Ice Cube warns rap record labels encourage criminal behavior and help fuel private prisons

WASHINGTON (TND) — Rapper O'Shea "Ice Cube" Jackson made an appearance on comedian Bill Maher's podcast this week, and the two spoke about the music industry's effect on society.

The July 2 episode of Maher's "Club Random" podcast says in its summary that the two speak about "the pitfalls of fame," "how to raise good kids" and "the prison industry’s connection to music," among other topics.

In one segment of the nearly hour-and-a-half-long episode, Maher began lamenting to rapper Ice Cube about how modern conversations are becoming more "woke" in that there's a "Mean Girls" mentality afoot that has people looking to constantly catch others at fault.

Ice Cube responds by saying such petty arguments like that are purposely injected into society to keep people busy and divided, as it then prevents them from questioning bigger problems that they could unite and solve.

It's just done to really keep us bickering and chasing these words, so they're not really getting to the root of the issues which are most of the time very common, if we really go down to the root of it," Ice Cube said.

Maher, evidently now interested in exploring Ice Cube's idea a bit more, asks the rapper who he thinks is dividing society and why. Ice Cube responds by telling Maher to "follow the money."

I don't know their names Bill, but if you follow the money, you go high enough, you start to see... Okay, let’s take Rap music. The same people who own the labels own the prisons." Ice Cube said, adding later that there are a "lot of dots to connect" but he was simply giving a "broad example of how people at the top can manipulate what's going on with the people who are bickering and fighting."

Maher then asks, almost incredulously "literally the same people?" to which Ice Cube responds "literally, the same people who own the labels own private prisons."

The iconic American rapper adds that "it seems really kind of suspicious, if you want to say that word, that the records that come out are really geared to push people towards that prison industry."

Maher questions Ice Cube's idea by bringing up the rapper's own art. Ice Cube was famously a member of the legendary "gangsta rap" group "N.W.A." who released songs like "F**k Tha Police" in 1988. Maher says to Ice Cube "they [the record companies] didn't make you write those lyrics."

It's not about making somebody write the lyrics, it's about being there as guardrails to make sure certain songs make it through and certain songs don’t," Ice Cube explained to Maher.

Ice Cube then later explains that sometimes record companies micromanage albums and that "some records are made by committee" so that they can push "a narrative." This is, according to the rapper, an example of "social engineering" meant to ensure that American "prisons stay full."

Maher and Ice Cube have had heated discussions in the past, especially over Maher's controversial use of the "N-word" racial slur, but the rapper has always seemed more than willing to speak with Maher on his various shows.

In fact, NPR wrote in 2017 that it was Ice Cube who seemingly saved Maher and his show following the "N-word" controversy by making an appearance and chastizing the HBO show's host over the incident, in a display that not only ensured "the preservation of the comedian's long-running show" but also "simultaneously revitalized" the rapper's "own rep."