Trading On Styles #1

New column on the 'cake! Every so often, crustcake hiphop dilettante Scott Roc will stop by to offer his anecdotes on old jams, fresh beats, and dope rhymes in a feature we're calling "Trading On Styles."

by Scott Roc

Recently, we had one of those days here in New York City where spring, and by extension summer, felt like a real possibility. Something about the air quality, and the shining sun lead my thoughts to summer jams, and driving around listening to "It Was A Good Day" from The Predator by Ice Cube.

A couple of years ago I owned a beast of a car-- a 1963 Oldsmobile 98, the kind of car where you'd roll up to party with six friends and leave with ten. A classic that had been owned by members of several seminal Portland bands before I, and my very un-seminal band, got a hold of it.



The relationship between cars and rap has been theorized to explain the difference between east and west coast rap. On the east coast, the theory goes, no one in the city has a car, and there rap tapes were produced to be heard on headphones. Where the west coast has a car culture, rap was produced to be heard through car stereo systems. So the theory goes.

"It Was A Good Day," the single, turned 15 this month, and it's the perfect example of a song that plays well both in headphones and in a car. But it is in the car (and maybe I was influenced by the video which features Cube driving an Impala around LA) that the song shines.

Built around the laid back groove of The Isley Brothers' "Foosteps in the Dark," the track follows a day of playing basketball, shooting dice, seeing friends, fucking an old crush, smoking weed, and eating fast food at two in the morning that is seemingly at odds with the rest of Ice Cube's life only because there is a lack of violence or hassle from the police.

Post-riot LA must have been a fucked up place, and the rest of The Predator devotes a lot of time to examining that with tracks like "We Had to Tear This Muthafucka Up," and "When Will They Shoot?." Those tacks feel paranoid, angry. "It was A Good Day" is a buoyant track-- one that transcends all the darkness Cube explores on the rest of the album.

"I picked up the cash flow / then we played bones / and I'm yelling domino / plus nobody I now got killed in south central LA / Damn it was a good day." Later he raps "picked up a girl I'd been trying to fuck since the 12th grade / it's ironic I had the booze she had the chronic / the Lakers beat the Supersonics"; for a New Yorker that's like the Yankees beating the Red Sox. That may be my favorite line of the whole song, it sums up all the good things that can happen on a summer night that you want to stretch for ever.

The last verse is "drunk as hell / but no throwing up / half way home / and my pagers still blowing up / didn't even have to use my AK / I gotta say it was a good day." His lyrics are playful and kind of funny while still referencing the reality of South Central LA. It's a dark world, but you still gotta find the light and enjoy it while you have it.

For me there is no way to hear "It Was a Good Day" and not feel invincible and ready for anything fun that comes my way, problems can wait till tomorrow. My friend Dave and I would drive around Portland in my Olds' during the summer, checking out girls and looking for parties with "It Was a Good Day" on repeat, and it never got old. It always sounded better than anything else played through my car stereo.

Ice Cube - "It Was a Good Day":