Ice Cube

Yo, what's up, my name is Ice Cube and I feel like I'm about to throw up in my mouth about my homie coming You can't even say my name, you're so disgusting I thought you feel about being his friend, wow, that's incredible Here they are, back to school, ring the bell, brand new shoes, walking loose, climb the fence, books and pens, I can tell whether we are going to be friends I can tell whether we are going to be friends Hey there and welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend I'm blessed with two good friends, but they're not with us now Instead we have Sonoma Sessian and Matt Gorillac makes me feel more comfortable Yeah, how are you guys, everyone good? I'm doing all right, how are you doing? I'm doing okay, I'm doing pretty good Yeah, you ever wear contacts, Sonoma? I've been wearing contacts since I was like 12 I started trying it recently Yeah, we know Just out of convenience and I'm doing it more and more now Yeah, and I don't know, what was your experience with them? You were struggling at first I really struggled because I was fine, I was fine I'm Iphobic, I don't like things getting near my eye And then suddenly the people would say, "Oh, it's easy, just jam this onto your eyeball" This reminds me, we were going to do a whole thing where you brought your contacts in and tried to get you to put them in Remember we talked about this and we were going to do a follow-up Now I've gotten good, so it wouldn't even be a good segment anymore Now they come in, they go out I put them on, what's weird is the one on the right, my right eye is for reading And the left is for slight correction on the distance Is that how you read like this? I know, they told me, "Oh, you get used to it" Wow Is that what people do? Or am I being sold a bag of hands? I don't know I think they had two left-over contact lines at the time But you're saying I got scammed I think they did go I did notice when I left, everyone was laughing Yeah, one of them was a colored contact line Yeah, can I tell you, if I did see you come into my office I would say anything just to upsell you So like, I feel like sometimes And I did a lot of bits that day You did, I was there I mean, I don't know, we talked about this But I went in hot, I was doing so many bits for everybody in the waiting room I was killing Yeah And to the point where I just kept wanting to go back out to the waiting room I know And they were saying we need to keep, we've just put something in your eye Some to dilate it, you've got to settle down And I'm like, no, no, I didn't get that lady in the corner She's tough, but I'll get her It was insanity Yeah, well, I think that what I'm saying is like they maybe they did that to you And they don't normally so that both eyes get worse So you have to keep going back to the eye doctor's office And they know you're like needy And you need to get that woman in the corner So you keep going back and then they keep upselling you Yeah, she's telling me Yeah, they were telling me Oh, so this is interesting This is what businesses could start doing Putting a plant in whose job is not to laugh at anything they do Notice the bookshelves were lined with Robert Carrow books too Yeah, no, have someone who doesn't laugh And I'll just keep coming back to your tire store And buying more winter tires in Los Angeles You know Tractor tires Yeah, tractor tires every kind of tire And that's the trick to get me to come in They want me to come to their restaurant Just hire one waiter who just never gives it up And I'll go back every night Yeah, hey, look at this impression You know And one of the chicken crossed the road Yeah, I would totally upsell you all the time You're also very trusting I feel like you just believe people Okay, do you think that that's I'm asking the general community of ophthalmologists I have one contact on my right eye Which is a completely different strength magnification than the one on the left Is that crazy And I keep crashing my car now Well both eyes are never not never But they're not usually the same But it's weird that one is for reading and one is not They made the case that your eye just your brain figures it out And then you start is I thought you're nodding What do you know about this? You want to hear something really hilarious My ophthalmologist just called me as you guys were having this conversation But anyhow Let's ask the question I almost answered so that you could ask the ophthalmologist But anyhow, no, it's completely normal Your brain tricks your eyes into settling In your case Adjusting to one thing So this will adjust Yes, I mean I think it already kind of has Did you ever have a progressive or bifocal? Because you get used to that Yeah, I did I got used to that Okay, so I just wanted to put it out there Sometimes I like to use the podcast Just discuss my medical malities And see if I can get free advice Yeah, yeah, yeah, someone will call in and go No, actually, you know, that's a pretty wise course of action Or else no, you've been played for a fool Yeah, yeah, we should tell you Oh, they always, okay, they always play Yeah, yeah, but I would lie Just to make you keep coming back Like if I was your dentist, I'd be like you need braces And then I would sell you braces I would like just to see me end of giant head deer Yeah, yeah, yeah I'm like, hold on, hold on, hold on, I'm fine And a neck brace in the head I don't have a date for the prom Put your hands up here like this I mean, my early sixties and I don't have a right for the prom What about Well, this is this is really fascinating The other thing I thought I could do is get a monocle Oh, God, for really Can you imagine if I had a monocle because one of the things When I got glasses, I was so happy Because you can do bits with them If I had a monocle And it had one of those like strings on it Yeah, and you know, like Colonel Klington I just had a monocle in this eye for reading But then if anyone said anything slightly shocking I could drop out Which is, you know Just for the bit you want it, you're saying I want it for the bit Yeah, more and more If I thought there were a lot of good bits To like a prosthetic foot I would have my foot taken Oh my God, Conan Well, if I said I'd really start with a monocle Yes, start with a monocle There are a lot of bits to I just say be so, oh my God, I don't have a like to stand on it Pull my foot off And then that, you know Even those people that were hired not to laugh at me They're so laugh Oh my God Let me put my foot down Let me put my foot down What else is there? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm going to do some soul searching Found it I mean, these are good bit of heal Yeah, whatever, you know, look at this You're liking it, the podcast would I mean, how many times it would come a It would it would help the podcast My grandpa had one leg What's that? He did Did it, my yeah, my kid did that No, no, no, not that did it My dad, my dad does, you have I have two, I have two dead days I don't know when you're a crazy culture What you got, maybe you got seven Most people, everybody has two like grandpa's I had two dead days, I had two grandpa's Well, I had two dead days So one of the dead days Hasn't one dead day, and you know like data Or something No, one is one, they're both dead days But one of the dead days didn't live that long So he did the dead dead dead dead dead dead That is dead I had a keyboard dead dead Which was my dad's dead dead I mean, my dad's dead And then I had a ton of dead dead Who is my mom's dad Okay No, fuck you Fuck you, you wish you had a dead dead Hey, my grandpa had one leg too He also had the other one Okay, nice Nice You know what, this might be the best intro ever But Sona, he had one leg, why did he have one leg? Because he had diabetes No, that's not fun And he had a wooden leg If they fall asleep on a train track, that's a better story That's better than diabetes Yeah, diabetes is just like, oh, that's no fun But the train track is gruesome But it's a better story Oh, yeah, you're right And for now, I'm just saying, well, he was a hobo for a while And he fell asleep on the train track But just one leg Oh, his blood sugar was a lot of alignment That's not good Yeah, but he had one of the wooden ones Like, what? Yeah, yeah, like a wooden leg Now it's, they're cool You're gonna buy him a parrot It's just be a fun thing to do No, I didn't buy dead-ed a parake Okay, so And I had a wooden leg He had a wooden leg He had a wooden leg Did it bend in the middle? No, it was that his new leg was cut at the knee And then he would sometimes take it off To show us his stuff It was made of wood What was this like 1911? There was the '80s Dead-ed was alive in the '80s I know, they had better stuff than wood then No, they didn't Did they? Yeah, they did Yeah, but he's not gonna be on blades Like, you know, like, you know Like the, like, the paralelbeans The great if your dead-ed had been on a blade And his So one leg Walked it about two miles an hour And the other leg Went 65 miles an hour So all he did was go in All he did was go in circles really fast But a roller blade Oh my god Yeah, no I swear to god, there's an opening to the podcast here Somewhere But anyway Yeah, can you imagine If I had one blade on my And then I had a different contact And one eye No, monocle And headgear And headgear Here we go, we wrapped it all up That was nicely done Here he comes, going, going, going, going, going I can't see where I am And I can't see where I was My guest today Settle down My guest today is a founding member of the legendary rap group NWA And it's appeared It's so, there's no way I can't believe this is the intro And it's appeared It's the legendary rap group NWA And it's appeared in such a piece It's poisonous He also founded the three on three basketball league. This sounds cool. Big three, which is currently in its ninth season and can be streamed on Paramount Plus and Fubo. Very excited to chat with him today. I always love my time with this gentleman. Ice Cube, welcome. A bunch of years ago, we shot this goofy remote. We didn't think anyone was going to happen. You, me, Kevin Hart. I can't go anywhere in the world without people coming up to me and talking about us with the lift driver and then we shot another one with a student driver where we ended up downtown buying weed. Yeah. And the good old days. The good old days. I think just one of those has like 120 million views. I go anywhere and what's funny is people think that I do that with you all the time. People were like, how's Cube? And I said, well, yesterday I was driving around. That was like this. We did it twice. It was really fun. And I had known you because you came on the show a lot. We always had great chemistry, but we did that thing. It blew up. I think half of it is you and Kevin just making fun of me. Which was, people seem to enjoy that. It was, it was totally improv, which was so cool. When I heard, I said, we're doing Coleman on a Saturday house. You know, he's like, man, we're going to do a skit. Or what's the skit? We're just looking for pages. No, no pages. You guys are going to just, since you're doing a movie called Ride Along, you guys are just going to pull, you know, call a lift. You know, when it came up. And it wasn't set up. The guy didn't know it was going to be as we call the lift. Call a lift. They rushed a guy. You know, I think they gave him, you know, $120. Yeah, put all these cameras in his car. Yeah. And we jumped in and had fun. I was like, I said, Coleman is being cheap. Man, we don't have no script. We just, we just, what if we're just going to do some shit? Okay. So, so it was, it was funny because it was so real, so very real. And, and you know, you can't, you can't script stuff like that. I mean, to say you wanted to put me out on the street as a male prostitute. You kept saying, let's turn him out. We'll make some good money. Good money? Well, they'd make money. Money? Well, they might get it like a chicken as barter. They might get sick of trade something. Have you seen the holes on Santa Monica? He would have made some money. They might get money. Oh, man. No, just great chemistry. And we've done a bunch of things over the years. I love you worst shit. Uh-oh. That's your agent saying I tried to cancel the Conan thing. I tried to get you out. I know you said no. It's too late. I'm already here. All right. I just want to get out of here. You fired. You know what? It's so funny to me because it's, it's fascinating to me that clearly people that are funny were always funny. So you play comedy so well, you must have always been funny. And it's funny because when you, it's interesting because when you first showed up on the scene with NWA straight out of Compton, you show up, you didn't have to be funny at all. You were a great writer, great rapper. You're part of this revolutionary group. But pretty soon afterwards, you must start realizing I can do comedy. Yeah. Well, you know, people always talk about the easy E record that started it all boys in the hood. But on the flip side of that, it was a song called, uh, I got a fat girl on my job. Yeah. It was just a rap about him running from a fat girl in the neighborhood. Right. And it was funny. Yeah. People laughed. So we knew our message was hard. But we also wanted to figure out ways to sprinkle some comedy in it. You know, NWA was real hard, but actually the easy E record, full of, you know, kind of comedy. You know, little one-liners, you know, and we knew we wanted to be hard, but entertaining at the same time. It's interesting because rap has always had skits, but little sketches. And there was, and even in the hardest lyrics, there's really funny, there's funny, you know, insults. Yeah, dark humor, really dark humor. I can't get a man. Jesus. He's