O’Shea Jackson Sr, better known as Ice Cube, had hip-hop on his mind ever since he was a teenager growing up in South Central LA. After seeing the movie Straight Outta Compton,got to wonder if the man was inspired by listening to piles of 70’s funk,soul and jazz records. After being involved in many rap battles,he soon took some demos to the late Eazy E at age 16. And the rest was history. Cube went from being involved with gangsta rap icons NWA in the late 80’s to a vital solo career by the end of the decade. The first of which is now also iconic album entitled Amerikka’s Most Wanted from 1989.
He began an acting career parallel to his solo career in 1991 with a part in the now iconic Boyz N The Hood. Five years later,he co-starred in the comedy Friday. In 1992 he married Kimberly Woodruff and eventually became a father of four. His eldest son O’Shea Jr portrayed his father in NWA’s aforementioned biopic. In between these events,Cube released his fourth album Lethal Injection. In included a duet with George Clinton,produced by Quincy Jones III called “Bop Gun (One Nation)”.
This song is basically Funkadelic’s 1978 hit “One Nation Under A Groove” slowed down to approximately 100 bpm in tempo,and then reconfigured musically. In this case, the songs percussive laced drum track introduces it. Bernie Worrell’s synthesizer squiggles are slowed down and used as random accents. The main body of much of the song is still based around the rhythm guitars and synth bass of the original’s refrain.Clinton and Cube duet primarily on the choruses,which are left somewhat similar to the original in melodic content.
“Bop Gun (One Nation)” was something I heard on a mix tape in the late 90’s made for me by a friend of my dads who learned I loved P-Funk. Hadn’t yet heard the original yet. Listening to it now, its an example of early 90’s gangsta rap turning from James Brown to P-Funk as an inspiration for sampling and general attitude. Cube is basically pointing out that he’d rather drop real guns that kill and take up a metaphoric “bop gun” that gets people to dance and live in this song. And using 90’s West Coast hip-hop’s coarser language inspired by Clinton,this is a superb example of P-Funk hip-hop in the end.
Andresmusictalk 