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CraveOnline: Were you promoting your last album at the same time you were making this movie?

Ice Cube: Oh yeah, yeah. That's the hard part, flying in and out and doing that but to me, that's part of the grind. I kind of wouldn't have it any other way. What happened was we were doing the promo tour right up until it was time to do this movie, so that's kind of what happened. Right after the record dropped, it was pretty much time to go shoot the movie, so a lot of stuff, I kind of missed out record-wise because I was just out in Vancouver doing this.

CraveOnline: Why is it still important to keep doing music when you have this lucrative film career?

Ice Cube: Just as an artist, the creative freedom that records give me, I don't know if you could ever get with movies. With a record I could just go in there with me and my producer and do what we want to do. I've never had an A&R or anybody to tell me what kind of records to make. But with movies, it's more of a collaboration. It's a big team, there's a lot of people working on one project so it's never really one man, one thought type of deal. With records, I can do that. I don't think I'd ever give it up. Whether I sell them for the rest of my life or not, I don't think I'll ever stop making records.

CraveOnline: On the other hand, if music is so fulfilling, why even get into movies?

Ice Cube: Well, records are not all the way creatively fulfilling because it's just audio. A movie is the biggest canvas and stage an artist can ever think to want. So just as a creative person, I could never let that go. I love to produce, even more than acting. I love to produce because it's a way to create something and be involved in this monster of a creation called a movie from the script getting written to marketing the movie. I love every aspect of it so it's just creatively too much to let go on.

CraveOnline: Is it intimidating to have to deliver on all those levels?

Ice Cube: No, it's not intimidating because I have great people, smart people that's around me and we love the challenge. I guess it's like climbing a mountain or building a building. It's a challenge but you love every challenge that it brings or presents itself. So I think that's the fun of it, that it is so big and that once you get on a movie, you can't get off. It's a marathon. You can't quit mid-[way]. After 20 days of shooting, you can't throw your hands up and say, "This is too hard." You gotta keep going, so I think we all like that. Everybody who makes movies and whoever are producers and really into this creative process from start to finish, I would hate and I always hate when a movie's over and I'm just acting in it and I'm not producing it, the movie's over and I've got to wait like everybody else to see what the outcome is going to be. I hate that. I love to go to the edit bay, check on scenes, look at the dailies. All that stuff to me is all part of the appeal that movies have on me.

CraveOnline: How do you maintain this dual image as a hardcore rapper and a family man?

Ice Cube: My job to me is to show that that's the same people. It's the same people. If you talk to most people that are so called gangsters or in the pen or doing what they're doing, all of them want car, house, kids, wife, picket fence. All of 'em. You're rarely going to find somebody who says, "Yeah, I want to take over the world. That's why I wanted to be a gangster. I want to run L.A." Nah, most people are in the pursuit of happiness and that's what got 'em in there. Most gangsters are gangsters because they're frustrated that society's not hearing them, society's not giving them or allowing them to get their piece of the pie and they go against society for that. When I was back in NWA and all these things I'm screaming basically "Give us our shot. Give us a share. Let us get our piece. That's why we're mad. That's why we do what we do." As a grown man, I've gotten my piece and it's still my job really to speak for people who don't have nobody to speak for them because I have the opportunity to be heard. So I just want people to know that it's the same person. Most guys when you get to meet them, they're people who are considered gangsters or hardcore, are usually the coolest dudes that you could ever know. You've just got to know who they are and if they know you, they love you. I'm no different in a way.

CraveOnline: What’s this reality show you’re doing?

Ice Cube: I mean, the show is called Good in the Hood. It's going to be on A&E. What we're doing with the show is we're profiling and showcasing people who are doing good things in bad neighborhoods, you hear about 30% of teenagers are doing that and 40% of teenagers are doing this. We want to talk about the other 60% that's not doing that and the other 70% that's not going to jail, that's not in crime. And even if they do stumble, the ones who realize the dark side is not the way, they want to try to live a more positive life and do better things than they did in the past, so we would document their obstacles and things that's in their way that makes it hard to go straight after you had a criminal past. We just want to highlight what's good in the hood and not just focus on what's bad all the time.

CraveOnline: With all this going on, what are your future goals?

Ice Cube: I mean, I don't like to put my goals out there in the open but my dream is to have a studio. The game that filmmakers have to go through with execs, I want to cut out some of it. I want to do movies that should be made for the reasons of good filmmaking and not always a money decision. So that's a dream of mine and if we keep working hard, it'll happen.

CraveOnline:  How has Hollywood changed since Burn Hollywood Burn?

