Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Ice Cube

Episode Date: August 3, 2026

Rapper, actor, and producer Ice Cube feels like he’s about to throw up in his mouth about being Conan O’Brien’s friend.   Ice Cube sits down with Conan to discuss how a typewriting class inspired him to write rap, following the vision of Eazy-E as N.W.A. skyrocketed to worldwide success, founding the pro 3-on-3 basketball league BIG3, and much more.   For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com. Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: [phone]. Get access to all the podcasts you love, music channels and radio shows with the SiriusXM App! Get 3 months free using this show link: https://siriusxm.com/conan. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Yo, what's up? My name is Ice Cube. And I feel like I'm about to throw up in my mouth. About my homie Coleman. You can't even say my name. You're so disgusting. That's how you feel about being his friend. Wow, that's incredible. the bell brand of shoes walking loose

climb the fence books and pens I can tell that we are going to be friends we are going to be friends Hey there and welcome to Conan O'Brien needs a friend I'm blessed with two

good friends But they're not with us now There we go Instead we have Sonam of Sessian Hi That makes me feel more comfortable How are you guys? Everyone good

I'm doing all right How are you doing? I'm doing okay I'm doing pretty good. Yeah. You ever wear contact, Sona? I've been wearing contacts since I was like 12. I started trying it recently.

Yeah, we know. Just out of convenience. And I'm doing it more and more now. Yeah. And I don't know. What was your experience with them? You were struggling at first. I really struggled because I'm I'm iphobic.

I was fine. I'm ipobic. I don't like things getting near my eye. And then suddenly the people would say, oh, it's easy. Just jam this onto your eyeball. This reminds me we were going to do a whole thing where you brought your contacts in and tried to get you to put them in. Remember we talked about this and we were going to do a follow-up. Now I've gotten good so it wouldn't even be a good segment anymore.

Now they come in, they go out. I put them on. What's weird is the one on the right, my right eye is for reading and the left is for slight correction on the distance. Do you read like this? I know. They told me, oh, you get used to it. Wow. Is that what people do?

or am I being sold a bag of hash? I think they had two leftover contact lines. You're saying I got scammed. I think they did go. And I did notice when I left, everyone was laughing. Yeah, one of them's a colored contact. Yeah. Can I tell you, if I did see you come into my office,

I would say anything just to upsell you. So like I feel like sometimes. And I did a lot of bits that day. You did. I was there. I don't know. We talked about this, but I went in hot.

I was doing so many bits for everybody in the waiting room. I was killing. Yeah. And to the point where I just kept wanting to go back out to the waiting room to do more bits. And they were saying, we need to keep, we've just put something in your eye to dilate it. You've got to settle down. And I'm like, no, no, no, I didn't get that lady in the corner. She's tough, but I'll get her.

It was insanity. Yeah, well, I think that what I'm saying is, like, maybe they did that to you and they don't normally so that both eyes get worse. so you have to keep going back to the eye doctor's office. Why would they do that? And they know you're like needy and you need to get that woman in the corner so you keep going back. She was a plant.

And then they keep upselling you. Yeah, they were telling me. Yeah, they were telling me. Oh, so this is interesting. This is what businesses could start doing. Putting a plant in whose job is not to laugh at anything I do. Notice the bookshel's were lined with Robert Caro books too. Yeah.

No, have someone who doesn't laugh and I'll just keep coming back to your tire store. and buying more winter tires in Los Angeles, you know? Tractor tires. Yeah, tractor tires, every kind of tire. And that's the trick to get me to come in. They want me to come to their restaurant, just hire one waiter who just never gives it up. And I'll go back every night.

Hey, look at this impression. You know, why the chicken cross the road? Yeah, I would totally upsell you all the time. You're also very trusting. I feel like you just believe people. Okay. Do you think that that's? I'm asking the general community of ophthalmologists.

I have one contact on my right eye, which is a completely different strength magnification than the one on the left. Is that crazy? And I keep crashing my car now. Well, both eyes are never, not never, but they're not usually the same. Right, right. But it's weird that one is for reading and one is not. They made the case that your eye just, your brain figures it out and then you start.

Eduardo, you're nodding. What do you know about this? You want to hear something really hilarious? My ophthalmologist just called me as you guys were having this conversation. But anyhow, I have to ask the question. I almost answered so that you could ask the ophthalmologist. But anyhow, no, it's completely normal.

Your brain tricks your eyes into settling, in your case, adjusting to one being different. So this will adjust. Yes, absolutely. I mean, I think it already kind of has. Did you ever have progressive or bifocals? Because you get used to that too. Yeah, I did.

I got used to that. Yeah. Okay. So I just wanted to put it out there. Sometimes I like to use the podcast to just discuss my medical maladies and see if I can get free advice. Yeah, yeah. Fact check. Yeah, someone will call in and go, no, actually, you know, that's a pretty wise course of action.

Or else, no, you've been played for a fool. Your eyes are bleeding, we should tell you. Oh, they always bled. They always bled. Yeah. Yeah. But I would lie just to make you keep coming back. Like, if I was your dentist, I'd be like, you need braces.

and then I would sell you braces. I would like... Just to see me... And giant head gear? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Giant head. And I'm like, hold on.

Come on. And a neck brace and then... Yeah, I don't have a date for the prom. Put your hands up here like this. I'm in my early 60s and I don't have a wait for the prom. What about... Well, this is really fascinating. The other thing I thought I could do is get a monocle.

Oh, God. Come in. Really? Can you imagine if I had a monocle? Yes. One of the things, when I got glasses, I was so happy because you can do bits with them, if I had a monocle and had one of those, like, strings on it and, you know, like Colonel Clank and Helga's Hair's, I just had a monocle in this eye for reading. But then if anyone said anything

slightly shocking, it could drop out, which is, you know. Just for the bit you want it. You're saying. I want it for the bit. More and more, if I thought there were a lot of good bits to like a prosthetic foot, I would have my foot taken. Oh my God, Conan. Why didn't you start with a monocle? Start with the monocle. There are a lot of bits to online. I just say it'd be so much,

oh my God, I don't have a leg to stand on it. I'll pull my foot off. And then that, even those people that were hired not to laugh at me, there's so many. Oh my God.

