The Predator

Dan’s Score: *****

Possibly Ice Cube’s magnum opus, this album captures the perfect mixture of Cube’s early radical lyrics (inspired by people like Malcolm X and the Black Panther party) with his rising production values to create a cohesive masterpiece from front to back. As an artifact distinctly of the 90s, rife with deep cultural analysis of Black America, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this album show up in college courses. With hits like “It Was a Good Day”, “Check Yo Self”, and “Now I Gotta Wet ‘Cha”, The Predator is sometimes ironic, oftentimes raw, and always critical.