trying to get his job back. He's got that. He's got that. He's got that. He's got that. He's got that. He's got that. You've got nine phones. But yeah. So because your first movie, Boys in the Hood, not a comedy role, but there's comedy in there. And you're so great at Deadpan, you've got such a good thousand yard stare, but there's funny moments in Boys in the Hood. Even though it's a very dark, sad story, there's also lightness in there. And you could say, I think that's what really makes it feel even more authentic. Because even in the worst situations, there's always comedy. Without a doubt, you know, we laughed a lot, you know, all my friends. Everybody I kind of gravitate to is funny. You know, so I had friends that was hilarious. And, you know, them making me laugh all the time, me making them laugh. And that was just kind of the. Now guess what? Now my brother, Neil, is calling me. Oh my God. Neil. Neil. I'm on the podcast right now. I'm talking to Ice Cube. So I'm going to jump off. But do you want to say hello to Ice Cube? Ice Cube, how are you? That's Neil, my brother Neil. I don't want to hear it, man. Bring the money or you're not going to get it back. I'll talk to you later, Neil. Hey, I've got my do not disturb, but I don't even know how that came in. I honestly do. I don't know how. Oh, yeah, you're right. You do. I do. So anyway, go ahead. So comedy was always. This is such a f***** up. Wait, I'm getting a call from my daughter. You guys can talk to her as well. Alright, so go ahead. So comedy is always part of. It's always part of growing up. I don't remember not laughing, even through any situations that was going down in the hood. That's why we wrote Friday. Because we saw movies like Colors and South Central and Menace to Society and even boys in the hood. And we was like, "Damn, they think we grew up in this crazy war zone." But we had a little more fun growing up. You know, I'm looking around them off guys. Then we have fun. You play football on the street. Yeah. You know, play stick ball basketball. You know, just tag and water balloon fights and all kind of stuff. So I'm like, "Man, we need to do a movie that really has more the tone on how we grew up." And that's how Friday came about. We wanted to be the anti-depressing LA hood movie, so to speak. Right. Just shootouts every five seconds and darkness and bleakness. I mean, yeah, that's movies. You know, there's unpredictability in the hood, which you don't know what day is going to be a good day. Or it's going to be a day where something happened. You just never know walking out in the street. So that's what made it kind of volatile, unpredictable. I read that, I was reading some interview with you and you said that you started writing rap lyrics because you were taking a typewriting class and the other kids. Way back in the 1900s. They got me thinking, are all great rappers? Do they start in typewriting class? I mean, he talked to any of them, Jay-Z. But they were like, "Yo, I was typing." You know, I don't think so. But I actually became a pretty good scriptwriter, and so maybe that's why I was in typewriting class. So this is through school? I never knew I was going to use typewriting. No, no, no. It's so funny because I remember being in high school, and this dates all of us. But I had to take a typewriting class with old typewriters. And manual. Yeah. Dear Mr. Johnson, I wish to inquire. They would give you these assignments to write these things because no one knew that these things are going to be in a landfill in five years. But you clearly tapped into something because these kids dare you start writing, which is an outlet for you. And your parents were supportive, right? Very supportive. You started off in school, you know. It was real young, like a fifth grade. I could draw real good. So I got my teacher's attention. And then when it was time to kind of write what you did for the summer, I was able to really write a nice paragraph for a fifth grader. So they ended up putting that in the school paper. So as a youngster, I'm running around with this little, it wasn't even a paper, it was like a pamphlet. you know, point and look, look, look, my, my little, you know, essay or whatever you got, got used, and you got positive, you know, affirmation, you, you, you, you did something and it was singled out, which is here when you're that it is, and then they came to me when I went to the sixth grade, there was like, do you want to do a speech for the class, like, do you want to talk to your graduate in class? And I'm like, yeah, I do. And I wrote my little speech and, and delivered it and it got a, you know, a nice, a reception. So I'm like, oh, damn, I can write it and I can speak it, you know, it's not just stuck on the page. And, and that I think sparked something and, you know, when hip hop started to grow, the typing thing came in the ninth grade when I was 14. I was late to all my counselors and shit, you know, they, you supposed to get your electives. Go to counselor, get your electives, go to counselor, get your electives. I never went. So when I got there, I had shitty electives. It was like typing, cooking, you know, you know, Horticulture and shit, you know, I'm like, oh, damn, I'm like, I want to go to wood. I want to do metal. I want to do electives. You wrote so many songs about Horticulture. Three albums on Horticulture. It's probably why I like weed so much. But I learned how to grow it in ninth grade. So, you know, I had some shitty electives, but I had to do them. So I'm like, I'm always like, if I'm here, we might as well win. Like I'm not going to be here and not paying attention. I'm going to get it and I'm going to try to master it. And, you know, you do those little, you know, they put a shit on the board and you got to type it up, but they want you to do 30 words a minute or they want you to like beat a minute thing. So me and my guy, we, we like, we should be fucking secretaries. You know, we said it's kind of fun. You know, we like, you know, boom, boom, boom. And, you know, we hitting it. We like, boom. And he's the same as me. You know, he didn't go to the council's either. So he got shitty electives too. So we like, you know, the only two dudes in this class like us. So, we're like, you know, and we beat the whole class. Like, you know, and we're just talking everybody's still typing. And he looks at me and it's like, you ever wrote a rap before? Like, uh, no, you write one, I write one. We'll see which one's best. Okay. And I wrote an original rap. He bit all kind of raps. I'm like, I heard that from LL. That's the line from the fat boys. That's from Curtis. Like, dude, you she. And he couldn't rap it. So mine was way better. You know, but a hell of a type of stuff. Yeah. He's a hell of a type of now. But, but he couldn't write it. I mean, he couldn't rap it. So I beat him. You know, outside of class, we've wrapped him in