Let me put my foot down. Let me put my foot down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm going to do some soul searching. Found it. Yeah. I mean, these are good things. Yeah, whatever.

You know, look at this. Yeah. You're liking it. The podcast would... I'm in. How many times it would come across? It would help the podcast. My grandpa had one leg.

What's that? He did? Did that? My, yeah, my... I got your dead dead yet. No, no, not that dead dead dead dead dead deadest. Wait, how many dead days do you have? I have two dead days.

I don't know in your crazy culture what you got. Maybe you got seven. Most people, everybody has two, like grandpas, biologically. When you have two deadets, I had two grandpas. Well, I had two deades. We'll stop that. So one of the dead days. Isn't one dead dead dead on the other like data or something?

No, one is one. one, they're both deades, but one of the dead dees didn't live that long. So he's dead. The dead dead dead. That is dead. I had a key cord dead, which was my dad's dead. I mean, my dad's dad's dad. I had a Tanya Ledeede who is my mom's dad.

Okay. No, fuck you. That's gory. You wish you had a dead day. Hey, my grandpa had one leg too. He also had the other one. Okay. Nice.

Nice. You know what? This might be the best intro ever. But Sona, he had one leg. Why did he have one leg? Because he had diabetes and they had to cut one of them. Oh, that's not fun. And he had a wooden leg.

It's better if they fall asleep on a train track. That's a better story. That's better than diabetes? Yeah, diabetes is just like, oh, that's no fun. But train track is gruesome. But it's a better story. Oh, yeah, you're right. And from now I just say, well, he was a hobo for a while and he fell asleep on the train track.

But just one like. Oh, his blood sugar was a little out of alignment. That's not good. Yeah, but he had like one of the wooden ones. Like, like, yeah, like a wooden leg. Now it's cool. Did you ever buy him a parrot? It's just to be a fun thing to get.

Conan, no, I didn't buy, did that a parrot? Okay, so. He had a wooden leg. He had a wooden leg. He had a wooden leg. Did it bend in the middle? No, it was that his leg was cut at the knee, and then he would sometimes take it off to show us his stuff.

It was made of wood. Was this like 1911? It was the 80s. That was alive in the 80s. I know, they had better stuff than wood then. No, they didn't. Did they? Did they?

Yeah. Did they? Yeah, but he's not. going to be on blades like, you know, like, you know, like the, like the, like the paralyrians. That'd be great if your dead had been on a blade and is, so one leg walked at about two miles an hour and the other leg went 65 miles an hour. So all he did was going, all he did was go in circles really fast, but a roller blade. Oh my God. Yeah, no. I swear to God, there's an opening to the podcast here somewhere. But anyway, yeah,

can you imagine if I had one blade on my, and, and then I had a different contact. And one eye. No, monocle. Yeah. And headgear. And head gear. Here we go. We wrapped it all up.

That was nicely done. Here we comes. Doing, doing, going, going, going. I can't see where I am. And I can't see where I was. My guest today, settle down. My guest today is a founding member of the legendary rap group NWA and has appeared. It's so, there's no way.

I can't believe this is the intro for him. And has appeared. It's the legendary rap group NWA. and has appeared in such movies as Boys in the Hood and Barbershop. He also founded the three-on-three basketball league. This sounds cool. Big Three, which is currently in its ninth season and can be streamed on Paramount Plus. And Fubo, very excited to chat with him today.

I always love my time with this gentleman. Ice Cube, welcome. A bunch of years ago, we shot this goofy remote. We didn't think anything was going to happen. You, me, Kevin Hart. can't go anywhere in the world without people coming up to me and talking about us with the lift driver and then we shot another one with a student driver where we ended up downtown buying weed. Yeah. And the good old days. The good old days. I think just one of those has like 120 million

views. I go anywhere and what's funny is people think that I do that with you all the time. People like, how's Cube? And I said, well, yesterday I was driving. around. That was like this, we did it twice. It was really fun. And I had known you, because you came on the show a lot. We always had great chemistry, but we did that thing. It blew up. I think half of it is you and Kevin just making fun of me, which was, people seem to enjoy that. It was totally improv, which was so cool. You know, when I heard, I said, we're doing Conan on a Saturday, how? You know, he's like, no, we're going to do a skit. And I'm like, well, what's skit. We're just looking for pages. No, no, no pages. You guys are going to just, since you're doing

a movie called Ride Along, you guys are just going to, you know, call a lift, you know, when they pull up. And it wasn't set up. The guy didn't know. It was going to be us. We called the lift. Call a lift. They rushed a guy. You know, I think they gave him, you know, $120 or something. Put all these cameras in his car. And we jumped in and had fun. I was like, I said, Conan. is being cheap, man, we don't have no script. We just, we just, just going, what if it, we're just going to do some shit. Okay, so, so it was, it was funny because it was so real. Yeah, it was very real.

And, you know, you can't, you can't script stuff like that. And you kept saying you wanted to put me out on the street as a male prostitute. You kept saying, let's turn him out, we'll make some good money. Good money? Good money? Well, they'd make money. Money? Well, they might get like a chicken as barter.

They might get, they could trade something. Have you seen the holes on Santa Monica later? He would have made some money, because he would have made some money. If they're making money, he would have. Oh, man. No, just great chemistry, and we've done a bunch of things over the years. Love, you were... Oh, shit.

Uh-oh. That's your agent saying, I tried to cancel the Conan thing. I tried to get you out. I know you said no. It's too late. I'm already here, man. All right, I hit you. I get out of here.

And you're fired. You know, it's so funny to me because it's fascinating to me that clearly people that are funny were always funny. So you play comedy so well, you must have always been funny. And it's funny because it's interesting because when you first showed up on the scene with NWA straight out of Compton, you show up, you didn't have to be funny at all. You were a great writer, a great rapper, you're part of this revolutionary group. But pretty soon afterwards, you must start realizing, I can do comedy. Yeah, well, you know, people always talk about the,

the EZE record that started it all boys in the hood. Yeah. But on the flip side of that, it was a song called, I got a fat girl on my job. You know, so it was just a rap about him running from a fat girl in the neighborhood. Right. And it was funny. Yeah.

