Ice Cube’s chill

Regarding Ann Powers’ review of Ice Cube’s latest blight on our culture [“Singin’ Like a Soprano,” June 5]. Why is it that rap singers like Ice Cube get a pass on being so hatefully racist? I purchased a couple of his CDs 10 or so years ago. There’s no denying his beats are powerful (especially on “The Predator”). But the lyrics started to get to me. The entire song “Cave Bitch” from “Lethal Injection” is an open letter to white women suggesting they not try to “get with him.” That white women, in fact, are inferior, disgusting whores with flat rear ends. And that’s just one of many other poisonous tunes.

Powers seems to imply, by comparisons to Tony Soprano (albeit Ice Cube was the first to suggest his “work” paved the way for that show), that this is all harmless theater. I’m not so sure. I’m not so sure that his empty promise of hate and racism hasn’t had a negative effect on a generation of black kids who revere him.

Last of all, what is with that ridiculous permanent sneer? Yeah, we get it, Ice Cube, you’re hard as hell.

BOB RICE

Redondo Beach