it would most likely be “It Was A Good Day” because it was his one real universal hit (for good reason), but on a personal level, I would most likely end up listening to “Steady Mobbin’” over “It Was A Good Day” because I never listen to the record “It Was A Good Day” was on because it kind of sucks, especially compared to the first two.
See, it wasn’t because of me trying to prove my Rillness, it was because sometimes I get caught up in the fact that I spend most of my time alone on a computer chair not speaking out loud, confined in an office or a bedroom. I tend to forget other people exist because I get so caught up in what I’m doing and depending on the circumstances, like if the specific thing I’m doing really sucks, I’ll zone out to pass the time and forget other people exist on purpose. I’m not saying this in an oppressive way like how, say, a Raven Mack would say it. I’ve grown pretty comfortable in my secure little fantasy land probably because I’ve spent my entire life in cold climates and harsh areas where I don’t really want to go outside too often. Then you add on that, just like everyone else on earth, I have/had issues like my name was Jonathan Davis, and you can understand that my mentality is more “Steady Mobbin’” than “It Was A Good Day”.
In the end, I kind of woke up and put aside thing like how The Predator is a shitty record I never listen to and that cold weather gets to me too much though I tell myself it’s not because I’m mental, but because every single thing you fucking look at in the winter will mention seasonal depression and blah blah blah. Then once I kicked my own self in the ass, I realized that even if I think “Steady Mobbin’” is a great song, I wish I had more reason to listen to “It Was A Good Day” than “Steady Mobbin”. I can’t separate “It Was a Good Day” from nice weather and being happy, even though if you asked some egghead music journalist to wax poetic about “It Was A Good Day”, he would say some shit how the music and tone is in stark contrast to the hardcore reality of the The Hood and all that other happy horseshit, but none of that is my concern.
“It Was A Good Day” reminds me of times before the internet sucking up my soul, and full time jobs and debt and bills, and rapidly getting older and fatter. Times when I could get dressed, go outside and sit on a stoop and play Crazy 8s all day and find the fun in that. Sometimes I try and relive that kind of childish nonsense, but sitting on the stoop isn’t fun anymore, and playing Crazy 8s is even less fun because your senses are constantly being attacked and raped by newer, better technology and I can’t appreciate shit like chilling in the park on an uncharacteristically nice day smoking a joint because I’ve grown content with wanting and needing and consuming every new and exciting thing thrown at me. Though deep down I wish I could erase all this mess and go back to enjoying all the stuff “It Was a Good Day” represents to me, but it’s kind of hard to up and change your lifestyle because you feel like a jerkoff for embracing it. Jesus, this got a bit too heavy for a lighthearted music piece, but it was quite cathartic for me. Thank you, EWA.

Raven Mack: I mostly heard this track on the BET hit video machine, because I also had pegged The Predator as a shitty album, when compared to Ice Cube’s first two. Shit, Amerikkka’s Most Wanted is one of the most underrated albums in hip hop ever, because people don’t fellate upon that like it’s an all-time classic like I feel they should.
This is a great feel-good song though, yet one that got so mainstream that Keith Olbermann used to say on ESPN Sportscenter “messed around and got a triple double”. Now, Keith Olbermann preaches incessantly while wearing a suit about how other dudes who wear suits are not preaching incessantly enough about the right things. That is why Ice Cube is making family movies. He has been assimilated, incorporated, and totally evaporated from his days sporting a jheri curl underneath a hockey team baseball hat.
Man, if I had a dollar for every time in my life I heard a white person say, “and I didn’t even have to use my AK…” in an ironic comedic manner on a beautiful sunny day, I’d have enough money to buy a Greyhound ticket to California, to stand around hoping I’d see the Goodyear blimp say “Raven Mack’s a pimp”, only to end up getting robbed by a pack of teenage homosexual prostitutes.
I remember at the end of this video, there was that change in pace where all the helicopters and cop cars and shit showed up at Cube’s house as he pulled home in his Impala, and I guess that was to be continued in the next episode, but I never gave a shit to see his next video, so I’ve always assumed it was actually a police department led by Common in a funny argyle cop hat that looked like something Rollo from Good Times would wear, and Cube ran in the house and WC and Mack 10 saved him by shooting hard lyrics out the windows for a while, until Common got a beep on his beeper about a thematic down-low party before people knew what down-low really meant to black men, so he split with all the cops, and finally Cube could come back outside, and just in time for him to have a big ol’ yard sale where he could sell his soul to a couple of old Jew dudes who slap-stuck him into some family comedies to squeeze big money out of a small budget flick. Sad thing is, I bet they were country club buddies with Jerry Heller, and Cube never even knew it.

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