People laugh. So we knew our message was hard, but we also wanted to figure out ways to sprinkle some, comedy in it. You know, NWA was real hard, but, but actually the EZE record. Yeah. Full of, you know, kind of comedy, you know, little one-liners, you know, and we knew we wanted to be hard but entertaining at the same time. It's interesting because rap has always had skits, like little sketches.

And there was, and even in the hardest lyrics, there's really funny, there's funny, you know, insults. Yeah, dark humor for sure. Really dark humor. God damn, man. Jesus. He's trying to get his job back. He's got there.

Get out of there. You're still fired, motherfucker. You've got nine phones. But yeah, so, because your first movie, Boys in the Hood, not a comedy role, but there's comedy in there, and you're so great at Deadpan. You've got such a good. thousand yards stare, but there's funny moments in boys in the hood, even though it's a very

dark, sad story. There's also lightness in there, and you could, I think that's what really makes it feel even more authentic. Is it even in the worst situations, there's always comedy? Without a doubt, you know, we laughed a lot. You know, all my friends, everybody I kind of gravitate to is funny, you know, so I had friends that was hilarious. And, you know, them making me laugh all the time, me making them laugh.

And that was just kind of the... Now, guess what? Now my brother, Neil is calling me. Oh, my God. Neil? Neil, I'm on the podcast right now. I'm talking to Ice Cube. So I'm going to jump off.

But do you want to say hello to Ice Cube? Hey, Ice Cube. How are you? That's Neil, my brother, Neil. I don't want to hear it, man. Bring the money. Or you're not going to get it. I'll talk to you later, Neil.

Hey, I've got my do not disturb on it. I don't even know how that came in. I honestly do. I don't know how. Oh, yeah, you're right. I do. So, anyway, go ahead. This is such a fucked up.

Wait, I'm getting a call from my daughter. She wants to talk to you as well. All right, so go ahead. So comedy's always part of- It's part of growing up. Like, I don't remember not laughing. Even through, you know, any situations that was going down in the hood. Like, even, that's why we wrote Friday because we was like,

damn, we saw movies like colors and, and, um, and South Central and minutes to society and even boys in the hood. And we was like, damn, they think we, you know, grew up, you know, in this crazy war zone. But we had a little more fun growing up, you know, I'm looking around them off guys. Didn't we have fun? Yeah, you know, play football on the street. Yeah.

You know, play stickball, basketball. you know, just tag and, you know, water balloon fights and all kind of stuff. So I'm like, man, we need to do a movie that really has more of the tone on how we grew up. And that's how Friday came about. We wanted to be the anti-depressing, L.A., you know, Hood movie, so to speak. Right. Just shootouts every five seconds and darkness and bleakness. I mean, yeah, that's, that's movies, you know.

So there's unpredictableity in the hood, which you don't know what day is gonna, it's gonna be a good day, or it's gonna be a day where, you know, something happened. You just never know, walking out in the street. So that's what made it, you know, kind of volatile, unpredictable. What, I read that, I was reading some interview with you and you said that you started writing rap lyrics

because you were taking a typewriting class writing class and the other kids. Way back in the 1900s. And it got me thinking, are all great rappers do they start in typewriting class? I mean, if you talk to any of them, Jay-Z, whatever, they're like, yo, I was typing. You know, I don't think so. But I actually became a pretty good scriptwriter. And so maybe that's why I was in typewriting class.

So this is through school. I never knew I was going to use typewriting. No, no, no. It's so funny because I remember being in high school and this dates all of us, but I had to take a typewriting class with old typewriters. Yes. Manual. Yeah. Dear Mr. Johnson, I wish to inquire, they would give you these assignments to write these things because no one knew that these things are going to be in a landfill in five years. But you clearly tapped into something because these kids dare you start writing, which is an outlet for you. And your parents were supportive. Right? Very supportive. It started off in school.

You know, I was real young, like a fifth grade. I could do, you know, I could draw real good. So I got my teacher's attention. And then when it was time to kind of write what you did for the summer, I was able to really, you know, write a nice paragraph for, you know, a fifth grader. So they end up putting that in the school paper. So as a youngster, I'm running around. with this little, it wasn't even a paper, it was like a pamphlet, you know, pointing, look, look,

my little, you know, essay or whatever got, got used. Yeah, you got positive, you know, affirmation. You did something and it was singled out, which is here when you're that age. It is. And then they came to me when I went to the sixth grade. There was like, do you want to do a speech for the class? Like, do you want to talk to your graduating class? And I'm like, yeah, I do.

And I wrote my little speech and delivered it and it got a, you know, a nice reception. So I'm like, oh, damn, I can write it and I can speak it. You know, it's not just stuck on the page. And that, I think, sparked something. And, you know, when hip hop started to grow, the typing thing came in the ninth grade when I was 14. I was late to all my counselors and shit. You know, you're supposed to get your electives. They go to the counselor, get your electives.

Go to the counselor, get your electives. I never went. So when I got there, I had shitty electives. It was like typing, cooking, you know, horticulture and shit. You know, I'm like, oh, damn. I'm like, I want to go to wood. I want to do metal. I want to do election.

You wrote so many songs about horticulture. Three albums on horticulture. That's probably why I like weed so much. But I learned how to grow it in ninth grade. So, you know, I had some shitty electives, but I had to do them. So I'm like, I'm always like if I'm here, we might as well win. Like, I'm not going to be here not paying attention. I'm going to get it and I'm going to try to master it.

And, you know, you do those little, you know, they put some shit on the board and you got to type it up. But they want you to do 30 words a minute. They want you to, like, beat a minute thing. So me and my guy, we, like, we should be fucking secretaries, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shit is kind of fun. You know, we like, you know, boom, boom. And, you know.

This is just so, I love it. I just love it. You know, we hitting it. We like, boom. And he's the same as me. You know, he didn't go to the counselors either. So he got shitty electors, too. So we, like, you know, the only two dudes in this class like us.

So we're like, you know. And we beat the whole class. Like, you know, and we're just talking. Everybody's still typing. And he looks at me. He was like, you ever wrote a rap before? Like, uh, no. You write one.

I'll write one. We'll see which one's best. Okay. And I wrote an original rap. He bit all kinds of fucking raps. I'm like, I heard that from L.L. That's a line from the fat boys. That's from Curtis Bluff.

