Raw Entanglement

Ice Cube vs. Alanis Morissette

by M.J. Fine

So Friday's date night and the two of you can't agree on whether to see Ice Cube at the TLA or Alanis Morissette at the Tower. It's a tough call. I mean, he put Compton on the map and called out the cops for racial profiling and brutality, while she mistook bad luck for irony and wigged out on an old boyfriend who married someone else even after she went down on him in a thee-a-tuh. They've both mellowed a bit — Cube's family-man side comes out in his movies, if not in his music — and they're more alike than you might think. Like, they both have new songs about getting-away-from-L.A. opportunists. His is "Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It," a litany of social ills; hers is the antisocial "Giggling Again for No Reason." See, they're both Geminis, and if she didn't already have a twin brother, you'd almost swear Alanis and Ice Cube were separated at birth. Still can't choose between them? Read the facts and decide for yourself.

—M.J. Fine

	Ice Cube	Alanis Morissette
Original crew:	N.W.A.	You Can't Do That on Television
Current associates:	The Game, Young Jeezy, Musiq Soulchild, Angie Stone	Guy Sigsworth and Andy Page
Selected film roles:	Craig Jones in Friday, Next Friday and Friday After Next; Calvin Palmer Jr. in Barbershop and Barbershop 2	Alanis Morissette: God in Dogma
Longest relationships:	Married to Kimberly Woodruff, mother of his four kids, for 16 years and counting	Five turbulent years of dating Full House's Dave Coulier, beginning when she was 14 and he was 29; and five years with Van Wilder star Ryan Reynolds
First album's peak position on the billboard 200:	Amerikkka's Most Wanted, 1990 — No. 19	Alanis, 1991 — did not chart
Latest album's peak position on the billboard 200:	Raw Footage, 2008 — No. 5	Flavors of Entanglement, 2008 — No. 8
Key album art:	Ice Cube with ice pick, Ice Cube with machete, Ice Cube with baseball bat	Out-of-focus trees and flowers
Famous relative:	Del tha Funkee Homosapien (first cousin)	Hillary Rodham Clinton (ninth cousin, once removed)
On politics:	"Never put your trust in Hillary Rodham/ 'Cause I can tell you now it's gon' turn out rotten."	"I am a citizen of the planet / My president is Kwan Yin."
On spiritual matters:	"Me and Allah go back like cronies/ I don't gotta be fake 'cause he is my homie."	"One day my mind will retreat and I'll know God/ And I'll be constantly one with her night, dusk and day."
On the state of the world:	"Watchin' Katrina is worser than Ike and Tina/ See New Orleans getting' bitchslapped by FEMA."	"There is no difference in what we're doing in here/ That doesn't show up as bigger symptoms out there."
On abstinence:	"I might tell a chick it's illegal to be celibate."	"I declare a moratorium on things relationship/ I declare a respite from the toils of liaison."
On masculinity:	"What this got to do with the tea in China?/ Nothing, motherfucker, just don't act like a vagina."	"This is in praise of the vulnerable man/ Why won't you lead the rest of your cavalry home?"
On improving your lot:	"If you don't want to shake that hood mentality/ How the fuck we supposed to change our reality?"	"Your way's making me mental/ How you filter as skewed interpret."
On respect:	"I make a fuck-up like Don Imus/ Bow on his knees and call me yo' highness."	"Conclusions you come to of me routinely incorrect/ I don't know who you're talking to with such fucking disrespect."
Number of Grammys:	0	7