The 90s truly was an era where the boundaries between genres began to really blur, with rock, rap, electronic music and metal all coexisting and cross-pollinating in ways that had never been seen before.
One individual that played a massive part in this happening was unquestionably Ice Cube. The former N.W.A. man had already caused enough of a storm in the mainstream with his previous band to make him appeal to rock fans, but when Cube went solo it seemed he was actively making a point to try and ingratiate himself with the metal world.
Firstly, he found himself added to the 1992 Lollapalooza tour, playing alongside Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam and making an unlikely alliance with Ministry along the way.
He then rocked up at Reading 1994, subbing Primal Scream and appearing on the same day as Manic Street Preacher, Radiohead and Pulp.
But it was in 1998 that Cube fully cemented his place as a true rock crossover icon with his performance on Korn’s Family Values Tour. Looking back, it was clear this big crossover had been building for a while; Korn had covered Cube’s Wicked on their 1996 album Life is Peachy before he appeared on the song Children of the Korn from their smash 1998 album Follow the Leader, and Korn would even return the favour by featuring on the song Fuck Dying on Cube's 1998 album War & Peace (Vol.1).
“I was hot with that market, so it was always me and my management looking to connect with a new rock group, do some cool shit,” Cube told The Bootleg Kev Podcast. “I got new management and one of their groups was Korn. I dug the record 'cause it was incorporating hip hop into rock. I was like, ‘This shit is cool!’ Meeting them was cool; they were like, ‘We’re working on some new shit, if you wanna get down let’s get down.' So we did some stuff together, then we did the Family Values Tour together.”
It was to support that album that Korn conceived of Family Values, a touring package full of their current favourite artists: Orgy, Rammstein, Limp Bizkit and, the eyebrow-raising inclusion of Ice Cube on what was otherwise a metal bill.
There were definitely some skeptical responses - playing alongside big mainstream alt-rock bands was one thing, going on between the newly-breaking Limp Bizkit and Rammstein is another. Not that the members of Korn had any doubts at all.
“Cube can win over any crowd man.” guitarist Brian ‘Head’ Welch told MTV at the time.
“He makes it happen,” added drummer David Silvera. “If the crowd aren’t pumping, he jumps up there and he won’t stop until the people are going.”
So it proved: not only did Cube go out and win over any doubters in the audience with hits from both his and N.W.A.’s career, but he also appeared to a hero’s welcome during Korn’s set to perform Wicked and Children of the Korn. He wasn’t surprised by how it all went down.
“We had success with this type of thing on Lollapalooza 1992, where we were the only rap act on there,” he said to MTV. “We got a good response because we kinda represented the alternative. Our set kind gives them a nice break between the other styles that are on this tour.”
Due to the start date of filming for his upcoming film Next Friday, Cube had to leave before the final five dates of Family Values, being replaced by Incubus for the remainder of the tour.
Regardless, his inclusion had been a huge success, paving the way for the likes of Mobb Deep, Method Man & Redman, Run DMC and Machine Gun Kelly to all perform under the Family Values banner in the forthcoming years.
It even left a lasting impression on the man himself. When asked by James Cordon what the craziest tour he ever played on was, during a 2018 appearance on The Late Late Show, Cube was quick to point to Family Values. “It was just a trip seeing how rock bands take it to the tenth power,” he recalled. If they did, he more than matched them.
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