Death Certificate

Writing and recording ran from late 1990 through most of 1991, alongside his work on Yo-Yo's debut, Del tha Funkee Homosapien's I Wish My Brother George Was Here and the film Boyz n the Hood. The album opens with Cube's explanation that the Death Side is a mirror image of where we are today and the Life Side a vision of where we need to go. Where the debut leaned on the Bomb Squad's hard-edged beats, this one has a more West Coast sound, with 70s funk and soul samples. Sir Jinx and the Boogie Men, whom Pitchfork names as DJ Pooh, Bobcat and Rashad, produced with Cube. Steady Mobbin' was the first single and True to the Game the second.

It had over a million advance orders, debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 with 105,000 copies in its first week and topped the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. Pitchfork reports a promotion budget of $18,000 and no Top 40 airplay, and that it outsold MC Hammer's Too Legit to Quit in their first weeks. It was certified platinum on 20 December 1991. Pitchfork's Eric Harvey called it Cube's most important album, if not his best, and picked A Bird in the Hand as his single greatest solo work. MTV ranked it number 8 on its list of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time in 2005.