Ice Cube - Death Certificate

One of the most creatively independent hip hop albums ever made

3D Lenticular jacket

Just about the only universal reaction Death Certificate generates is one of awe at the 360-degree ferocity Ice Cube maintains for its hour duration.

When rap exploded creatively and commercially in the late 1980s, Ice Cube was at the forefront of the expansion. As the lyrical brains behind N.W.A, the Los Angeles-based rapper instantly became a major player in the music game by leading a musical revolution with brutal, profane, politically-infused music that, for the first time in the genre's history, sold millions of albums with N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton. As a solo artist, Ice Cube became rap's premier act with the 1990 release of the searing platinum-selling masterpiece AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted and Death Certificate. While its predecessor was propelled by the full-bodied beats of Public Enemy production team The Bomb Squad, Death Certificate returned to the more West Coast sound of his famous former group with loads of 70's funk and soul samples yet his biting lyrics were no less indignant or controversial.

Divided into a "Death Side" and "Life Side," the relentless 20-track declaration pulled no punches, debuting at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Top R&B/Hip Hop Albums chart thanks to the two quintessential Ice Cube singles "Steady Mobbin'" and "True to the Game." Universal Music Enterprises' Respect The Classics line is reissuing this classic album back on vinyl with an amazing 3D lenticular cover, seemingly bringing the corpse laying on the coroner's table back to life as if jumping off the cover.