The new career Ice Cube had lined up in case ‘Friday’ flopped
Ice Cube is a legend that has been around for four decades. Whether it’s from his days in the iconic hip-hop group N.W.A. or his days as a solo artist, Ice Cube began his journey as a musician. However, after finding superstardom in the 1980s, Ice Cube began transitioning in the 1990s. First, he became a solo artist with albums such as AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted and Death Certificate.
However, during the 1990s, Ice Cube also segued into Hollywood with his Friday movie franchise. When the movie was first filmed, one of its prominent faces, Chris Tucker, was unsure that people would even turn up to theatres to watch it. During a discussion with Complex, Faizon Love recalled Tucker exclaiming, “Man! Ain’t nobody going to go see an Ice Cube movie!”
That said, he couldn’t have been more wrong and, as the character Smokey, he became one of the faces of black comedy well beyond the 1990s. Still, he wasn’t the only one who didn’t believe in the film at the time.
By 1995 (when Friday was released), Ice Cube wasn’t so new to acting as he had previously starred in the 1991 Oscar-nominated movie Boyz N the Hood as well as John SIngleton’s film Higher Learning. Still, Friday was the movie that saw him show his potential as an actor with a lead role.
Furthermore, it showed that he could lead a movie from behind the camera, as the lyricist co-wrote and produced Friday. However, prior to giving the script to John Singleton, Ice Cube had other plans. In an interview with Architectural Digest, the rapper admitted that in the 1980s, he studied architectural drafting at the Phoenix Institute of Technology and was going to be an engineer if all failed.
Opening up about this period the Lethal Injection creator explained, “I missed the deadline to register for my elective, and there were two open classes left: architectural drafting and cooking. And I didn’t want to take cooking. … The principle behind building anything starts with a plan. That helped me design a career for myself — it all happened with a plan.”
Still, although he had studied architectural drafting, it was only after Friday that he was sure that he wouldn’t have to attend college. Although he had succeeded with NWA and become a prolific solo musician, the Boyz N The Hood star was still unsure how he would operate in the Hollywood space. However, Friday gave him the blueprint and the recognition he needed to progress.
In an interview for Billboard magazine, Ice Cube explained why he loves Friday so much, divulging, “It’s really a slice of life that’s fun, but it takes things that are pretty tragic in a lot of ways. You got the ice cream man selling dope, the crackhead dude running up and down the street. You got all these crazy things — you take a gun or you fight with your hands — it lets us laugh at them and takes the pressure off a little bit. I think those are some of the reasons I will always love that movie.”
Since 1995, Ice Cube has appeared in a number of films, including Friday sequels, Barbershop, Ride Along, Are We There Yet?, Higher Learning and more.