O'Shea Jackson Sr., known professionally as Ice Cube, is an American rapper, writer and actor. One of the founding artists of gangsta rap, Ice Cube initially gained recognition as the primary songwriting and performing member of the seminal hip-hop groups C.I.A. and N.W.A, the latter of which gained extreme notoriety for pushing the boundaries of lyrical content in mainstream popular music, as well as visual imagery in music videos.
