AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted is released

Why it matters

AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted came out May 16, 1990, on Priority Records. It is Ice Cube's solo debut after he walked out of NWA in late 1989 over a royalty dispute with Eazy-E and Jerry Heller. Cube went to New York to make the record. The Bomb Squad (Hank Shocklee, Eric Sadler, Keith Shocklee, Chuck D) produced. The combination is exactly as good as you would expect. Cube brings the Compton specificity, the bars, the political-personal anger you already knew he had from his NWA verses. The Bomb Squad brings the dense, sample-stacked production style that they had perfected on the last two PE albums. The result is one of the loudest, hardest, most politically locked-in rap albums of 1990. "AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted," "Endangered Species (Tales from the Darkside)" with Chuck D, "You Can't Fade Me," "It's a Man's World" with Yo-Yo. The album sold a million copies and proved that Cube was bigger than NWA, which mattered because the next phase of his career (Death Certificate the following year, then his pivot to films) depended on people knowing he was bigger than NWA. He was. The album is the receipt.