our little piece of paper shit. I mean, I know that line. You know, and he stopped. I kept going, of course. Yeah. You know, it's crazy is I've heard you talk about your inspirations and you said, you know, like me, you're a sponge picking up stuff that's going on in the 70s. And back then, the biggest start in the world was Muhammad Ali. And I've thought about this many times because I obsessed with Muhammad Ali. I've watched tons of the footage on him. He does feel like the first rapper in some ways because he loved poetry. And he had attitude and he could back it up. And there you go. Yeah. And you're and you're and so you're tuning into people like Muhammad Ali or Richard prior, they didn't necessarily not necessarily other rappers, but people that displayed an attitude and a defiance. Change round too. Yeah. Yeah. You know, they were like the first real life superheroes in a way. The reason why Muhammad Ali to me, like you said, becomes the first rapper because he. It wasn't just rapping in a way. He was like, I'm a kick your ass and six rounds and the six round your ass is kicked. So it was like putting his money where his mouth is backing it up. And so that made everything stick even more. And then. And then you got this like super fly kind of culture of of just, you know, grown man doing a lot of shit talking, you know, and so rapping really is shit talking to a beat, you know, you just. You know, kind of shooting a shit talking shit to a beat and then you sprinkle a little game in there at the same time. Yeah. And it's and it's the same thing, which is you got to back it up. Yeah. And but it's just amazing to me that even like early Eddie Murphy, there's a guy who's he's comedian, but he's got that I'm going to take over the world. Attitude and he's doing it. Yeah, you know, he was bad boy too. Yeah, and you can sort of channel all of that, which is fascinating to me. And I mean, you couldn't have been prepared for what happened. When you guys got together 1989 straight at Compton and it just changed everything overnight. Yeah, we was planning to be just a underground hardcore underground group locals really Compton Long Beach Watts LA. We thought that was probably, you know, probably the or nucleus and everything, you know, what's going to be done too far from those places. That's that was our mindset, because we felt like the music we're doing is too hard to much profanity and it's to LA, you know, street culture. Yeah. So why would someone talk about this? Yeah, it's getting more nitchy and nitchy to, you know, we feel like we're going to be some neighborhood stars though. Like we're going to run Compton what's going to long be like we're running this, but far as being biggest run DMC or biggest, you know, LL and, you know, all those super groups that we looked up to, we had no idea we would ever sniff that kind of a fame. Yeah, and it happened fast overnight, you know, it was like an article in the LA Times by Bob Hillburn. And it just took off from there like everybody was on us and we had some singles album when we put that album together, it just exploded. Then on the record, Brian Turner, the priority records causes you got to get up here. You got to get up here. So, so, so, so, you want us up there? We call it there. He's like, man, did you see this shit? Do you see this? He's showing us a letter from the FBI like, man, I just got this man and, man, you know, well, just crazy. What are we going to do? You know, an easy was like, you see it. This all they do. They not coming. No, battle ram. No, like an LAPD, you know, fucking, you know, you look at it and go, it's well typed. It's scary. That's that Corona. Yeah, yeah. So, I was, we was like, what the fuck is he so upset about? And he's like, man, this the fucking FBI. We so naive. Yeah. Okay, man. And then he's like, so I like publicity to meet, man, we should tell everybody trying to intimidate us. And I'm like, okay, you know, long as it's not the LAPD or the shares, I'm down to do whatever, because those are the ones that really, you know, did a number on our neighborhoods. So we was young, you know, 17, 18 years old, not even thinking that this is a real issue here. That's interesting that easy ease of fascinating guy that in that moment, he could see. Yeah, this isn't a bad thing. This is a good thing. That was that's why he's brilliant because he said the music was going to be big. We said it's going to be underground. And he was like, no, we like, yeah, nobody's playing this radio. He's like, he's like, well, we're going to do radio versions, making play it. Take out the custom. Yeah. Okay, smart. At some point, it's easy, you have something here, you know, add some acoustic guitars, a tambourine, see if Michael Bolton's available. Yeah, let's clean it up. I mean, and that, that, I mean, I really love the movie. Of course, your son was in straight out of Compton. It's just a great, it's a really good movie. Did you feel that was a pretty accurate representation, because when you guys hit, you go on this tour. Yeah. And the tour just looked like the fall of Rome. It's just, it's insanity. Yeah. It was damn near that. Yeah, you know what a movie. And you're that age. Yeah. You're that age. And you guys are on this tour and having the time of our life. You know, with all the chaos, we were still like, we're on the same thing. stages, run, DMC, LL. We actually are on a national tour, never thought it would happen. So everything after that was gravy, part of the adventure. Yeah, it was a, it was a, it was a crazy time. I forget the exact question you asked about. Well, just about Stroud Compton. Yeah. Now, you know, you're trying to sum up 10 years and two and a half hours. Yeah. So you have to create summaries of what happens. Yes. Yes. And you're actually making a movie. So you have to have character arcs and you have to have, you know, conflict sometimes to be summarized in a very simple way. Yeah. And we tried to make a universal movie because I can be not a fan of, you know, a bitch is a bitch or fuck the police. You know, why should you see a NWA movie? And so we was like, okay, let's make a movie about brotherhood, let's make a movie about, you know, a rags to riches, break up to make up, David VS. Goliath, you know, all these universal themes wrapped into our story, you know, and that way we was able to get the public to really fall in love with the characters and care for them. Yeah. You know, even though the characters are actually us. Yeah. Yeah. But you're doing, I mean, given all those constraints, I mean, I love the movie. Thank you. And we're proud of it. And I thought your son killed it. Oh, yeah, he's amazing. With a movie like that, there's a thousand ways to get it wrong and only a few ways to get it right. Yeah. You know, and my son, I went to him early in the process. And I'm like, Hey, man, this NWA movie look like it's going to happen. I