Rapper Ice Cube blasted the US Democratic Party on Saturday, following their national convention, for supporting the “the same old” lines and asked what he described as the only question that matters: “What’s in it for the black community?”.
“So over the last four days, the Democratic national party held their convention. A lot of people getting up there, talking, everybody really eating it up. What I didn’t hear is what’s in it for us?”, said Ice Cube in a video he posted on his Twitter.
“What’s in it for the black community, besides the same old thing we’ve been getting from these parties? What’s in it for us? For real."
The Ride Along star has been urging those running for office to consider a “contract with black America", which he called "one of the most comprehensive reform documents that’s come about in a long time".
“The way it look[s], they don’t have a plan, everybody is talking about, ‘Get Trump out, get Trump out, get Trump out.’ If you vote, that’s going to happen on the first day, so now what?”, Mr Ice Cube added.
“Trump out, now what? What do we get in the first 100 days? That’s what we’re trying to figure out. What do we actually get?”
He said that the federal government pulled $3 trillion dollars of taxpayer money "out they a** and gave it to their friends" and "then there’s half — 42 percent — of black businesses closing — where’s our f***ing bailout?”.
"Where’s the bail out? Not the PPP loan that they didn’t give us, where’s the bail out? I don’t want to hear about deficit, I don’t want to hear about what our generations are going to have to pay, because if we don’t have shit, they ain’t gonna have shit anyway to pay nothing", he continued.
"The Democrats don’t seem like they got a plan, Republicans don’t seem like they got plan for us, so the hell you gonna vote for them? Make them earn that vote."
In July, the 51-year old rap artist published an op-ed in The Hill where he criticised the Democrats, accusing them of benefiting from white privilege and not offering "concrete solutions" to problems facing black Americans.
“Do we actually believe Biden and the Democrats will make real differences unless we make them commit to wholesale change?” he wrote.
“MLK himself doubted the political will of the White liberal. The objective is not handouts to assuage white guilt, nor do we want White’s equality diminished either."
Ice Cube is a long-standing Hollywood celeb with a 25-year career, starring in over 100 roles as an actor, writer, and producer. His rap tenure stretches back to the 80s with NWA.
He has an estimated net worth of over $100 million and founded a production company, Cube Vision, and the BIG3 basketball league.
Black Lives Matter demonstrations have been held across the country in response to claims of institutional racism in the United States, following the death of George Floyd at the hands of US law enforcement.