© Getty ImagesIce Cube called for a form of reparations to be adopted by Hollywood studios.
The rapper and actor has taken a step outside his usual creative endeavors to help pen a document that he named "A Contract with Black America" that seeks to address police brutality in the United States and aims to dismantle larger pockets of systemic racism. Cube said the document in its current form is unfinished and he's looking to gather more experts and thinkers to help perfect it. Once he's done so, he plans to present it to both Democratic and Republican leaders.
Speaking on "The Breakfast Club," the artist touched on several aspects that the contract addresses. Late in the interview, host Angela Yee asked him about representation in Hollywood. He said he believes Hollywood has mistreated the Black community for years and studios eager to make up for that should give money to establish Black-run studios so that they can tell their stories unencumbered by the typical Hollywood system.
"Virtually all the studios that contributed in our narrative, in our pain in our misrepresentation, and stealing our history and giving it to White people for over 100 years," he said. "I think these studios that we know and love should kick in to a studio that's run by Black people with no outside influences and whose movies and projects are owned by those Black people, those Black artists and directors and writers and people who put the project together should own the projects."
He added: "I just think it's a form of reparations from the entertainment industry if they all had to invest a certain amount of money into the studio each year as payment for all the damage they've done to Black people."
He noted that he's not advocating for segregation in the entertainment industry and says that, in his hypothetical plan, Black artists will still work with major studios like MGM, Warner Bros and Universal.
"Every artist I know, every great actor or writer, has 10 projects they can't get made because some White people don't understand what they're trying to make. That's a shame, so we need our own place."
Cube highlighted Tyler Perry, who recently built his own massive studio in Atlanta, Ga., after claiming he was "ignored in Hollywood." Cube said he's "extremely proud" of what Perry has done, but noted that he had to do it with his own money.
"There needs to be a place where Hollywood pays for what they've done to our people because cops learn how to kick our a-- watching TV when they're little. That's where they learn it. Then they grow up and become cops and they're like, 'look, I saw this on 'NYPD Blue' so that's how you do it.'"
Comment: A better headline: 'Washed-up gangsta rapper Ice Cube thinks Hollywood should give him money".
See also: