More Power to Ice Cube and Dr. Dre

Ice Cube was as surprised as anyone to hear that his song “It Was a Good Day” was being played on a mainstream L.A. radio station.

“When your manager calls and says you’re on the radio, it’s like, ‘Damn! That’s all right,’ ” the rapper says.

Not many artists whose most recent album has sold more than a million copies would be surprised to get mainstream radio play. But Ice Cube has been off-limits--a “gangsta,” a portrayer of stark urban scenes with violent imagery that doesn’t play well next to Whitney Houston.

But that’s changed, at least on L.A. station KPWR-FM (105.9), the second-highest-rated outlet in the region and the top pop-music station.

Same for Ice Cube’s former N.W.A. colleague Dr. Dre, whose song “Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang” is one of the hottest singles in the country.

This is a breakthrough for gangstas in pop radio. Even after becoming a dominant pop force, rap has remained an iffy prospect on Top 40. For the most part, only the lightweight or novelty numbers--from the Beastie Boys’ “Fight for Your Right to Party” to Kris Kross’ “Jump”--have been embraced, and such harder acts as Public Enemy and N.W.A. have been relegated to a handful of urban-market stations. Since the demise of rap-oriented KDAY two years ago, hard-core rap has been virtually absent from the L.A. airwaves.

“With radio programmers, when you say the word rap it’s negative to them,” says Mark Benesch, head of promotion for Interscope Records, which released Dre’s “The Chronic” album.

Benesch says he waited to promote the single until after the album started to climb the charts, and then targeted only radio stations that he felt would be receptive. “The reaction was the same at the stations--they played it once and got immediate reaction, both from male and female listeners, and sales in those markets exploded.”

The evidence is in the charts. “The Chronic” is currently No. 3 on the Billboard pop album chart, while Dre’s single, which is being played on more than 50 stations nationwide, jumped last week to No. 5 on the pop singles chart. Cube’s song isn’t being played on as many stations yet, but his album “The Predator,” which debuted at No. 1 last November, has sold more than a million copies and is currently No. 31.

Rick Cummings, KPWR’s program director, says that in the past he’s steered clear of gangsta-rap songs, but at a public audition for members of the station’s dance team last month a deejay played “Wicked,” from the “Predator” album, and the crowd went wild.

“The audience was about 90% Hispanic and about 10% black and white and I watched all the kids mouthing every word to the song,” Cummings says. “Here’s a record no one in the market has played and they knew every word.”

Cummings then decided to give “It Was a Good Day” a shot on the station’s “Rap Attack,” a nightly feature in which listeners vote for a favorite new rap song, choosing between a returning champion and a challenger.

“We put it on ‘Rap Attack’ and it won and went on to win for two weeks straight and we saw there was something going on,” Cummings says.

“It’s cool because the people forced radio to play my record,” Ice Cube says. “Radio’s bowing down to what the people want.”

Or have Cube and Dre bowed down to what radio will accept? Both of these songs are fairly tame compared to the rough stuff associated with the artists.

“Ice Cube’s song is very positive--like he’s saying, ‘Look, I got through another day in a rough neighborhood and nobody got shot. It’s a good day,’ ” Cummings says. “People get that he’s protesting the violence, and Dre’s is kind of the same thing.”

Says Ice Cube: “I knew that the Isley Brothers tune I used in the song was real popular, and I knew the song was non-threatening. Some days everything does go right. If I’m gonna talk about the realities, I gotta talk about the whole spectrum.”

THE ROYAL ROAD: Break out your purple--or whatever color Prince is pushing these days. The pride of Minneapolis is apparently gearing up for his first U.S. tour since 1988’s “Lovesexy” trek. Word is that this tour, concentrating on theaters and mid-size venues, is set to begin in late March in Florida and is expected to include three dates at the Universal Amphitheatre, April 12-14. A Universal source said that no dates have been confirmed.

Can Prince still sell tickets in the United States? His recent albums, including the latest, “ ,” which is languishing at No. 42 despite the Top 10 success of the single “7,” haven’t matched the huge sales level of “Purple Rain.”

“I’d place the tour in a big question-mark category,” says Gary Bongiovanni, editor of the concert trade magazine Pollstar. “The albums haven’t sold well and we’ll have to see if he even tours. He’s had many U.S. tours booked and canceled before they were even announced.”

JOVI-ALITY: One act already having some trouble selling concert tickets is Bon Jovi--plenty of seats are still available for the band’s March 12 show at the Forum. But at least the group has come up with a good way to use some of the unsold seats: Some tickets for each show on the current tour will be donated to regional Special Olympics chapters, to be used by Special Olympians and their parents.

This continues singer Jon Bon Jovi’s relationship with the Special Olympics. He performed at the organization’s Minneapolis games in 1991 and contributed a song to the 1992 “A Very Special Christmas 2” album, which benefited the program that provides sports activities for the mentally challenged.

AND ONE MORE THING: Annie Lennox must be pleased with Rolling Stone readers who named her the best female singer of 1992 in the magazine’s annual poll. But she must be a bit perplexed that she was also voted among the Top 5 new female singers. While Lennox’s “Diva” album was technically a solo debut, she’d been scoring hits as the singing half of Eurythmics for more than a decade. But she wasn’t alone: Patty Smyth, who first surfaced fronting Scandal in the mid-’80s, was also named as a top new female singer.

--Steve Hochman