mean, go for you, man, I'm happy for you. You know, he's playing this game. And he talked to you for real. So I want you to play me. You look back. He said, okay. He's like, all right. I got it. I'm like, wait a minute, man. You know, it's a process. We got to can't give it to you. You know, I mean, you got to like be on my type there. Yeah. And like audition. And, yeah, you know, like the powers that be a universal have to, so it's a great. I'm hearing video game noises while you're telling them all this. You know, like, you know, I got you. I'm a gas. Okay. So I'm like, I said, I already opened my mouth. I already opened my mouth. So I got to make him quit. Yeah. I got to make myself. I don't want to do this. You know, so now I'm like, give me an act in coach. I want one in LA. Find one in New York. I'm going to send him everywhere to get better at this and see if he really wanted or he's going to just, at some point, I don't want to go to New York. You know, so he met with a couple of coaches and met with the one in LA. And I said, so how's it going? You know, he's like, it's going good. He's like, man, me and my group going to get together. We're going to do some improv stuff. Okay. He's falling in love with it. You know, he's like taking his serious. I'm like, well, I want you, you know, I want you going with this other person in New York. It's like, when you want me to go? I'm ready. I'm like, okay, let's do this. And I was happy that he just got bit by the bug. And he just started to, you know, kind of fall in love with the process. And then I had to convince Gary, great. You know, when I told him, I said, I want my son to play me. He was like, man, damn, cute. I thought he was making a real movie. I said, look, we are making a real movie, man. I said, he's going to be great. Now, you're going to help him through this process, like John Singleton helped me with boys in the hood. You going to help him? And he's going to be great. And he was like, man, so he was looking at me sideways till the auditions. So now the auditions are here. And my son got to go, I'm not there. I'd send him. He got to do a screen test. I'm like, I don't want to have no influence on nothing. Either you good enough or not. And he gets there and there's four other ice cubes ready to audition. So now he's pissed. It's like, y'all trying to take this out of my mouth. So he really turns the ice cube and gets the part. Gary calls me. Yeah, he was the best one. You know, he's good. You know, and they, oh, I told you, like I told you, man, you know, and now he's, I mean, he's doing Star Wars. He's doing Godzilla. I can't get those damn movies. He's doing it. He's doing it. He's doing it. He's doing it. Hey, great. If you also audition to play Ice Cube, but he beat you. Yeah, he beat me. Turn me down. So now he's more ice cubey than you. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, that's, you know, it's crazy is, what's thinking about it. It's not that you dabbled in acting. You've had a great acting career that wrapped the music, which was a phenomenal success. You could have just lived off of that the rest of your life and then thought of as one of the great legends of this art form. And then you look at, yeah, it's boys in the hood, barbershop, the whole franchise, the whole Friday's franchise. Yeah, right. No, the right along movies, but also, I mean, the comedy you do with in 21 Jump Street, you know, yeah, yeah, which I always loved because I just, I just, I, I years ago said someone's got a comment on, uh, police captains, surgeons that are always mad at no matter what happens. You know, you two are my last nerve. And you were the perfect guy to play that police, you know, surgeon. I said, I want to be the craziest one. Yeah. I don't want nobody to beat me out as the craziest captain ever. The black man, uh, captain, you know, who's always beating on the desk. I love those, I mean, I, because I in the 70s, I watched all those movies and they obviously went into the 80s too, but just that same thing that you were having fun with in such a great way. But, you know, the cops would always do something amazing. Like they'd break up the ring, they'd save the day, they'd defuse the bomb. It was going to blow up Los Angeles. They'd do all this stuff and then cut to the captain going, you idiot. You tempted the Buick Skylark. It was community property. You know, it's the same thing in Top Gun. Actually, the new, the new Top Gun movie that Tom Cruise made is John Ham, but I asked John him about this. Like Tom Cruise is just saving the world left and right and John Ham is always saying, you listen to me, you piece of shit. If you ever saved the world again without our permission, love it. Just love it. But you have, I mean, it's, you are so good at being mad in a comedy way. Yeah, you know, it's, you know, I want to thank John Singleton again because, you know, a lot of those that, you know, I kind of decided to just take the bull by the horns and produce some man, you know, right or, you know, direct or, you know, just kind of get behind the scenes because when I was doing boys in the hood, I would, I would meet with John a lot. You know, he would have me come over watching movies. He put you to film school, you know, he's like clockwork orange, you know, this is very, oh damn. So I got to show you what's a good movie and what's a bad movie and why. And one day he looked at me, he said, when you're going to write a movie, I'm like, John, damn, man, come on, man, like, I'm just not trying to act. Yeah. I just got here. I'm like, you know, I'm still not sure I can act. And he said, you think you're going to get movies good boys in the hood for you? Like, uh, bruh, I don't know. He said, no, you said they have no movies for your cube. You don't have to write John. And I'm like, okay. And then when I end up falling in love with the process of making a movie and, and then, you know, going to his film school, so to speak, I started writing and he, he helped me, you know, my first two scripts was terrible. And my third one was Friday. That's crazy. And then there's just so many moments from that lines that are just part of the culture. Yeah. That's great. Which is, I mean, you think about all the different ways without getting a swelled head that you've been part of kind of like the history of the culture. Now, I mean, not being a comedian and having a comedy that's, you know, considered a classic and, you know, making, you know, my favorite comedians laugh. What is like the biggest kick I get out of is, you know, having, you know, a person like Eddie Murphy or, you know, Dave Shapale or somebody would be like, yeah, love that Friday movie. You know, it's just funny. And I'm like, damn, as much as y'all made me laugh and I get to make you laugh a little bit, you know, it's very cool as a a fan of comedy and comedians. - I was thinking about that today. Like, yeah, the whole movie aspect of your career wasn't really the plan and it's been massive. - Yeah, I fell in love with the process of just creating on that. I'm like, man, there's no bigger canvas for artists than a movie screen and a movie, two hours of whatever story you need to tell. And I'm like, just the place I want to be. 