Death Certificate is released

Why it matters

Death Certificate came out October 29, 1991, on Priority. It is Ice Cube's second solo album and it is the most politically combustible of his early career. The album is structured in two halves ("the Death Side" and "the Life Side") with an interlude in the middle from a Nation of Islam minister. The first half describes the conditions Cube saw in South Central. The second half proposes responses. What made the album controversial in 1991 was the song "Black Korea," which is about the tension between Black customers and Korean shop owners in South Central liquor stores. The song was widely (and reasonably) read as a threat. Months later, the LA Riots broke out, the Korean storefronts on Western and Vermont burned, and a lot of commentators retroactively cited the song as a kind of forecast. Cube has never apologized for it. He has also, in interviews since, said he understood why it landed the way it landed. Death Certificate sold two million copies and made the long-running argument about Cube's politics impossible to ignore. You can listen to it as a record. You can listen to it as a forecast. People do both.