Dr. Dre is a great producer but lets be real...he was never much of a rapper although The Chronic is a classic

I love his rapping.

dre has always been upfront about the fact that he's primarily a producer. i like his raps as well but most of the good ones were written by his more talented friends tbh. same goes for eazy e... his voice and persona brought life to the lyrics he spit, but he wasn't really a writer at the end of the day.

Oh I don't know I think Dre could hold his own, you don't become the first billionaire rapper on the planet without some skill in that department, that being said, your right in that I would never argue that Dre could beat Ice Cube in a freestyle.

For me however, rap is about the overall package and Dre & Eazy were masters at sampling a funky beat and building on it, so while Ice Cube may be a great rapper, when I listen to say Death Certificate, I'm not hearing the quality grooves that I get from the latter two artists

That's why you should listen to The Predator, it's a far better album.

Predator is good, its production quality is better than Death Certificate, and Wicked is one of my favourite Ice Cube songs, but overall I'm still not feeling it compared to The Chronic, or Eazy's general catalogue, I still think they got the better grooves going.

Yeah, "Wicked" is fantastic. It's actually a pretty good summation of everything I love about that album. Basically the whole thing sounds like society on the verge of collapse. The music is muscular, layered and sounds like a world of dying factories and barbed wire. Ice Cube's rapping is more solid and in your face than on any of his other albums. The whole thing is just amazing and amazingly bleak. "When Will They Shoot?" and "Now I Gotta Wet 'Cha" are highlights too.

Wicked is the first song I ever heard that had a siren (air raid horn) sampled in a beat, I remember being blown away when I first heard that, thinking wow what the F is that!

Yes, When will they shoot is pretty good to, it feels like Muhammad Ali is takin shots to my pretty white head, lol. Admitably I'm not much of a rap fan these days, but right now I'm digging Joey Bada$$. this is a wicked tune!

Ice Cube is hands down one the the top 10 greatest rappers ever...period!!

Listening to The Predator on the recommendation of Jans. It's better than his earlier stuff. Can't get into it apart from one or two tracks.

A shame he didn't make an album with Dre ala Doggystyle in the early 90's.