Like, dude, you're cheating. And he couldn't wrap it. So mine was way better. But a hell of a typist, though. Yeah, yeah, he's a hell of a typist now. But he couldn't write it. I mean, he couldn't wrap it. So I beat him, you know, outside of class.

We'd wrap him with our little piece of paper and shit. I mean, I know that line. You know, and he stopped. I kept going, of course. Yeah. You know, it's crazy is I've heard you, talk about your inspirations and you said, you know, like me, you're a sponge, picking up stuff that's going on in the 70s. And back then, the biggest star in the world was Muhammad Ali.

And I've thought about this many times because I'm obsessed with Muhammad Ali. I've watched tons of the footage on him. He does feel like the first rapper in some ways because he loved poetry and he had attitude and he could back it up and there you go yeah and you're and you're and so you're tuning into people like mohammed ali or richard prior they didn't necessarily not necessarily other rappers but people that displayed an attitude and a defiance change brown too yeah yeah you know they uh were like the first real life superheroes in a way uh the reason why mohammed alie to me like you said becomes the first rapper because he, it wasn't, it wasn't just rapping in a way. He was like, I'm going to kick your ass in six rounds.

And by the six round, your ass is kicked. So it was like putting his money where his mouth is, backing it up. And so that made everything stick even more. And then you got the like super fly kind of culture of, of, of just, you know, grown man doing a lot of shit talking, you know? And so rapping really is shit talking to a beat. You know, you just, you know, kind of shooting the shit, talking shit to a beat, and then you sprinkle a little game in there at the same time.

Yeah, and it's the same thing, which is you've got to back it up. Yep. But it's just amazing to me that even like early Eddie Murphy, There's a guy who's a comedian, but he's got that I'm going to take over the world attitude, and he's doing it. Yeah. Yeah, he was a bad boy too. Yeah, and you can sort of channel all of that, which is fascinating to me. And I mean, you couldn't have been prepared for what happened when you guys got together, 1989 straight at Compton, and it just changed everything overnight.

Yeah, we was planning to be just an underground, hardcore underground group, locals, really. Compton, Long Beach, Watts, L.A. We thought that was probably, you know, probably the, or nucleus and everything, you know, wasn't going to be done too far from those places. That was our mindset because we felt like the music we're doing is too hard, too much profanity, and it's too L.A. you know, street culture. Yeah.

So why would someone care about this? Yeah, yeah. It's getting more niche and nichey to, you know, we feel like we're going to be some neighborhood stars, though. Like, we're going to run Compton, Watson, Lynn, will a long beat? Like, we're running this. But as far as being biggest run DMC or biggest, you know, LL and, you know, all those super groups that we looked up to, we had no idea we would ever sniffed.

that kind of fame. Yeah. And it happened fast. Overnight. You know, it was like an article in the L.A. Times by a Bob Hillburn. Mm-hmm. And it just took off from there. Like, everybody was on us.

And we had some singles album. When we put that album together, it just exploded. Then the record, Brian Turner, Priority Records calls us, you got to get up here. You guys got to get up here. up here. What's up, what's up?

You want us up there. We go up there. He's like, man, did you see this shit? Do you see this? He's showing us a letter from the FBI. Like, man, I just got this, man. And, man, you know, this is crazy. What are we going to do?

What are we going to do? You know, and Easy was like, this is it? This is all they do? They're not coming. No batteram, no. Like an LAPD, you know. You look at it and go, it's well type. Yes.

scary. That's a corona. Yeah, yeah. So we was like, it's like, what the fuck is he so upset about? And he's like, man, this is the fucking FBI.

We're so naive. Yeah, yeah. Okay, man. And then he's like, sound like publicity to meet, man. We should tell everybody they're trying to intimidate us. And I'm like, okay,

you know, as long as it's not the LAPD or the sheriffs, I'm down to do whatever Because those are the ones that really, you know, did a number on our neighborhoods. So we was young. You know, I'm 17, 18 years old, not even thinking that this is a real issue here. That's interesting that EZE is a fascinating guy that in that moment he could see. This isn't a bad thing.

This is a good thing. That's why he's brilliant because he said the music was going to be big. We said it's going to be underground. He was like, no. And we're like, yeah, nobody's playing this on the radio. He's like, well, we're going to do radio versions. Make him play it. Take out the custom.

Yeah. Okay, smart. You know, it's hard. It's easy. You have something here. Add some acoustic guitars. A tambourine. See if Michael Bolton's available.

Yeah, yeah. Let's clean it up. I mean, and that, that, I mean, I really love the movie. Of course, your son was in straight out of Compton. It's just a great it's a really good movie. Did you feel that was a pretty accurate representation? Because when you guys

hit, you go on this tour. And the tour just looked like the fall of Rome. It's just it's insanity. Yeah. It was damn near that. Yeah, you know, with a movie. And you're that age. Yeah. You're that age and you guys

are on this tour and having a time of our life. you know, with all the chaos, we were still like, we're on the same stage as run DMC, L.L. We actually are on a national tour. Never thought it would happen. So everything after that was gravy. Yeah. Part of the adventure.

Yeah, it was a, it was a crazy time. I forget the exact question you asked about Stroud Compton. Yeah. Now, you know, you're trying to something. up 10 years and two and a half hours. Yep. So you have to create summaries of what happened. Yes. Yes.

And you're actually making a movie, so you have to have character arcs and you have you know. Conflict sometimes. It can be summarized in a very simple way. Yeah. And we tried to make a universal movie because like if you're not a fan of, you know, a bitch is a bitch or fuck the police, you know. why should you see an NWA movie?

And so we was like, okay, let's make a movie about Brotherhood. Let's make a movie about, you know, rags to riches, break up to makeup, David versus Glythe, you know, all these universal themes wrapped into our story, you know, and that way we was able to get the public to really fall in love with the characters. and care for them. Yeah. You know, even though the characters are actually us. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But you're doing, I mean, given all those constraints, I mean, I love the movie. Thank you. And we're proud of it. And I thought your son killed it.

