Ice Cube made a strong argument for his infamous N.W.A diss track, “No Vaseline,” in a recent interview with DJ Whoo Kid. The song, which arrived on Cube’s 1991 solo album Death Certificate, begins with Cube spitting, “G###### I’m glad y’all set it off/Used to be hard now you’re just wet and soft/First you was down with the AK/And now I see you on a video with Michel’le?/Lookin’ like straight Bozos/I saw it comin’ that’s why I went solo.” And it only gets more vicious from there.
According to Ice Cube, “No Vaseline” is the best diss track off all time—and that means better than 2Pac’s “Hit ‘Em Up,” and Nas’ “Ether.” As Cube pointed out, “Come on, man. How’s 2Pac No. 1 when he needed help on that record? Me, ‘No Vaseline,’ one MC. I love Nas, but it’s not. One motherf###er, me, took out four n####s and a manager. I mean, damn. You gotta give me credit for that. The group was over. I don’t know if they made another record after that.”
Ice Cube explains why 'No Vaseline' is Better than Tupac's 'Hit Em Up' and Nas's 'Ether.'
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Ice Cube was a founding member of N.W.A. He—along with Dr. Dre, DJ Yella, MC Ren, Arabian Prince and Eazy-E—changed the rap landscape with 1988’s Straight Outta Compton. But internal issues between members led to a split, and Ice Cube went the solo route in 1990 with AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted.
The D.O.C. and Dr. Dre went on to form Death Row Records in 1992, while Eazy-E also went solo. In 1993, Eazy delivered a diss track of his own called “Real Muthaphuckkin G’s,” which set its sights on Dr. Dre and other members of N.W.A. Despite the rift, Ice Cube and Dr. Dre managed to patch things up with Eazy-E before his death.
While doing press for the 2015 film Straight Outta Compton, Dr. Dre and Ice Cube told The Hollywood Reporter they were close to reuniting—at least as a trio.
“I had met with [Eazy] a few months before he died, and we had talked about getting back together,” Cube said. “And at the time, our feud had died down, and him and Dre was still at odds, so I was like, ‘If you can get Dre to do it, I’m ready.’”
Dr. Dre added, “We would probably be working together right now. [We would probably be] arguing about the work, as we did back in the past. It’s like, every project, we had some little argument about what the project should be creatively, and I would say we would probably still be doing that, but at the same time getting the work done and probably doing something amazing.”