Ice Cube: Raw Footage

In spite of the title's promise, Ice Cube's new Raw

Footage contains

not a single audio outtake from Are We There Yet or The Longshots. Part-time MC Cube remains a pale shadow

of his former self: Where he once radiated danger, the best he can muster here

is the boyish bluster of "I Got My Locs On" (featuring Young Jeezy) and "Do Ya

Thing," where he boasts, "We get lap dances from nuns / They put away their

crucifix and say 'Ice Cube, you da shit.'" That goofball humor plays a lot

better than Cube's fuzzy stabs at political commentary, and the production is

as forgettable as the subject matter—though the introspective "Stand Tall"

smartly borrows the sad majesty of William DeVaughn's "Be Thankful For What You

Got." The amusingly misguided "Tomorrow" begins with a deliciously tardy attack

on downloading, at one point raising the terrifying prospect of song-stealers

getting their "ass beat by Erykah Badu." It's a blast from the past that only

underlines how irrelevant Cube has become. The rap legend's second

independently released solo album is a long way from AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, but the old man is still

good for a larf.