Ice Cube Says Mister Rogers Sued Him

Over the weekend, Ice Cube celebrated the 30th anniversary of his seminal album AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted with a digital listening party. During the track-by-track playback, Cube unearthed a fascinating gem about his song “A Gangsta’s Fairytale,” which once sampled the theme song from Mister Rogers’ self-titled children show.

According to the West Coast legend, the track written initially for Eazy-E caused him to be in a legal dispute with the show host. 

“This is in the vain of Slick Rick, we love Slick Rock, one of the best storytellers ever — if not the best,” Cube began. “I actually wrote this for Eazy-E but ya’ll know what it is, we weren’t getting down at the time so I had to take it myself.

“It’s a trip. Because off this song, Mister Rogers sued us,” he continued. “He was mad ’cause we had the ‘Mister Rogers’ theme at the beginning of this s–t, ‘It’s a wonderful day in the neighborhood’ and all that. He] sued us and was getting like five cents a record ’til we took that part off. That’s just a fun fact.”

In 2014, Cube first spoke on the legal battle with Mister Rogers in an interview with author Brian Coleman for his book, Check The Technique Vol. 2

“We had that ‘It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood’ thing in the beginning of the original,” recalled Cube. “Did Mister Rogers sue us? Damn. Actually, yeah, I remember. He told us we couldn’t use it, we took the song off the album, and he sued us anyways. I think they made us give him damages because we mention his name one time.”  

Watch Cube’s breakdown of the song below.

 

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