O'Shea, he's amazing. With a movie like that, there's a thousand ways to get it wrong and only a few ways to get it right. Yeah. You know, and my son, I went to him early in the process. And I'm like,

Hey, man, this NWA movie He looked like it's gonna happen. He said, man, I'm gonna happy for you, man. I'm happy for you. You know, he's playing this game. Talk to you for real. All right, what's up? What's up?

So, I want you to play me. He looked back, he said, okay. I was like, ah, shit. He didn't know. He's like, all right. I got it. I'm like, wait a minute, man. You know, it's a process. We got to, I can't give it to you. You know what I mean?

You got to, like, become an actor and, like, audition. And, you know, like, the powers that be at Universal have to grant you this part. I'm hearing video game noises while you're telling him all this. You know, he's like, you know, I got you. I got you. I said, okay. So I'm like, video game noise. I said, okay, I already opened my mouth. I already opened my mouth.

mouth, so I got to make him quit. Yeah. I got to make me, say, I don't want to do this. You know, so now I'm like, give me an acting coach. I want one in L.A. Fine, I want to want in New York. I'm going to send him everywhere to get better at this and see if he really wanted, or he's going to just, at some point, he was like, I don't want to go to New York.

You know what I? Yeah, yeah. So he met with a couple of coaches and met with the one in L.A. And I said, so how's it going, you know? He's like, it's going good. He's like, man, me and my group going to get together. We're going to do some improv stuff. Like, okay, you know.

He's falling in love with it. He's like taking it serious. I'm like, well, I want you, you know, I want you to go meet with this other person in New York. It's like, when, when you want me to go? I'm ready. I'm like, okay, this dude is. And I was happy that he just got bit by the bug, and he just started to, you know, kind of fall in love with the process. And then I had to convince Gary Gray, you know, when I told him, I said, I want my son to play me.

He was like, man. God damn, cute. I thought we was making a real movie. I said, look. I said, we are making a real movie, man. I said, he's going to be great. Now, you're going to help him through this process like John Singleton helped me. with boys in the hood.

You're going to help him, and he's going to be great. And he was like, man. So he was looking at me sideways till the auditions. So now the auditions are here, and my son got to go. I'm not there.

I sent him. He got to do a screen test. I'm like, I don't want to have no influence on nothing. Either you're good enough or not. And he gets there, and there's four other ice cubes ready to audition.

So now he's pissed. It's like, y'all trying to take this out of my mouth. So he really turns into Ice Cube and gets the part. Gary calls me, yeah, he was the best one. You know, he's good. You know, and they, oh, I told you, like I told you, man, you know. And now he's, I mean, he's doing Star Wars. He's doing Godzilla.

I can't get those damn movies. He's doing, he's doing. Be great if you also auditioned to play Ice Cube. But he beat you. Yeah, he beat me in, turn me down. No, he's more ice cubey than you. Yeah, so, you know, that's... You know what's crazy is, I was thinking about it,

it's not that you dabbled in acting. You've had a great acting career that rap, the music, which was a phenomenal success. You could have just lived off of that the rest of your life and been thought of as one of the great legends of this art form. And then you look at, yeah, it's Boys in the Hood, barbershop, the whole franchise.

the whole Friday's franchise. Right-along. Yeah, no, the ride-along movies, but also, I mean, the comedy you do with in 21 Jump Street, you know. Captain Dixie. Yeah, yeah, which I always loved because I just, I just, I, years ago said someone's got a comment on police captains,

sergeants that are always mad at no matter what happens, you know. You two? Yeah. I'm my last nerve. And you were the perfect guy to play that police, you know, sergeant. I said, I want to be the craziest one. Yeah, yeah. Like, I don't want nobody to beat me out as the craziest captain ever.

The black, mad captain, you know, who's always beaten on the desk. I love those. I mean, because in the 70s, I watched all those movies, and they obviously went into the 80s, too, but just that same thing. that you were having fun with in such a great way but, you know, the cops would always do something amazing.

Like, they'd break up the ring, they'd save the day, they'd defuse the bomb that was going to blow up Los Angeles. They'd do all this stuff and then cut to the captain going, you idiots! You tented, the Buick Skylark!

It was community property, you know. What? It's the same thing in Top Gun, Actually, the new Top Gun movie that Tom Cruise made is John Hamm. But I asked John Hamm about this. Like, Tom Cruise is just saving the world left and right. And John Ham's always saying, you listen to me, you piece of shit. If you ever save the world again without our permission.

Love it. Just love it. But you have, I mean, it's, you are so good at being mad in a comedy way. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's, it's, you know, I want to thank John Singleton again. Yeah. Because, you know, a lot of those that, you know, I kind of decided to just take the bull by the horns and produce them and, you know, write or, you know, direct or, you know, just kind of get behind the scenes.

Because when I was doing Boys in the Hood, I would, I would meet with John a lot. You know, he would have me coming over watching movies. He would put you to film school, you know. He's like, clockwork. orange and all these movies. I'm like, oh, damn. It's like, I got to show you what's a good movie and what's a bad movie and why.

And one day he looked at me, he said, when are you going to write a movie? And I'm like, damn, man, come on, man. Like, I'm just not trying to act. Yeah. I just got here. Yeah, I'm like, you know, I'm still not sure I can act. And he said,

you think you're going to get movies good as boys in the hood for you? I'm like, uh, bro, I don't know. He said, no. He said, they have no movies for you, Kew. You don't have to write your own. And I'm like, okay. And then when I end up falling in love with the process of making a movie and then, you know, going to his film school, so to speak, I started writing.

And he helped me. You know, my first two scripts was terrible. And my third one was Friday. That's crazy. And then there's just so many moments from that lines that are just part of of the culture. Yeah, that's great. Which, as, I mean, you think about all the different ways without getting a swelled head

that you've been part of kind of like the history of the culture. It's pretty amazing. I mean, not being a comedian and having a comedy that's, you know, considered a classic and, you know, making, you know, my favorite comedians laugh is like the biggest kick I get out of all this, you know, having, you know, a person like Eddie Murphy or, you know, Dave Chappelle or somebody would be like, yeah, I love that Friday movie, you know, it's just funny. And I'm like, damn, as much as y'all made me laugh and I get to make you laugh a little bit, you know, it's very cool as a fan of comedy and comedians.

