Happy 30th Anniversary to Ice Cube’s Kill At Will EP, originally released December 18, 1990.

Even with all of the many ridiculous things that have happened in this most f**ked-up of years, few of us had Ice Cube working with Donald Trump on our 2020 bingo card. The less said about that situation the better, but in truth Ice Cube has never been too far away from controversy.

After separating from N.W.A—the infamous and legendary group he played the most high-profile role in—Ice Cube embarked on a remarkable solo career with a run of successful and acclaimed albums that started in 1990 with AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, and continued with Death Certificate (1991), The Predator (1992) and Lethal Injection (1993). Less talked about is Kill At Will, Ice Cube’s excellent 1990 EP that features a selection of remixes and new songs, including one of his absolute classics.

Ostensibly packaged as a new album, Kill At Will was really just released as a way of keeping up the momentum from the impact Ice Cube was making as a solo artist in 1990. Musically, it allowed for Ice Cube’s producer, Sir Jinx, to come into the spotlight. Sir Jinx is credited as co-producer on AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted and his influence can definitely be heard there, but it’s mostly revered as being the work of the famed Bomb Squad.

On Kill At Will, Sir Jinx gets to put his own spin on two songs from AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, remixing “Endangered Species (Tales From The Darkside)” and the elegantly named “Get Off My Dick And Tell Yo B***h to Come Here.” The remixes aren’t that different from the originals, albeit with more of a west coast flavor. Rap fans and critics at the time were surprised when Ice Cube, a product of the mean streets of South Central Los Angeles and one of the pioneers of west coast gangster rap, ventured to New York to record AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted with the Bomb Squad. It worked out great, but on Kill At Will, Sir Jinx gradually started to bring Ice Cube’s sound back towards the west. Sir Jinx remained as Ice Cube’s go-to producer for years after Kill At Will, working extensively on the rest of his early ‘90s classics.

“Jackin' For Beats” is one of the best songs in Ice Cube’s entire catalog. As the title suggests, Ice Cube, Sir Jinx and Chilly Chill plunder the instrumentals from classic songs by Public Enemy, EPMD, LL Cool J, Digital Underground, D-Nice, X Clan and more. Add to that the many tracks those songs sampled and you get an arrangement that uses more than 25 different sources. The trio ended up having to relinquish their entire publishing on this and some of the other songs on Kill At Will because of the heavy use of samples on “Jackin’ for Beats,” but legacy-wise it was all worth it.

Kill At Will ends with “I Gotta Say What Up!!!,” basically an extended shoutout on which Ice Cube roll calls a long list of his peers from both coasts and the south. Right at the end of the track, there’s a low-key jibe at N.W.A. If this was Ice Cube taking the moral high ground by not rising to the disses his old bands had recently thrown at him, he’d soon do a complete U-turn on 1991’s Death Certificate and its brutal N.W.A diss record, “No Vaseline.”

As mentioned earlier, Ice Cube is one of music’s most controversial figures and has been for more than thirty years. His reputation preceded him each time he recorded new music in the early ‘90s, and as such, the name Kill At Will ended up being censored to At Will on some versions of the EP. It was a ridiculous, over-the-top reaction from a record label acutely aware of the public outcry Ice Cube’s earlier music generated. Hilariously, while the name may have been censored, the label didn’t appear to have any issue with the artwork that has Ice Cube not only holding a gun, but also handing it to the person looking at it.

I’ve lost a lot of respect for Ice Cube in 2020, but the incendiary nature of his music has never been in doubt. Recent political controversies aside, one thing for certain is that his music back then always had the power to shock and ruffle feathers. But it was also very good, with intricate lyricism and expert delivery.

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