Rapper Ice Cube outs himself as an architecture buff

Rapper Ice Cube has revealed himself as an architecture buff after presenting a video on legendary architects Charles and Ray Eames.

In a film shot for arts website Pacific Standard Time, Ice Cube – who achieved fame as a member of NWA and has since been a highly successful rapper and actor – reveals that he studied architectural drafting before finding stardom.

Ice Cube, whose real name is O’Shea Jackson, waxes lyrical about the husband-and-wife design team while taking a tour around the Eames House in his native Los Angeles, comparing their efforts to sampling in rap music.

“They was doing mash-ups before mash-ups even existed,” he says.

The rapper also admires how they brought the surrounding nature of the site into the architecture. “This is going green 1949-style, bi**h,” he says.

Driving down Inglewood Boulevard in South LA, Ice Cube also breaks down “the good, the bad and the ugly” about art and architecture in Los Angeles with buildings on his good list including the Forum, 5 Torches, Cockatoo Inn and Watts Towers.