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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, January 20, 1992                   TAG: 9201200231
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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ICE CUBE ALBUM TELLS OF BLACK EXPERIENCES

YOU SAY black kids need a counter-message, a counter-education (editorial, Dec. 30, "Melt down this Ice Cube"). "Death Certificate" is an educational album. It describes black experiences in white America.

He uses rough rhymes because he wants drug dealers to listen and try to get them off the streets. Just think: If he could get to just one person in every city in America, wouldn't that help in this drug war?

As for putting him down for doing beer commercials, you didn't write that he makes that company give $100,000 to black charities that will help uplift the black community.

He also has positive songs on his album about taking care of your kids, about safe sex, and for blacks to stop blaming whites for their sorrow. Ice Cube is positive and doesn't incite violence. I listen to it, and I don't feel like beating up Koreans.

Rap is a form of education, but the government doesn't want the truth known to black kids. Just what the white schools teach them. Which goes back to the first sentence: Kids need a counter-message, a counter-education. His name is Ice Cube. TIM FINNEY ROANOKE

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