Ice Cube Takes a New Route Through ‘Harlem’ : Pop music: The rapper seems an unlikely choice to direct blues-rock newcomer Ian Moore’s video. But that’s the point, they say.

Gunfire has just erupted on Olive Street downtown. Within moments, the windows of the nearby office tower are crowded with onlookers. A passing car screeches to a halt, the driver obviously rattled. Workers on their way to the bus stop keep their cool, spotting the cameras poised to capture the action, but casting nonetheless suspicious glances toward the sidewalk where a group of dressed-down black men are laughing.

Actually, the convincingly ear-piercing blanks are coming from a faux semiautomatic being wielded by a beautiful blond woman in a business jacket, skirt and high heels who’s crazily running across the street firing random shots into the air.

One of the African Americans looking on is rapper Ice Cube, who’s directing the video for “Harlem”--a song by another artist, blues-rock newcomer Ian Moore. All day Ice Cube has been soberly intent on his duties, but the sight of this woman in a power suit packing such heavy firepower gives him as hearty a laugh as anybody’s.

The irony is obvious and intentional. In this role-reversal video, the threatening image of the ‘hood belies what’s really a safe, welcoming place, while the surface placidity of a white-collar business district gives way to violent chaos.

Cube, 24, whose views on race are sometimes controversial, and Moore, a rather more naive 25-year-old guitar hotshot fresh out of Texas, are by no means likely collaborators.

“Yeah, but I’m not sweatin’ it,” says Cube, downplaying the curiosity some fans might have about why he’d want to work with a singer whose style and message are so far afield from his own, and concerning himself more with the development of his own filmmaking career. “Practice makes perfect. If I do all rap videos, I’m not really getting the practice I need to move on. So I just work with a lot of different things.”

For Moore, who is white, race did figure into the mix. “I think it’s good for him and for me,” says the Austinite, whose debut album is just starting to get a lot of exposure, and who’s learning a lot about the value of good publicity. Before Cube’s name even came up, says Moore, “I specifically wanted to find a new, up-and-coming black director to do the video, and the reason is because it was a black/white issue and I wanted to make a statement. . . .”

Cube admits that he was wary about taking on the assignment when he first heard the song, in which Moore describes driving through a black neighborhood “inside a glass shell” as a metaphor to express his frustration at the lack of communication between races.

*

“Just the thought of ‘Driving through Harlem in my bulletproof car’--once you hear that first line, you think, ‘Oh, here we go, white group, talking about driving through Harlem and scared to do anything.’

“But once I started talking to him and heard his different meaning of the song, how he kind of wanted to break this notion, I said, ‘OK, we’ll do a video that does the same.’ So it’s breaking down stereotypes, because some people say Harlem is the best place to be in the world, and some say Beverly Hills is the worst.”

A four-block area of downtown L.A. is standing in for both Harlem and Wall Street on this two-day shoot. The set’s two groups of extras are gangsta types, whose job today is not to menace Moore and his long-haired band members as they pass by in a convertible, and dressed-to-kill executive sorts, whose propensity for sudden violence will persuade Moore to put the top back up and the bulletproof vest back on.

Besides young execs, Ice Cube also has an elderly woman threaten the band members in the video, which results in the sight of the director showing a retiree how to hold a very serious pistol, a source of amusement for all on the set.

The rapper’s aspirations toward being a feature filmmaker are no secret in Hollywood. He’s proven himself as an actor in “Boyz N the Hood” and “Trespass,” and has been writing scripts on the side; the inside word from some film pros who’ve seen his drafts is that his talent for writing raps does translate.

But Cube claims he’s in no rush to make the jump to features, and is even purposely avoiding the more bloated side of video-making.

“When I get real, real good at videos, I’ll move on. But until I feel like I’m there or I’m the best I can be at that, I’m not gonna any time soon. . . . I’ve been working on small budgets because when I do my first film I want to have a tight budget, just because I think it comes out a little rawer. . . .

“Even if I do a movie, I’ll still do videos, just because I like music--and because I like being able to tell a whole story in that amount of time. I’ve been doing it my whole career (on records). Two hours is a long time to sit. If you can tell a story in five minutes, tell the story in five minutes. You get to tell a whole lot more stories, too.”