I was thinking about that today. Like, yeah, the whole movie aspect of your career wasn't really the plan, and it's been massive. It's been huge. Yeah, I fell in love with the process of just creating on that. Like, man, there's no bigger canvas for artists than a movie screen and a movie, you know, two hours of, you know, whatever story you need to tell. And I'm like, this is the place I want to be. Because like you said, the music, there are the skits.

We did love, you know, trying to make it sound real, you know, just using audio. You know, they had these little sound effects CDs that, you know, you could buy 250 of them. It's the same screen that you hear. It's the same car horns. It's the same city sounds, you know. And you were trying to use them and blend them and EQ them to where, you know, the environment that we're in, we're trying to bring it sonically. So to be able to do that, like, visually, sonically effects, you know, the whole

shabang on a screen, I'm like, man, I'm there. I go to Outside Line with my daughter, and I see Dochi perform, and she's killing it, but halfway through, they cut to this screen, and it's a sketch, and it's like a take off on like a sitcom, but it's insane, and it ends with one of the characters being thrown out the door, and it's a dummy. It's one of the funniest things I've ever seen, and then she goes back to being this insanely amazing rapper, dancer, and I thought, But this is, it's everything. It's great dancing, great, incredible, intricate rap. And then one of the funniest sketches, hands down, I've seen anyone do anywhere. And then she's back into it again. And it's just, yeah, it's all of it. It's the humor.

It's the darkness. It's everything. Yeah. And I think in honesty, I think that's important too. When people know you're coming from a real place, they want to see how you package it and present it. You know, they don't want you to always stay in the lines. They want you to go outside the lines a little bit. Yeah.

Don't be so safe. You've got all these different passions. You've always been passionate about basketball, huge fan. And then a bunch of years ago, you started this three-on-three idea, which is, starts out small, just like anything else. You started out, but you've been working on it since, like, 2017. Yes. I think.

Yeah. And now you've got this thing, Big Three. It's a three-on-three basketball league. Yeah. It's streaming. Where's it streaming? Is it Paramount? Right now, we're on CBS, Paramount Plus.

I think it's on Fubo. Yeah. And explain how, it's three-on-three, and who's participating? We just professionalized three-on-three. You've seen 5 on 5 everywhere, and we're like, man, I had more fun playing 3 on 3 growing up. Like, why is it in the parking lot? Like Mountain Dew and Nike used to do these weekend warrior tournaments three on 3. And we're like, where's the pros?

And like, it's a void in the market. Because after the finals in with the NBA, if you're not into those summer sports, you're waiting for the NFL. So there's three months of you want to kill yourself. You know, like, I wouldn't go that far. Oh, it's true. I don't know what to do in those three months. You know, after 40 years of that, I just, I couldn't take no more.

You know, I'm like. So this is, this is, I mean, this is way fans can be watching and who's playing three on three? Is it some players that used to play in the NBA, former NBA players. Some of these players play in other countries all around the world. And it's just the best of the best at this format. You know, a lot of guys that's in the NBA wouldn't be great at this format because some of those guys are specialists.

Yeah. Three-point guide or, you know, defensive guy or whatever. You have to be an all-around player for three-on-three. Like, pass-dribble-shoot the fan at a high level. are you going to get exposed? So we're kind of developing our own athletes that can play basketball on this level. And if you look at what we're doing

compared to the Olympics, it's night and day. The Olympics feels very amateurish. Well, it is amateur sports, but ours, you know, feel more like the NBA, more like a pro experience. You guys have a four-point shot? Four-point. How do you get a four-point?

We got three, four-point circle. So, you know, one of them's in the middle and two on the side. And if you just have a fingernail touching one of the circles, it counts. But if you shoot that far and not touch the circle, it's just a three-pointer. So how do you get the four-pointer? You got to be standing on the four-point side. Oh, you can get a four-point. Okay.

So you got to shoot from those areas. Okay. Yeah, I always think of ways to improve a sport. And I used to think the NBA should have something where, you know, if you can somehow put a special hat on while you're playing and sink a shot, it should be like a five-point shot. I don't know about that. Oh, come on.

Yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you, too. Yeah, that's a bad idea. Hear me out. I've got lots of ideas for different sports. We actually don't want to hear you out on a lot. No, we're good. I think we heard enough.

If you could, it's a hat that if you can access it. Yeah, we got that part. And it's like a fun hat. It's an interesting hat. Is there a hat guy? There's a, there's an area of the court where they have a hat on a little table. if you can get that hat on and get the shot off and it's in a certain area,

then it's a five-point shot. I also think in baseball, you should be able to choose which way you run. I like this. When you hit the ball, you can run to first or you can run to third. Once you take a direction,

you have to stick in that direction. You have players crossing each other on the baseline. This is a better version of baseball. If we could add an hat to that? No, no. The hat sucks. I think I saw that on.

Banana ball. Do you play? Definitely not. No, no, no, but I mean, for fun. We're serious. No, no, no. I know that you don't play in the league, but do you play a lot? No, I retired.

And I went to the podium. You didn't see me at the podium? I did. I did. I saw that they lowered a banner. Yeah, all that. So I'm done. Do you shoot around then?

I shoot around a little bit. Yeah. But I kept seeing some of my friends who are amateurs for sure getting pro injuries you know they were like popping Achilles and you know tearing knees and I'm like who needs this like why would ice cube be on crutches and if he was like what happened Q you talk about yourself I was playing basketball you talk about yourself you often talk about yourself in the third person as ice cube it slips out sometimes you know ice cube wants pudding yeah yeah okay I'll get you put it yeah it does slip out and I

I kind of catch myself. I remember when we shot the second remote, we go downtown, and then I think it was your guy's idea that we should get weed. We stop off a dispensary. That was your idea, man. Come on, let's go.

Oh, please. I would never. No, he wanted to add a hat into it. Yeah, yeah. I wanted to go hat shopping. You and Kevin Hart fucked up that idea. But we go, we get all this. We buy so much.

And we stop the car with it. And then the remote's over. We end up in a parking lot somewhere. I'm thanking you guys. You know, SUVs pull up. You know, Kevin Hart gets in his SUV. People are going to leave. I'm talking to my crew.

