The musical reawakening of O'Shea Jackson has been one of the more welcome returns in recent hip-hop news. Celebrities with status like Ice Cube have little reason to return to the mic, considering the time required to maintain a highly successful career in film. And hip-hop seemed perfectly content to leave the rapper in the '90s section of the history books for his seminal work with N.W.A. and his early solo albums. However, Cube continues to buck expectations and pushes forth with his second independently financed and distributed album (his eighth solo joint overall). He has promoted the record as political in nature, highlighting the Moore-esque "Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It" video, but an astute entertainer such as Cube will likely provide a fair and balanced menu of bangers and nonsense.