'Cause like you said, the music, the artists' skits, we did love, you know, trying to make it sound real. You know, just using audio, you know, we had, they had these little sound effects CDs. You know, you could buy 250 of them and it's the same screen that you hear, it's the same car horns. It's the same, you city sounds, you know. And you were trying to use them and blend them and EQ 'em to where, you know, the environment that we're in, we're trying to bring it sonically. So to be able to do that like visually sonically effects, you know, the whole shabang on a screen, I'm like, man, I'm there. - I go to outside land with my daughter and I see Dochi perform and she's killing it, but halfway through they cut to this screen and it's a sketch and it's like a take off on like a sitcom but it's insane and it ends with one of the characters being thrown out the door and it's a dummy. It's one of the funniest things I've ever seen and then she goes back to being this insanely amazing rapper dancer and I thought this is, it's everything. It's great dancing, great, incredible intricate rap and then one of the funniest sketches hands down. I've seen anyone do anywhere and then she's back into it again and it's just, yeah, it's all of it. It's the humor, it's the darkness, it's everything. - Yeah, and I think and honesty. - Yeah, yeah. - And I think that's important too. When people know you're coming from a real place, they wanna see how you package it and present it. You know, they don't want you to always stay in the lines. They want you to go outside to the lines a little bit. Don't be so safe. - You've got all these different passions. You've always been passionate about basketball, huge fan and then a bunch of years ago you started this three on three idea which is starts out small just like anything else. You started out but you've been working on it since like 2017. - Yes. - I think. And now you've got this thing, big three. It's a three on three basketball league. It's streaming. Where's it streaming? Is it paramount? - Right now we on CBS, Paramount Plus. I think it's on Fubo. - Yeah. And explain how it's three on three and who's participating? - We just professionalized three on three. You see five on five everywhere and we're like, man, I had more fun playing three on three growing up. Like, why is it in the parking lot? Like Mountain Dew and Nike used to do these weekend warrior tournaments on three and we're like, where's the pros? And like, it's a void in the market. Because after the finals in with the NBA, if you're not into those summer sports, you're waiting for the NFL. So there's three months of, you want to kill yourself. You know what I mean? - I wouldn't go that far. - It's true, I don't know what to do with those three months. - After 40 years of that, I just, I couldn't take no more, you know what I'm like. - So this is, I mean, this is way fans can be watching and who's playing three on three. - Is it some players that used to play in the NBA, former NBA players, some of these players play in other countries all around the world. And it's just the best of the best at this format. You know, a lot of guys that's in the NBA wouldn't be great at this format because some of those guys are specialists. - Yeah. - Three-point guy, you know, defensive guy or whatever. You have to be all around player for three, but past dribble shoot defend at a high level. Are you going to get exposed? So we're kind of developing our own athletes that can play basketball on this level. And if you look at what we're doing compared to the Olympics this night day, the Olympics feels very amateurish, well, it is amateur sports, but ours, you know, feel more like the NBA, more like a pro experience. - You guys have a four-point shot? - Four-point. - How do you get a four-point? - We got three four-point circles. So, you know, one of them's in the middle and two on the side. And if you just have a fingernail touching one of the circles, it counts. So, but if you shoot that far and not touch the circle, it's just a three-point. - So how do you get the four-point? - You got to be standing on the four-point. - Oh, you get a four-point. Okay, so. - You got to shoot from those areas. - Okay. Yeah, I always think of ways to improve a sport. And I used to think the NBA should have something where if you can somehow put a special hat on while you're playing and sink a shot, it should be like a five-point shot. - I don't know about that. - Oh, come on. - I know, I'm with you. - I'm with you. - Yeah, that's the bad. - Hear me out. - Okay. - I've got lots of ideas for different sports. - I don't know how good I think we heard enough. - When you hit the ball, you can run to first. - Before you can run to third, once you pick a direction, you have to stick in that direction. You have players crossing each other on the baseline. This is a better version of baseball. - Oh, we get out of the hat to that. - No, no, no. - I think I saw it. - I think I saw it when I'm banana ball. - Do you play? Definitely. - No, no. - No, no, I mean, for fun. - We're serious. - No, no, no, no. - I know, I know that you don't play in the league, but do you play a lot? - No, I retire. - I went to the podium. You know what I'm saying? - I did, I did. - I saw that. - They lowered a banner. - Yeah, all that. So, I'm done. Do you shoot around then? - I shoot around a little bit, but I kept saying some of my friends, who are amateurs for sure, getting pro injuries, they were like popping Achilles and tearing knees and I'm like, who needs this? Like, why would ice cube be on crutches? And if he was like, what happened to you? - I was playing basketball. - You were talking about yourself. You were often talking about yourself in the third person as ice cube. - It slips out sometimes. - No. - Ice cube, once funny. - Yeah, yeah. - Okay, I'll get you playing. - Yeah. - It does slip out. I kind of catch myself. - I remember when we shot, the second remote, we go downtown and then I think it was your guys idea that we should get weed. We stop off and dispense weed. - That was your idea, man. Come on. - I was like, no, he wanted to add a hat into it. - Yeah, yeah. I wanted to go hat shopping. You and Kevin Hart fucked up that idea, but we go, we get all this, we buy so much and we stop the car with it and then the remote's over. We end up in a parking lot somewhere. I'm thanking you guys, SUVs pull up, Kevin Hart gets in his SUV, people are going to leave. I'm talking to my crew, I'm like, oh my God, that's great. We're going to love that. It's going to be