With multiple themes that are showcased in the duration of Ice Cube’s iconic solo debut album, AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted, is just as powerful now as it was back then. Listening back to it, it came at a time where ideas were divided. Cube delivered a sharp political and social message—just as his writing in N.W.A was and just as Public Enemy was doing on the other side of the country. This made Ice Cube’s contribution that much more significant.

Twenty-eight years ago, Cube was a 20 years old coming off a bitter split from his N.W.A brothers over a royalty dispute. Label politics meant he had to look elsewhere to make it on his own. On a trip to the East Coast, Cube ran into Chuck D in the Def Jam offices, who brought him over to see Public Enemy’s production crew the Bomb Squad. They would form the blueprint of an East Coast/West Coast connection that would produce Cube’s iconic debut, AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted.

Cube brought West Coast flavor over East Coast sampling, which unified two different ways of doing music for the higher goal. What stand out are the harsh realities and eye-opening stories that Cube shed a light on to show what was really going on in America’s biggest cities. “What I was trying to get across was a true definition of street knowledge,” Cube says now, “Where you can bump my record but you can learn from it, too.”