I'm like, oh, my God, that's great. People are going to love that. It's going to be really good. And then I wander back. And someone said, hey, where's the weed? It's all gone. And they said, Cube took it. I'm like, this man, you do.

You know, they would blame it on the rapper. You do pretty well Yeah Oh so you're denying you took it You're denying you took it I'm denying I took it Kev Hart Did he leave first?

He left first Thank you He left in a hurry He left in a hurry That is true Okay I think he said you took it I don't know

But that would be like him To say oh Cube took it You weren't gonna take it No No No I wasn't You know It's good that it went somewhere

If they had been commemorative Presidential coins But you're gonna sell it Who took the Martin Van Buren coins? Don't look at me. Do you say he was going to sell it? That was asking, would you go sell it if you... Why are you looking for the weed?

I would love to see you try to sell weed. While you're turning tricks on Santa Monica Bullard. Buy my weed. If not, I'll blow you. You're going to blow people to buy your weed. That's the incentive to get the weed. What is this... I'm throwing in the blowjob.

That's just, this is a good businessman. You have to have a multi-pronged model. It's your loss leader to get people in the door. You don't buy my weed I'll blow you? That's terrible.

Come on. Why don't you want this weed? I said, I'd blow you. What the fuck happened here, Q? When we get together, it's good, but it's also... This is... I'm going to blame you.

I know. You took the weed and you got me under this blowjob thing. No, you derailed it at hats. Okay. Let's just. Okay, well, Sona, before we go, you talk all this shit about Cube all the time. Now he's here. How dare you?

No, there's, there's, let you tell him. Hold on. No, I'm not. There's three L.A. natives in this of me and Eduardo and Matt, and the three of us, I mean, you, what you've done for L.A. is huge. And you know what? My cousin from Australia came on his honeymoon. And I said, where do you want to go anywhere in L.A.? And he says, I want to go to Compton.

And so we drove around Compton. Yeah, we really did. It's like Disneyland now. Yeah, I mean, you know, he's just like, because that's like his, in his mind, that's L.A. culture is driving around Compton. So, yeah, I'm not going to. And you're just a prime because, yeah, when how well, you would have been pretty young when straight out of Compton came out.

I was, yeah. I mean, I was born in 82, but. I was in high school. Yeah. It was huge. Yeah. It was huge. Well, I was fucking around.

Where was I in Boston? I don't know. It doesn't matter where I was. You were not listening to straight out of Compton. No, I was listening to, yeah. You were listening to some 1920s record that, like. Button up, you're overcoat. When the windblowsry had put on the record.

78. Has the big horn, take horn, cat of your child. You belong to me, odio, odie, oh. I can't wait to meet Cube. You were listening to. And saw about my Rudy Valley record collection. Straight out of Brookline. Yeah.

Straight out of Brookline. It was pretty tough. Someone stole my fifth Eyesodd shirt. Cube. Every time I hang with you, it's just a great day. It really is a great day.

You're just a phenomenal force. I'm so happy for you. I want to check out this big three, so I'm going to start watching it because I do. I really got into the finals, the NBA finals. And yeah, now we've, you know,

okay, I could watch World Cup. But, oh, wow. One zip. Another exciting game. A lot of running. A lot of running. A lot of running. Another play, broke it up.

That's 98 plays in a row broken up. Fun's fun. Take it easy. But, but... Now, if they put a hat on. But cute. Yeah, so I'm going to check that out. It's big three.

And I'm excited to see it. And just come on by any time. We love having you here. I love to be here, man. You know, anytime, man. You still throwing up in your mouth a little bit, talking to me? A little bit, but I'm good. You know what I mean?

I just need a Coke before I leave. You know what I mean? My taste buzzes. You know. All right. All right, man. All right. If you're listening, I'm sure there is a way for you to access video.

Yeah. If you want to check out what's up. Team Coco, YouTube. Yeah. But you also can just take my word for it. Yes, everything you're describing is correct. It looks like I just stepped out of the shower. Yes.

Let me explain what happened. Very recently, I don't know when this drops, but a little over a week ago, my wife and I attended the grand opening of the Obama presidential library. Seems like you're bragging. Okay. It's not a humble brag. It's not a brag. It's not a brag. It's just a brag brag.

No, it's not a brag. I'm giving you this story of what happened. Yeah. I was in attendance, as were many people, much greater, higher, more important people than me were there. But we were very thrilled to be invited along. What I hadn't realized is that our seats were outside. I hadn't really thought about it. And at the last second, as my wife and I were in our hotel room in Chicago, as we're headed out the door, I think, oh, we're going to be outside.

So I splashed some sun black on my face. Okay. We go to the event. We're sitting outside. And I'll just say in our row, at the end of our row, I see, oh, there's Stephen Colbert. Hi, Stephen. You know, good to see you. And there's David Letterman.

Oh, wow, I love these guys. These are great. We're all sitting in this row together. And the sun, the clouds break, the sun comes out. It's a wonderful event. Amazing speeches. Incredible performances. Now you are bragging.

It has nothing to do with your hair. That's all I'm saying. I'm not bragging. I'm bragging on the amount. I don't know. I don't know. You're not understanding. All I'm saying is the Obamas through an amazing batch. There's another. No, but wait, that is, all I'm saying is that the former president of first lady. Yeah. Yeah. We get it. We get it. We get it. We get it. Oprah was there. Yeah, of course. Did you talk to Oprah? No. She, Oprah was very good at keeping me back. Let's just put it that way. As where are most of the people there. Most people there had security whose only job was to keep Conan. away. I noticed that other people could just wander up to them. Strangers could wander up to those.

Yeah, but they're very good. They're called Conan Bashers. You can hire a Conan Basher. I didn't know that was an option. Yeah. And you can get one. Anyway, it's three hours plus. And when it's over, I'm so glad that I put the sunblock on and I'm feeling really good about myself, like smart move. I walk over and I see Stephen Colbert, David Letterman. They look like they've been playing in a sandbox with plutonium. Their faces are just bright, bright red. And I'm like, well, those suckers don't know to put sunblack on.

A day or two later, after the event, I feel like my skull is on fire. And then two days after that, my skull is really itchy. And whenever I, my scalp, and whenever I it, it looks like a snow globe. Oh. It looks like confetti.

