While he was balancing being a hard-core gangster rap icon, presumably with days filled with 'rolling up on fools,' Ice Cube also packed a T-square. That's not slang. Cube studied architectural drafting at an Arizona trade school and now the New York Times’ "Home & Garden" section has featured his take on design. Sure, we may not all agree with his personal taste, but who wants to argue with a former member of NWA and, even so, it at least helps us prove that maybe we're not in such an old-man's club anymore afterall...
Did you move to a big house in the hills once you became successful?
Ain’t that what it’s all about: providing a better way for your family than you had? It’s a Mediterranean-style house and it feels, to me, like an Egyptian palace. Though I haven’t been on my architect game in 25 years.
But you still try to make good design a part of your life?
Yeah, a lot. What I learned from architectural drafting is that everything has to have a plan to work. You just can’t wing it. I can’t get all the materials I need for a house and just start building.
Whether it’s a career, family, life — you have to plan it out.
How are your drafting skills these days?
You don’t want to live in nothing I draw. I got a certificate. For a year. In ’88. I don’t think I picked up a T-square since.