Ice Cube: Back then, we had basically white Hollywood doing black stories and getting it half assed right. Now, you've got black directors doing white stories getting it half assed right. So I guess that's changed, Hollywood has changed. I think you have more of us telling our stories. There's still a long way to go, not just for black filmmakers, but for anybody. It's not easy to get a movie made no matter what color you are nowadays in Hollywood. It's just hard so I don't see it getting no easier for any filmmaker. If you had Steven Spielberg right here he would probably tell you the same thing. He still has to go through the ringer to get movies made. I think that's just the nature of the business. Nobody's going to just let you fly in there with all your so-called great ideas and shove money down your throat. It's always going to be a grind to convince people that this is the right thing to do.

CraveOnline: Are you surprised your audience responds more to you in comedies than action?

Ice Cube: Yeah. I mean, you look at my history, comedy doesn't spill out the side. But we've made the kind of comedies I think that probably wouldn't get done, or wouldn't get done on the level that they're getting done just talking about those things in the black community that only black people are really privy too. We usually put those kind of things in our comedy and expose the world to what's going on in the nooks and crannies of black life.

CraveOnline: Are you really going to do Welcome Back Kotter?

Ice Cube: Yeah, I'm going to do a version of Welcome Back Kotter. We're taking the name, we're taking the concept of the sweathogs and a bunch of kids nobody wants to teach and seeing them for how intelligent and the things they do have to offer. We're basically taking that kind of feel and tailor making it for me.

CraveOnline: That’ll be another comedy?

Ice Cube: Yeah, dramedy. If you look at Welcome Back Kotter, there was a lot of real social commentary in with the jokes so we're going to do that too.

CraveOnline: Thing you’ll get a Travolta cameo?

Ice Cube: We're trying to get cameos from everybody that was in the original somewhere in the movie.

CraveOnline: What is the state of rap music today?

Ice Cube: Well, it's like all music. All music is dying, all music. No more music in schools. They're not teaching it like they used to, at least like it was when I was in school. There's more downloading and there's more ways to take the music from the artists and you have artists who are not making music because they can't make a living at it. It's slowly but surely dying off. Pretty soon we're going to get to the time when all we have is old music to listen to because nobody's going to see the value in doing new music unless we find a way to get these artists paid. Music is making billions of dollars but who's making the money? The technology makers, not the artists. We've got to get that money back in the artists hands, that way your favorite artist will continue to do music because he can make a living at it.

CraveOnline: What about the messages in today's rap?

Ice Cube: Well, rap is going to talk about the good, the bad and the ugly. It's not going to get prettier. It's always going to talk about really what's going on. No holding back. Some rap is going to sensationalize it but at the core of it, it's real issues that they're talking about and dealing with and just dealing with in their own way, so that's never going to change.

CraveOnline: What's next for you?

Ice Cube: We've got a movie hopefully that'll all fall in place called First Sunday and I'm working on an album called Raw Footage. Keeping it moving, having a ball.

CraveOnline: What’s this album going to be like?

Ice Cube: It's more political than my last record. That's all I can say.

CraveOnline: When you were helping create hip hop, did you imagine it would become mainstream?

Ice Cube: Not at all. I thought rap was going to just be underground music that people would shun forever. At least adults, but what's happening is people have grown up with rap. Yeah, the pioneers of rap are in their '50s going into their '60s. These are the pioneers who started in the '70s. So America has grown up with the music and America's gotten older with the music. I have fans that are I figure 10 years older than me and 10 years younger than me who are my core fans, so that's still talking 28 to 48. Hey, it's here to stay.

CraveOnline: You worked with David O. Russell on Three Kings. Did you see those Lily Tomlin clips from Huckabees?

Ice Cube: Yeah, I did. That's David. Hey, man. That's to me real moviemaking. They were really getting to the heart of that scene there. No, David is a dude who knows what he wants and you better give it to him.

CraveOnline: Did that happen to you Three Kings too?

Ice Cube: Not with me but with George Clooney, they kind of did a little, looked like they were about to go at it.

CraveOnline: As loud as Lilly?

Ice Cube: Pretty much, yeah. David, if I could criticize him in any kind of way, he loves to give direction while you're shooting a scene. So he'll tell you, "No, no, put the glass down, pick it up again. All right, continue." The camera's rolling, you're like okay. "No, no, no, with the other hand." You're like okay. "No, no, no, wait, wait. Hold on, pick it up." At a certain point you just say, "Cut." And you go in there and say "Here's how I want it" but he likes to keep the camera rolling and show you f*cking up the whole time trying to get it right. I guess by the 30 or 40^th day, it's enough. Enough is enough.