White freckled confetti is pouring off of my head. It's disgusting. I'm like, what is going on? I'm going crazy. And I talked to someone and they said, yeah, you got a sunburn on your scalp, which I'm not used to because I've got so much hair. But this sun just went blasted right through my hair. And it roasted my scalp. And someone said, to treat this, you've got to rub oil into it.

So this morning, I rubbed oil into it, not thinking about the podcast. Oh. And then I come in and I look like I'm. in shana na I'm a grease ball I'm just this and so greasy. Frankie Valley. I'm Frankie Valley. Yeah. And so I've got this comb.

And you have this comb. I've got this comb and I've got this all this grease in my hair which is weighing my hair down. My hair can't do its normal thing. Yeah. And I'm just like, but I look like you're in Greece. Yeah. I look like I want to fight one of you in the parking lot by swinging a chain. at you in like 1952 or a little switchblade.

Yeah. And I'm going to come at you with a switchblade. Yeah. But that's how I feel. Do you feel different with your hair like this? I really do. I really feel different. I want to, I just want to fight people on the street.

I want to get a hot rod and driving around. I want to get Rizzo pregnant so that Rizzo has a bun in the oven. You know what I mean? You think you're Kaniki? Yeah. Okay. You're not Kaniki. Yeah, I might be kinneky.

You're like. one of the two extra ones. I'm one of the other... I'm one of the Thunderbirds that is easily 55 years old. That's my favorite thing, is when you look at still... When you look at still photographs of the Thunderbirds... I know. And it's like, okay, well, there's John Travolta.

There's Danny Zuko. There's Danisouko. And there's Kaniki. And then you look at the other guys, and there's two of them that easily look like they fought in a war 30 years ago. No, not him. That's Eddie Dison. No, not him.

No, not him. He's not Eugene. No, no, no. You got to find, not Eugene. Eugene is, by the way, Eddie Disen. That's Eddie Disen. King of the nerds. Come on.

Did you know that? His name is Eddie Disen and he's king of the nerds. Okay. That's who you think you're kidding. You know, that's a hard time here. You're not. We need all the T-Birds. Yeah.

Just go Google T-Birds. Yeah, but he thinks he's that guy. No, no. I, yes, and I think I am. Conan. I want to put a cigarette behind my ear. And you know what? As a joke recently, David got me bubble gum cigarette,

so I'm going to put a bubble gum cigarette behind my ears. There we go. Okay, look at the guy who is shut. He's in high school? He's in high school? Yeah. No, he's not in high school. He's a pipe fitter who fought in the Korean War.

That guy's, I think he's, he's 48 years old. He just had a stent put in. It's unbelievable. They're like, you think you can play high school? Sure, I can play high school. Hey, what's wrong with your knee? I had it replaced. We just Photoshop.

We just Photoshop. We just photoshopped Conan's face into that photo. Oh, I know. We should. I'm a grease ball now, and I'm just going to keep rubbing oil into my head until this, my skull heals. What kind of oil is it? What is it? I just grabbed, they said, this person just said oil, so I got some WD40.

Oh. Okay. I don't, I kind of like this look on you. Do you really? I do. I do. I think this makes you. look very refined? Refined? Well, that would be if I combed it straight back. Yeah. It's sort of Michael Kane and dirty rotten scoundrels. Yes. It's like, it's like Al Pacino and the godfather. We don't have a mirror here

because we suck. What? What we do? Come on. We've been doing this a long time. There's no mirror. I never get any makeup. We're not a real. Oh, I do my own makeup. Maybe you can do your own makeup. So you like this? I don't hate it. I don't. I don't. I don't like it. It's very different. But it is like, it is like a Come in 2.0. This is undiluted fat Irish face. This is just big block of Irish face. Come on. I think the hair can at least obscure and soften.

It's very Wall Street, which I think is like against kind of who you are. No, I think greed is good. No. I am Gordon Gecko. No. Yes, it's Gordon Gecko. No. In a world of Gordon Gecko's bee, Martin Sheen.

Now I'm just a gecko. I don't know. Now I'm just acting like a gecko. That's why you can never be like Gordon Gekyll. No, that's why you can never be like him. That's why this hair won't suit you. It's because you do that stuff. We got to fix the burn.

I know, when's your hair going to stop? I don't know. It actually might have already. Isn't there like a powder sunscreen we can get for your scalp? I'm going to order some for you. It's got a assistant. No, you know what's called wear a hat? You know who's wearing a hat?

Hillary Clinton was up there wearing a hat. And it wasn't just any hat. It was, I mean, it looked like a giant. sail on a sailboat. It was a huge hat. She's smart. She's smart. She's laughing at me right now. Yeah, she is. And she's fine. She has no itchy scalp. She really doesn't. But I also, it's been long enough. I really don't think that you have to deal with it anymore. Does your scalp even still itch? Like when I get sunburned and I do it in my skin. This is my question. It's like a day.

No, this is, I know. That's what I'm curious about. It's been over a week. No. So something's this could be a worse problem. Oh, come on. Don't do that. Don't get into that hypochondriac thing you do. I'm turning into Gordon Gecko or if it's plural, Gordon Gecki. Why did I force that? I don't know.

Anyway, I'm sure I'm fine. I just got to oil up this melon. This is an Irish mafia. I got to run. I got to oil up this melon. Yeah. And I just said Irish Mafia and you said oil up this melon. Got to oil up this melon.

That's not very Irish mafia. And then I got to go see. Danny Zuko because we're about to graduate high school and then he's going to drive me in from my lung transplant. All right. Pray for me. Pray for me. Conan O'Brien needs a friend with Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessian and Matt Goorley. Produced by me, Matt Goreley. Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Jeff Ross, and Nick Leow. Theme song by The White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy. Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair, and our

associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering and mixing by Eduardo Perez and Brendan Burns. Additional production support by Mars Melnik. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Battista, and Britt Con. You can rate and review this show on Apple podcasts, and you might find your review read on a future episode. Got a question for Conan? Call the Team Coco hotline at 669-587-2847 and leave a message. It too could be featured on a future episode. You can also get three free months of SiriusXM when you sign up at SiriusXM.com slash Conan. And if you haven't

already, please subscribe to Conan O'Brien needs a friend wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.