really good. And then I wander back and someone said, hey, where's the weed? It's all gone. And they said, cute took it. I'm like, this man, YouTube, you do put a claimant on the wrapper. - You do put a claimant on the wrapper. - Yeah. I was saying you're denying you took it. You're denying you took it. - I'm denying I took it. Kip Hart. - Did he leave first? - He left first. - Thank you. He left in a hurry. - Kevin is true. Okay. I think he said you took it. I don't know. But that would be like him to say, oh, cube took it. - You weren't going to take it. - No. - No. - No, I wasn't. - You know, it's good that it went somewhere. - If they had been commemorative presidential coins. - Did you go sell it? - Who took the Martin Van Buren coins? - Don't look at me. - Did you say he was going to sell it? - No, that's not. - Was he going to sell it if you didn't? - Why are you looking for a weed? - I would love to see you try to sell it. - It's all your turn of trips, yeah, I'm trying to trace it. - Yeah. Buy my weed. If not, I'll blow you. (laughing) - What? You're going to blow people to buy your weed. - That's the incentive to get the weed. - I'm throwing in the blow job. That's just, this is a good businessman. You have to have a multi-pronged model. - It's your loss leader to get people in the door. (laughing) - You don't find my weed on blow you? - That's terrible. - Come on, why don't you want this weed? I said I'd blow you. (laughing) - What the fuck happened? here. When we get together, it's it's good, but it's something this is not going to blame you. You took the weed and you got me into this blowjob thing. No, you derailed it at hats. Okay. Let's just okay. Well, Sonia, before we go, you talk all this shit about cube all the time. Now he's here. So what you tell him what's going on. There's three LA needs in this of me and Eduardo and Matt and the three of us, I mean, you what you've done for LA is huge. And you know what? My cousin from Australia came on his honeymoon. And I said, where do you want to go anywhere in LA? And he says, I want to go to Compton. And so we drove around Compton. Yeah, we really did. It's like Disneyland now. Yeah, I mean, you know, he's just like because that's like his in his mind. That's LA culture is driving around Compton. So yeah, I'm not. You're just a prime because yeah, when how well you would have been pretty young when the spirit of Compton came out. I was, yeah, I mean, I was born in 82, but I was in high school. Yeah, it was huge. Yeah, huge. Well, I was fucking around. Where was I in Boston? I don't know. It doesn't matter where I was. You were not listening to straight out of Compton. I was listening to, yeah. You were listening to some 1920s record. But you're over. When the wind blows, we put on the record, as the big horn record, you belong to me. Audio, I can't go away to me. Cube. You were listening to Rudy Valley record collection straight out of Brookline. Yeah, straight out of Brookline. It was pretty tough. Someone stole my fifth eyes, odd shirt. Cube, every time I hang with you, it's one of the, it's just a great day. It really is a great day. You're just a phenomenal force. I'm so happy for you. I want to check out this big three. I started watching it because I do. I really got into the finals, the NBA finals. And yeah, now we've, you know, okay, I could watch World Cup. But oh, wow. One zip. Another exciting game. Lotta running. Lotta running. Lotta running. Another play broken up. I take that 98 plays on the roll, broken up. It's fun. Take it easy. Fire hat. Fire hat. Fire hat. Now pay put your hat on. But Duke, yeah, so I'm going to check that out. It's big three. And excited to see it. And just come on by anytime. Just me love having you here. I'm love to be here, man. You know, anytime. You're still throwing up in your mouth with a little bit, but I'm good. I just need to cope before I leave. I'm a taste buzzer. You know, all right. All right, man. All right. If you're listening, I'm sure you there is a way for you to access video. Yeah. If you want to check out what's up. You can go YouTube. Yeah, but you also can just take my word for it. Yes. Everything you're describing is correct. It looks like I just stepped out of the shower. Yes. Let me explain what happened very recently. I don't know when this drops, but a little over a week ago, my wife and I attended the grand opening of the Obama presidential library. Seems like you're bragging. Okay. It's not a it's not a humble brag. It's not a brag. No, it's not a brag. I'm giving you this story of what happened. Yeah. I was in attendance as were many people. Much greater, the higher, more important people than me were there, but we were very thrilled to be invited along. What I hadn't realized is that our seats were outside. I hadn't really thought about it. And at the last second, as my wife and I were in our hotel room in Chicago, we're headed out the door. I think, oh, we're going to be outside. So I splashed some some black on my face. Okay. We go to the event. We're sitting outside. And I'll just say in our row at the end of our row, I see, oh, there's Stephen Colbert. Hi, Stephen. You know, good to see you. And there's David Letterman. Oh, wow. I love these guys. He's great. We're all sitting in this row together. And the sun, the clouds break. The sun comes out. It's a wonderful event. Amazing speeches. Incredible performances. No, you are bragging. It has nothing to do with your hair. That's all I'm saying. I'm not bragging. I'm bragging on the amount of me. I don't know. I know. I don't know. You're not understanding. All I'm saying is the Obama's through an amazing batch. There's another. No, but we'll wait. That is all I'm saying is that the former president for say, yeah, we get it. We get it. We get it. Oprah was there. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Do you talk to Oprah? No. She Oprah was very good at keeping me back. Let's just put it that way. As far as most the people there, most people there had security whose only job was to keep Conan away. And you know, I noticed that other people could just wander up to them. Strangers could wander up to them. Yeah. And, but they're very good. They're called Conan Bashars. You can hire a Conan Bashar. I don't know if that was an option. Yeah. And you can get one. Anyway, it's three hours plus. And when it's over, I'm so glad that I put the sunblock on. And I'm feeling really good about myself like smart move. I walk over and I see Stephen Colbert, David Letterman. They look like they've been playing in a sandbox with plutonium. Their faces are just bright, bright red. And I'm like, well, those suckers don't know to put the sunblock on a day or two later after the event. I feel like my skull is on fire. And then two days after that, my skull is really itchy. And whenever I, my scalp and whenever I itch it, it looks like a snow globe. Just it