Ice Cube Still Has Faith in Future of Rap

As with fellow screen and TV personalities Queen Latifah and Will Smith, it’s hard to remember when Ice Cube was solely a rap artist.

Since his star-making appearance in John Singleton’s “Boyz N the Hood” in 1991, Ice Cube has acted in three films and he has three more due this year--including his directorial debut in “The Players’ Club,” the story of a stripper trying to keep her head straight in a world of shady hustlers and prostitutes.

So, what about another solo album from the man who ranks with Chuck D. and the late Tupac Shakur as one of the most acclaimed figures ever in rap?

Though Cube has contributed to various albums, including Westside Connection’s hit “Bow Down” (he appears with the group tonight and Monday at Billboard Live), he hasn’t made a full album of his own since the platinum-selling “Lethal Injection” in 1993.

The rapper says his focus is still on films for the moment, but that a new album’s on the way--but not until next year when he releases a double album. “The first half . . . will be rough stuff [the gangsta rap tradition that he helped define with N.W.A.], but the second half will be some new, cutting-edge stuff to shock the world.”

About the changes in rap over the eight years since he arrived on the scene as the driving lyrical force behind the groundbreaking N.W.A., Cube says hard-core rap has been hurt by gross commercialism. But he still has faith in its future as an art form.

“Rap went from being a pure game where you could possibly make some money to being completely a money game,” he says. “But in my mind, it’s all about making the best music.

“The reason rap will stay real is that it will be recycled by the young, and when you have poor kids creating and innovating something, it’s gonna stay pure. The state of hip-hop doesn’t depend on what Ice Cube, the Notorious B.I.G. or Snoop Doggy Dogg does. It’s all those kids coming up who are gonna really keep it real.”