Ice Cube calls for 'accountability' with new album Man Up
Rap legend Ice Cube has demanded "accountability" with his latest politically-charged album Man Up.
Ice Cube has demanded "accountability" on his politically-charged new album Man Up.
The rap legend releases his latest record – the companion album to last year's Man Down project – on Friday (12.09.25) and states that the album "speaks truth to power".
Ice Cube said in a statement: "I've always stood on speaking truth to power and making music that reflects reality.
"Man Up is about accountability, resilience, and reminding people where the real problems come from. Hip hop didn't create the struggle – it gave us the language to call it out."
The Check Yo Self rapper is at the centre of the 14-track album and also gets some help from Houston rap icon Scarface.
Notable records on the album include Ice Cube, 56, putting a new take on Patrice Rushen's 1982 record Forget Me Nots for California Dreamin.
The It Was a Good Day artist has also recruited Nova Scotia's Quake Matthews, the winner of his fan verse challenge, for the track It's My Ego 3Mix.
The rapper explained last year that Man Up was about the US becoming too soft-centred for his liking.
He told Billboard: "It's about men not accepting nonsense and speaking up and not just taking a backseat letting other people take the lead. We gotta take the lead."
Ice Cube is hitting the road again on his Four Decades of Attitude Tour, which gets underway in Denver on September 16 before stopping in Seattle, Oakland, Los Angeles, Glendale, Chicago, Toronto, Atlanta, Austin and Houston.
The former N.W.A star – whose real name is O'Shea Jackson Sr. – previously explained how black Americans like him grew up with the choices of a dull job, jail or death.
He told Hunger in 2023: "For a long while I would only ever take the back streets. I didn’t want to walk on the Boulevard and deal with a cop’s attitude.
"The police in Los Angeles will kill you; they will set you up and murder you right there on the spot. After (N.W.A’s) F*** Tha Police dropped we felt like we had to be extra cautious in how we moved.
“I remember Ice-T told me: 'Don’t let the LAPD catch you in a twist!'"
