Did Ice Cube rip off Cypress Hill for his classic song ‘Friday’?: “Cube took the hook”
Ice Cube was once accused of stealing lyrics from Cypress Hill that caused a rift between the two parties after previously being friends. During the mid-’90s, group member B-Real was in and out of the studio with the NWA legend and allegedly let him have a sneak listen to ‘Throw Your Set in the Air’ whilst it was still being mixed.
At the time, Cypress Hill were recording a song called ‘Roll It Up, Light It Up, Smoke It Up’ to appear on the soundtrack for Cube and Chris Tucker’s 1995 buddy comedy movie, Friday.
‘Throw Your Set in the Air’, among other songs, was apparently played to Ice Cube as they were deep into the recording process for their Cypress Hill III: Temples of Boom album.
According to B-Real, Ice Cube liked ‘Throw Your Set in the Air’ so much that he wanted to include it in Friday. However, B-Real decided against letting him have the song due to wanting to use it for Cypress Hill’s upcoming album. After the refusal, Ice Cube apparently asked to hear the song once more before heading home.
This is where things got complicated. Friday was released in April 1995 and included a song called ‘Friday’ with a chorus that sounded similar to ‘Throw Your Set in the Air’ that hadn’t even been released yet. Instead of “Throw your set in the air,” Ice Cube rapped, “Throw your neighborhood in the air.”
This forced Cypress Hill to write a diss track towards Ice Cube called ‘No Rest for the Wicked’, which threw plenty of shots his way. Referencing his birth name, O’Shea Jackson, B-Real raps in the first verse, “Jackson… lemme figure out the name, Jack, ’cause you be stealing other n-ggas’ game! (Lying-ass motherfucker!).”
Fellow Cypress Hill member Sen Dog also says on the track, “Yeah, n-gga! My homie thought he had a homie in you. He let you listen to our motherfuckin’ cut, and you turned around and put some old ‘Friday’ shit out. What kind of shit is that?!”
The beef between Ice Cube and Cypress Hill has long been buried. During an interview with The Guardian in 2022, B-Real discussed the conflict and the moment they made peace with each other. “After we felt that Cube took the hook from ‘Throw Your Set in the Air’, we poked back at him on ‘No Rest for the Wicked’,” he said. “He kicked back with ‘King of the Hill’, so we released ‘Ice Cube Killa’ to DJs only.
“I don’t think he took it as seriously as us in terms of what this shit can turn into, but prior to that we’d been friends and we had a lot of mutual friends who wanted us to mend the relationship.”
He added, “Some time later, on 1 January 1997, he called me and we both sort of apologised to each other in our roundabout way and since then we’ve done shows together and hung out. I’ve got nothing but love and respect for Cube. When I started, he was my benchmark.”