On May 16, Ice Cube took a trip down memory lane as he celebrated the 30th anniversary of his debut solo album, AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted.
While speaking about the song “A Gangsta’s Fairytale” on Instagram Live, Cube revealed that Mr. Rogers actually sued him for using the “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” theme song at the beginning of the track.
“I actually wrote this for Eazy-E, but y’all know what it is,” Cube said. “We wasn’t getting down at the time, so I had to take it myself…It’s a trip because off this song, Mr. Rogers sued us. He was mad cause we had the ‘Mr. Rogers’ theme at the beginning of this shit. It’s a wonderful day in the neighborhood and all that. The nigga sued us and was getting five cents a record until we took that part off.”
AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted was Cube’s first studio album after his split from N.W.A. The LP peaked at No. 19 on the Billboard 200 is still hailed as one of the greatest rap albums of all time.
This year also marks the 25th anniversary of his iconic film Friday. The movie, directed by F. Gary Gray, was originally released in theaters on April 26, 1995 and brought in $28.2 million at the box office.
The “It Was A Good Day” rapper posted a series of tweets acknowledging the film’s release. Each tweet featured different scenes from the movie with the words “Happy anniversary” written above it. Cube made sure to honor the late John Witherspoon and Bernie Mac in a few of his posts as well.
Friday was followed up with Next Friday and Friday After Next. The fourth Friday franchise installment was supposed to be released this year, but the untimely death of Witherspoon put a halt on production.
Watch Cube speak about getting sued by Mr. Rogers below.