Club Shay Shay - Ice Cube on the rise & fall of NWA, beef with Eazy-E and 'No Vaseline' | REWIND EPISODE

Episode Date: August 1, 2022

In this special rewind episode of Club Shay Shay, revisit one of Shannon's favorite segments from the show so far. Ice Cube discusses the origins of NWA, creation of the name, rise to stardom and their eventual breakup. Cube cites friction with group member Eazy-E and manager Jerry Heller that ultimately lead to both sides releasing diss tracks as Cube went solo. "I was just surprised they would take it there," Ice Cube says of the beef that escalated after his departure.Listen & follow more FOX Sports podcasts: http://sprtspod.fox/applepodcasts#DoSomethinB4TwoSomethin & Follow Club Shay Shay:                                                                 https://www.instagram.com/clubshayshayhttps://twitter.com/clubshayshayhttps://www.facebook.com/clubshayshayhttps://www.youtube.com/c/clubshayshay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wake up with football every morning and listen to my new podcast, NFL Daily with Greg Rosenthal. Five days a week, you'll get all the latest news and the best analysis delivered by the time you get your coffee. The show hits every single game every single week, but I can't do it alone. So I'm bringing in all the big guns from NFL media like Colleen Wolf. Subscribe today and you'll immediately be smarter and funnier than your friends. Listen now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. New from Embedded. Who gets to compete as a woman? This question came up in ugly form at the Paris Olympics.

But it's not new. If she runs like a man and talks like a man, is she a man? not new. If she runs like a man and talks like a man, is she a man? Hear about the long history of sex testing women athletes on Tested, a new series from CBC and NPR's Embedded podcast. Listen to all episodes on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Club Che Che listeners. We'll be back soon with weekly episodes featuring brand new interviews with exciting roster of guests. Until then, enjoy this special rewind episode with one of my favorite moments from Club Che Che so far. So how old were you when you joined the group and how did the NWA come about?

I was probably about 17 when I joined NWA. We were all in different groups. Everybody was out in a different group. Everybody else was doing their own thing. So how did you guys decide to come together? Everybody was out in a different group, everybody else was doing their own thing. So how did you guys decide to come together? Well, a group that Dre was in called The Wrecking Crew, Dre and Yellow was in that group.

Right. And they were kinda like, they was making the most noise in LA. Okay. Out of all of us. The world class Wrecking Crew? World class Wrecking Crew? World class Wrecking Crew. So Lonzo who ran the Wrecking Crew really wouldn't let Dre do the hardcore records that he really started to want to do. Right. So me and Dre started doing mixtapes and I would do the hardcore raps on the mixtapes talking about the neighborhood.

Well, Easy, which is Dre's old friend, got one of the tapes, tracked Dre down, and was like, yo, you know, I've been hustling on the street. I want to flip some of this money. So I want to start, I want to have a label. And I want to call it Ruthless Records. Okay. And so he had these groups that he I want to call it Ruthless Records. And so he had these groups that he was trying to get on Ruthless Records. But he asked me to write a song for him. I wrote a song called Boys in the Hood. And the group didn't want to do it because they was from New

York. So Drake convinced Eazy to do the song. So Eazy ended up doing Boys in the Hood the song. Eazy to do the song. So Eazy ended up doing Boys in the Hood the song, and he was like, we should do an all-star group. This is what Eazy said, we should do an all-star group. We'll take the best out of... I'll be Eazy, we take Dre and Yella out of the record crew, we'll take Cube out of... I had a group called CIA, take Cube out of that and then we just do the side group hardcore records. Then y'all can go back and do slow jams and whatever y'all was doing. So we ended up doing that record and man, it just started to pick up momentum and it was just sounding better and better and better. So we all ended up quitting our groups and just stayed with our, you know, with us forming this all-star group.

And one day they came to pick me up, and Eazy was like, what are we going to call it? You know, he was saying, what are we going to call the group? And I said, what are we going to call it? He said, NWA. I'm like, what that mean? When he told me, NWA. I'm like, what that mean? When he told me what it meant, I was like, ah, yeah. We about to start some ish right now.

So, you know, from there, we just was tight and we just was just figuring out what did we need to do to start making noise in the hip-hop scene. Did you know that when you joined this group, you guys were going to become what you became, and that you guys are really the originators of the gangster rap, the hardcore rap? Did you know that at the time? Not at all. At the time, you know, we thought those records were gonna be,

they had a section in the record store where they would play all the dirty comedy records like Richard Pryor. Right. You could get an Eddie Murphy record over there, Red Fox. It was this dirty rapper by the name of Blowfly, Dolomite. You can get all them kind of records. So we thought our record was going to be over there in that dirty section. So when they started to put it out front where all the regular hip hop was, and people just start buying it, we knew we had a style that was unique, that was different. But there was other people who was dibbling and dabbling in what I would call gangster rap. You had Ice-T out there.

Right. Schooly D, he had a song called PSK. And then you had He had a song called PSK. And then you had Boogie Down Productions that did a record called Criminal Minded that easily loved that record. So it was a few people who had dibbled and dabbled in that style. I mean that became Ice-T's signature style thing. Ice-T and N.W.A. were the first two real jump offs and then the ghetto boys came through right now and it was other groups but but yeah you know that's kind of how it jumped off and that's

how it started so anytime you have success and there's a group eventually they're going to be some bickering they're going to be some some fighting they're gonna be some issues who's getting what who's doing what why did NWA breakdown fall apart um I think it's really because you know Jerry Heller who was the manager at the time was really loyal to easy you know easy know, Eazy was his guy. You know, we were like, you know, just kind of the group, you know, you know, and, and so I just think he underestimated what we really meant to the whole, you know, success of Ruthless Records. Right. So he just was an easy, you know, was learning the business basically at the same time we were when it comes to me, him and Wren. We're all learning at the same time even though he's older. Dre and Yella knew the business a little bit more, but nobody was experts, you know?

