Baller Alert’s Today in Hip-Hop: Ice Cube Released Second Album ‘Death Certificate’

26 years ago today, rapper Ice Cube released his second album ‘Death Certificate’.

Throughout his career, Ice Cube has continued to be a voice for the people of his community. So it’s no surprise that ‘Death Certificate’ was an unfiltered body of work that openly spoke about racial and political matters.
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From racial profiling to drug dealing to the right to keep and bear arms, ‘Death Certificate’ was an album that was bound to shake things up. So much so, that in 1992, the state of Oregon declared that any display of Ice Cube’s image in retail stores was illegal. The ban also included Cube’s advertisements for St. Ides Malt Liquor, which was one of his endorsements at the time.
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Even in other countries like the United Kingdom, people worried about how the controversial album would affect citizens. They even went so far as to remove the tracks “Black Korea” and “No Vaseline” from the original U.K. release.
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The removal of the tracks was done by Island Records, the distributor of the original version of the album, with the consent of Priority Records, but not with Ice Cube’s permission.
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‘Death Certificate’ was also the album that brought us arguably one of the greatest diss tracks of all time, “No Vaseline”.
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The album debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 and number one on the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts. Less than two months after the release, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sales of over a million copies.