Ice Cube - Hood Mentality

After reading Denrick's essay this week, I was inspired to write about Hood Mentality by Ice Cube. This song goes way back but is still considered one of Ice Cube's best work.

In the song, Ice Cube analyzes the so-called "hood mentality" that most people go through when living in the lower income neighborhoods that he was familiar with growing up. He talks about how people in the hood are throwing their lives away going after cheap goals that would ultimately lead to jail or failure.

Since the song doesn't have a music video, I focused on the connection that the sound has to the overall message. It opens up with a very dark and grimacing tone of an old man saying "The hood is where I am from, but it is not who I am". The song then progresses into the actual beat, which is slow and upbeat and carries Ice Cube's dynamic flow perfectly. He sarcastically mocks the "hood" throughout the entire song, hoping to make the intended audience realize how foolish they really sound. The very first lyrics are "Fuck school, Imma' be a dope dealer", which powerfully introduces how Ice Cube would handle the topic through his song. The chorus of the sound really sends the message though as Ice Cube repeats, "If you don't wanna shake that hood mentality, how are we supposed to change our reality?" By the end of the video, Ice Cube obliterates the "hood mentality" through his style, and hopefully inspired many people to not make the same mistakes he is talking about in the song.