Ice Cube says Eazy-E blocked Dr Dre from producing his debut album
Ice Cube split from NWA in 1989 over royalty disputes, but he still wanted Dr. Dre to produce his debut solo album. However, as a continuation of their beef, Eazy-E and the group’s manager, Jerry Heller, made sure that didn’t happen.
The Los Angeles rapper released his acclaimed first album AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted in 1990 following an acrimonious split from the group he helped make up alongside Dre, Eazy, DJ Yella, MC Ren and Arabian Prince. The record is considered one of the best of the decade and can be thought of
Mostly produced by The Bomb Squad, the album was released via Priority Records and achieved platinum status in the same year it came out, solidifying Cube’s relevance as a solo artist not just lyrically but also commercially. From this moment on, Cube was an artist on his own merit, without the help of NWA.
Still, during his recent appearance on Complex’s Idea Generation, Ice Cube admitted that he wanted Dr. Dre to be on the boards for the entirety of AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted. Cube’s reason for leaving NWA was strictly to do with the business side of things, so he wanted his musical connection with members of the group to continue to flourish.
Ice Cube and Dr. Dre discussed coming together once again, but Eazy-E and Jerry Heller stopped them from proceeding with their plans. The decision represented their issues. Despite their previous friendship, things had now reached an irrevocable stage. Cube even went on to diss Dre on the classic diss track ‘No Vaseline’ in 1991.
“I still tried to be friends with the guys who had nothing to do with the business,” he said. “Me and Eazy was shaky, and I didn’t care about Jerry Heller at all, so it wasn’t no love lost there. But I tried to keep it together with Dre. I even wanted Dre to produce my solo record, and we was talking about it, but Eazy and Jerry vetoed it.”
Ice Cube departed NWA due to issues with writing much of 1987’s Straight Outta Compton album and feeling like he didn’t receive a fair amount of the profits. This led Cube to file a lawsuit against Heller, which was settled out of court.
When Dr Dre and Ice Cube eventually reunited, it was like nothing had happened. “We hugged and it’s like, we never even talked about the past,” Cube told Howard Stern. “We just went forward.”