looks like confetti white, white freckled confetti is pouring off of my head. It's disgusting. I'm like, what is going on? I'm going crazy. And I talked to someone and they said, yeah, you got a sunburn on your scalp, which I'm not used to because I've got so much hair, but it, this sun just went blasted right through my hair. And it roasted my scalp. And someone said to treat this, you've got to rub oil into it. So this morning, I rubbed oil into it, not thinking about the podcast. Oh. And then I come in and I look like I'm in shanana. I'm a grease ball. I'm just this. And so greasy. I'm breaking them. Yeah. And so I've got this comb. I've got this comb. And I've got this, all this grease in my hair, which is weighing my hair down. My hair can't do its normal thing. And I'm just like, but I look like you're grease. Yeah. I look like I want to fight one of you in the parking lot by swinging a chain at you in like 1952 or a little switchblade. Yeah, I'm going to come at you with a switchblade. Yeah. But that's how I feel. Do you feel different with your hair like this? I really do. I really feel different. I want to, I just want to fight people on the street. I want to get a hot rod driving around. I want to get Rizzo pregnant. So their Rizzo has a bun in the oven. Yeah, I think I want to make me. Yeah, I got. Okay, you're not connect. Yeah, I might be connect. You're like one of the extra ones. I want to. I want to know what I was there. I'm one of the Thunderbirds that is easily 55 years old. That's my favorite thing. It's when you look at still. When you look at still photographs of the Thunderbirds. I know. And it's like, okay, well, there's John Travolta. There's Danny Zuko. And there's Kimiki. And there's Kimiki. And then you look at the other guys. And there's two of them that easily look like they fought in a war 30 years ago. No, not him. No, not him. No, he's not. He's not Eugene. No, no, no. You got to find not. You mean, Eugene is by the way Eddie Deason. That's Eddie Deason. King of the nerds. Come on. Did you. Did you know that his name is Eddie Deason? And he's King of the nerds. Okay. That's. You see. That's here. You're not. We meet all the teabirds. Yeah. Yeah. Just go Google teabirds. Yeah. But he thinks he's that guy. No, no. I. Yes. And I think I am. I want to put a cigarette behind my ear. And you know what? As a joke recently, David got me bubble gum cigarettes. So I'm going to put a bubble gum cigarette behind my ear. There we go. Okay. Look at the guy who is shut. He's in high school. He's in high school. Yeah. No. He's not in high school. He was. He was. He's a pipe fitter who fought in the Korean War. That guy's. I think he's he's 48 years old. At least he just had a stint put in. It's unbelievable. Do you think you can play? I'm sure I can play. I'm cool. Hey, what's wrong with your knee? I had it replaced. We just photoshopped Conan space into that photo. Oh, I know we should. I'm a grease ball now. And I'm just going to keep rubbing oil into my head until this my skull heals. I think what kind of oil is it? What is it? I just grabbed. They said this person just said oil. So I got some WD 40. Oh, okay. I don't I kind of like this look on you. Do you really? I kind of do. I think this makes you look very refined. Refined. Well, that would be if I combed it straight back. Yeah. It's sort of Michael Cain and Dirty Rotten scoundrels. Yes. It's like it's like Al Patino and the godfather. Because we suck. What? What we do? Come on. We've been doing this a long time. There's no mirror. I never get any makeup. We're not a real. Oh, I do my own makeup. Maybe you can do your own makeup. So you like this? I don't hate it. I don't. You don't like it right? It's very different, but it is like, it is like a common viewpoint. You know, this is undoluted fat Irish face. This is just big block of Irish face. Come on. I think the hair can at least obscure and soften. It's very wall street, which I think is like against kind of who you are. No, I think greed is good. No. I am Gordon Gecko. No. Yes, it's Gordon Gecko. No. In the world of Gordon Gecko's be Martin. Now I'm just a Gecko, I don't know. Now I'm just acting like a Gecko. That's why you can never be like Gordon Gecko. No, that's why you can never be like him. That's why this hair won't suit you. It's because you do that stuff. We got to fix the burn. I know when's your hair going to stop. I don't know. It actually might have already. We should get in there. Isn't there like a powder sunscreen we can get for your scalp? I'm going to order some for you. It's going to sustain. No, you know what's called wear a hat. You know who's wearing a hat? Hillary Clinton was up there wearing a hat. And she wasn't just any hat. It was, I mean, it looked like a giant sail on a sailboat. It was a huge hat. She's smart. Yeah, she's smart. She's laughing at me right now. Yeah, she is. And she's fine. She hasn't no itch. She's scalp. She really doesn't. But I also, it's been long enough. I really don't think that you have to deal with it anymore. Does your scalp even still itch? Like when I get sunburned and I do it in my skin. This is my question. It's like a day. No, this is, I know, that's what I'm curious about. It's been over a week. No. So something's, this could be a worst problem. Oh, come on. Don't do that. Don't get into that hypochondriac thing you do. I'm turning into Gordon Gekko. No. Or if it's plural, Gordon Gekko. Why did I force that? I don't know. Anyway, I'm sure I'm fine. I just got to oil up this melon. I'm going to start saying. Yeah, I got to run. I got to oil up this melon. Yeah. And I just said Irish mafia. And you said, oil up this melon. I don't oil up this melon. And that's not very Irish mafia. And I got to go see Danny Zuko. Because we're about to graduate high school. And then he's going to drive me in from my lung transplant. All right. Pray for me. Pray for me. Conan O'Brien needs a friend with Conan O'Brien, sonom of Cessian and Mac Gorley. Produced by me, Mac Gorley. Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and Nick Leo. Theme song by The White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy. Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair. And our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering and mixing by Eduardo Perez and Brendan Burns. Additional production support by Mars Melnick. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and BrittCon. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts. And you might find your review read on a future episode. Got a question for Conan? Call the Team Coco Hotline at 669-587-2847 and leave a message. It too could be featured on a future episode. You can also get three free months of Sirius XM when you sign up at SiriusXM.com/Conan. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O'Brien, needs a friend where ever fine podcasts are downloaded. (gentle music)