The iconic Ice Cube song Logic wishes he wrote: “It’s a timeless song”
To be a music fan without possessing the skills to produce your own works of genius can be a frustrating thing. But even the most successful and talented musicians can feel the exact same way. Every artist has their inspirations to look up to, and sometimes, they can even feel a bit inferior and jealous of their heroes’ abilities.
One such person who’s been open about that is Logic, the Grammy-nominated rapper with several platinum-selling albums to his name. The man is a huge success in his own right, but, even so, he’s publicly stated that there’s one particular song by another artist that he really wished he’d been able to write for himself.
In 2014 the ‘1-800-273-8255’ songwriter was interviewed by XXL for a feature in which the magazine’s staff asked ten different rappers about songs that, after they’d heard them, they couldn’t help but wish they’d been the ones to come up with them. Logic knew exactly what his answer was: ‘Today Was A Good Day,’ by Ice Cube.
“It’s classic song,” he explained to the magazine. “It’s a timeless song. You listen to that shit forever. Forever, ever and ever. Whenever you are having a good day, you just throw that shit on. The beat is amazing. It samples The Isley Brothers. Cube is so dope.”
The track was released as a single in 1993, lifted from Cube’s third solo album The Predator. Produced by DJ Pooh, it reached number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100, which at the time made it Ice Cube’s most successful single ever. In it, the rapper describes his perfect day, one in which his mother makes him a pork-free breakfast in the morning, in which he later meets a girl to have fun with, and in which his gambling exploits pay off handsomely. Still, even on this ideal day he describes, he sees the cops, although, on this particular occasion, they don’t hassle him for once. The fact that this is worth mentioning in a track so positive illustrates how ubiquitous and nefarious a presence the police usually are in his life.
Cube, speaking to Blender in 2005, has reflected publicly on the fact that this song was written around the time that the LA Riots broke out. He felt a weight of expectation that his music should respond to the violence, but that, at the same time, he was personally doing well during this period. He wanted to express that positivity, too, as well as all the darker stuff he was known for.
“I was at the top of the rap game,” he said. It was the summer of ’92 and I was in a hotel room, really in a state of euphoria. I had all the money I had dreamed of. I was in a good frame of mind. And I remember thinking, ‘Okay, there’s been the riots, people know I will deal with that. That’s a given. But I rap all this gangsta stuff—what about all the good days I had?’”
So, that’s what he did. He wrote a song about a damn fine day, and, in doing so, he condemned Logic, a rapper who would emerge many years after Ice Cube’s own heyday, to wishing he was capable of writing something quite as good.