Ice Cube - Greatest Hits

Ice Cube's ferocious frown is familiar now from multiple big and small screen appearances, but as this collection reminds us, he's still first and foremost the thinking street thug's rapper, one of the original gangstas.

GREATEST HITS isn't sequenced chronologically, jumping frantically from 1998's "Pushing Weight" to 1994's "Check Yo Self" with its "Message" backing track, to 1990's furious Public Enemy-influenced "Jackin' For Beats" (Ice Cube's departure from P.E.'s rivals N.W.A. presaged his hooking up with the Bomb Squad, Public Enemy's production team).

But though the patchwork song list makes a clear overview of Cube's career difficult, it also makes for some thrilling twists and turns, for instance between the rowdy, early-'90s "The Nigga Ya Love to Hate" to the equally tumultuous but more sophisticated "Late Night Hour," recorded in 2001.

What's obvious from even the most cursory overview of this set is Ice Cube's huge contribution to rap and hip-hop music, and over a decade's worth of unswerving dedication to putting his message across.

TRACKLIST

1. Pushin' Weight
2. Check Yo Self
3. We Be Clubbin'
4. $100 Dollar Bill Ya'll
5. Once Upon a Time in the Projects
6. Bow Down (Westside Connection)
7. Hello
8. You Can Do It
9. You Know How We Do It
10. It Was a Good Day
11. Bop Gun (One Nation) [Radio Edit]
12. What Can I Do? [Remix]
13. My Summer Vacation
14. Steady Mobbin'
15. Jackin' for Beats
16. The Nigga Ya Love to Hate
17. Late Night Hour