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Pacific Standard Time presents: Ice Cube on The Eames House
If you can believe it, before Ice Cube was ever 1/5 of the rap group N.W.A. whom by the way, singlehandedly ushered in the era of Gangsta Rap and put Los Angeles on the music map, before he ever became one of America’s most successful solo emcees, and long before he starred as ‘Doughboy’ from the movie Boyz in the Hood, Ice Cube was just a young buck studying architectural drafting in a trade school, perhaps only dreaming about changing the world with his talent.
The Eames House, since it’s build in 1949 by the distinguished husband-and-wife team Charles and Ray Eames, has stood as one of Los Angeles’ greatest architectural design accomplishments. While the aesthetics of the land around it has undergone redevelopment time and time again, the Eames House has been meticulously preserved to celebrate its innovative and avant-garde approach in structural design.
As part of a campaign to “celebrate an era that continues to inspire the world”, this video shows Ice Cube as he walks the Eames house and speaks openly about his appreciation for the resourcefulness of the home, with its pre-fabricated walls and “off-the-shelf” materials. He explains, “It’s not about the pieces, it’s how the pieces work together”, relating the Eames’ approach to that of music and the art of sampling. Rap music and architecture? I wonder if anyone has ever tried to connect the two forms of art before. But Ice Cube is attempting to, and though it’s a stretch, the end result is intriguing, and when he throw in descriptions of the Eames house as “Going green 1949 style, bitch! Believe that!”, it is just plain awesome. All of the sudden it makes perfect sense to bring these two icons together. Amongst the L.A. sprawl and its diverse landscapes, there still remains landmarks of a greatness that has been cultivated here. Ice Cube addresses the haters who can’t acknowledge the many things to love about this city, “Who are these people who got a problem with L.A.? Maybe they just mad they don’t live here.”
Cube, you ain’t never lied.