Right, right. So people leaned on Jerry to, you know, make things right. And it just was a, you know, one of two things that just didn't smell right. And you know, when somebody starts to, you know, lie when there's no reason to, it just makes you suspicious. Okay. And then, you know, the more you look, the more you find. And, you know, I confronted them, and they'd rather, you know, make me the enemy instead of rectifying the situation.

And so I left. Wake up with football every morning and listen to my new podcast, NFL Daily with Greg Rosenthal. Five days a week, you'll get all the latest news, previews, recaps, and analysis delivered straight to your podcast feed by the time you get your coffee. No dumb hot takes here, just smart hot takes. We'll talk every single game, every single week,

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So when you confronted Jerry Heller, the rest of the group turned against you. Well Jerry talked to Eazy. And Eazy, you know, he was the head of everything. So once Eazy was against me, you know, Jerry convinced Eazy I was a troublemaker. So then Eazy started to talk to everybody. And then, you know, pretty soon I was the odd man out at the end of the day. But they didn't kick you out. It happened real fast. I left.

I left because I was like, this ain't going to work. They're not going to fix it. You know, all he had to do was fix it. When you say fix it, what did Jerry Heller need to do to make it right by Q? I think he was, you know, at the end of the day, he was trying to get me to sign a contract that my lawyer never read. Okay.

So to me, that's bad business. And it's a bad contract. Right. You don't want my lawyer you look at and you know I have a lawyer he kept ducking me and saying you know I'll send it I'll send it I'll send it before I had the lawyer before I told him I had the lawyer I had the lawyer but I didn't tell me I was just trying to get the contract so I told him I said

just send it to my mom I thought he was gonna think I sent it to her saying I know what she's looking at they gonna sign it I'm gonna get it back but he wouldn't even send it to her damn you won't even send it to her right you know so we knew something was fishy like he came if he can't send us the contracts, we definitely can't sign nothing. Were you the only one in the group that had a lawyer outside of Rufus Record Lawyer? I think so. But I had offered that whatever my lawyer tell me, I'm gonna tell you guys. You know know, so y'all, my lawyer's like y'all's lawyer.

Y'all don't have to get a lawyer if you don't want to. I would advise you to. Right. But, but I'll tell y'all what he telling me. So I would, you know, talk with Ren a lot. Me and Ren the same age, we would talk a lot. We was the youngest in the group. Right.

So Wren knew everything that my lawyer was telling me, which was don't sign nothing. Don't sign nothing. And so when it was time to sign, I was like, man, I can't sign that. And it was the best move I ever did. You lead the group. You strike out on your own. The diss track, did they diss you first or did you write No Vaseline because-

No, they dissed me first. They dissed you first? Yeah, they dissed me on a record called 100 Miles and Running. It was like an EP that they released after Straight Outta Compton. It was a diss, but it wasn't like heavy-handed. It was like a line, like a little line or two.

So I gave it back to them a little bit on Jacket for Beats. Right. At the end of jacket for beats it's one line where i mentioned um 100 miles and i'll have you 100 miles and running right and so when they did uh their next record they dissed me real good you know i mean they call me Benedict Arnold all kind of all kind of names so okay they dish you on the line you kind of diss them back on line did you think it was over okay you said you and I said man I'm done let's move on

them you thought it was over yeah cuz I still like them do you know they were still you know I had a problem with easy and Jerry but I still like them dudes. They were still, I had a problem with Eazy and Jerry, but I'm still cool with Dre and Yella and Lin. Right. And DLC and Layla and all them dudes that was still hanging around. So I was just surprised that they would take it to you. So they dissed you heavy. I mean, they came with it.

You like, I got to come back hard. How long did it take you to write No Vaseline? It took me 90 minutes. 90 minutes? 90 minutes. So in other words, that'd been brewing. You knew they were going to come back. If it only took you 90 minutes, you

knew they were going to come back. So you've been plotting. You've been lying and been laughing and waiting no no it wasn't like that it was uh i was i was mad and i had build up right um i was on a boat the the one of the heads of priority records um he took me on a boat because you know I had one in the air with a bat and like tore up the company. So we was trying to smooth things out. So he was saying I want to play this for you. I want to be the first one to play it for you. And he played me the

discs that they did to me. But we still had two or three hours on this boat, which I didn't want to be on no more. I was like, man, take me back. I'm ready to ride a ride. Take me back. So I had like two or three hours of build up so by the time i got to my room to my equipment pen and pad it just all came out and i got interrupted a few times so it probably would i probably would have wrote it faster if my sister didn't interrupt me a few times you know what to do. Hit the subscribe button to become an official member of Club Shea Shea, where we always do something for two something. and the best analysis delivered by the time you get your coffee. The show hits every single game every single week,

but I can't do it alone, so I'm bringing in all the big guns from NFL media like Colleen Wolfe. Subscribe today and you'll immediately be smarter and funnier than your friends. Listen now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.