Transcript of Ice Cube

Yo, what's up? My name is Ice Cube, and I feel like I'm about to throw up in my mouth about my homie Conan O'Brien.

You can't even say my name, you're so disgusting. That's how you feel about being his friend? Wow, that's incredible.

Ring the bell, brand new shoes, walking blues, climb the fence, books and pens.

I can tell that we are gonna be friends. Yes, I can tell that we are gonna be friends. Hey there and welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. I'm blessed with two good friends. Oh, but they're not with us now.

There we go.

Instead we have Sonam Sethian. Hi. And Matt Gorling. That makes me feel more comfortable. Yeah. Yeah. How are you guys?

I'm good. Everyone good?

I'm doing all right.

How are you? How you doing?

I'm doing okay. I'm doing pretty good.

Yeah.

You ever wear contacts, Sona?

I've been wearing contacts since I was like 12.

I started trying it recently.

Yeah, we know.

Just out of convenience. And I'm doing it more and more now.

Yeah.

And I don't know, what was your experience with them?

You were struggling at first.

I really struggled because I'm eye-phobic.

I was fine.

I'm eye-phobic. I don't like things getting near my eye. And then suddenly the people would say, oh, it's easy. Just jam this onto your eyeball.

This reminds me, we were going to do a whole thing where you brought your contacts in and tried to get you to put them in. Remember, we talked about this and we were going to do a follow-up.

Now I've gotten good, so it wouldn't even be a good segment anymore. Now they come in, they go out. I put them on. What's weird is the one on the right, my right eye is for reading and the left is for slight correction on the distance. Is that how you read?

Like this? I know.

They told me, oh, you get used to it.

Wow.

Is that what people do? Or am I being sold a bag of hash? I don't know.

I think they had 2 leftover contact lenses.

You're saying I got scammed? I think they did go, uh, and I did notice when I left, everyone was laughing.

Yeah.

One of them's a colored contact lens. Yeah.

Can I tell you, if I did see you come into my office, I would say anything just to upsell you. So, like, I feel like sometimes—

And I did a lot of bits that day.

You did. I was there.

I know. No, no, we talked about this, but I went in hot. I was doing so many bits for everybody in the waiting room. I was killing.

Yeah.

And to the point where I just kept wanting to go back out to the waiting room to do more bits. And they were saying, we need to keep— we've just put something in your eye, some to dilate it. You've got to settle down. And I'm like, no, no, no. I didn't get that lady in the corner. She's tough, but I'll get her. It was insanity.

Yeah. Well, I think that what I'm saying is like, they maybe they did that to you and they don't normally so that both eyes get worse. So you have to keep going back to the eye doctor's office. Why would they do that? And they know you're like needy and you need to get that woman in the corner. So you keep going back and then they keep upselling you. Yes, she was a plant.

They were telling me. Yeah, they were telling me. Oh, so this is interesting. This is what businesses could start doing. Putting a plant in whose job is not to laugh at anything they do.

Did you notice the bookshelves were lined with Robert Caro books too?

Yeah.

No. Have someone who doesn't laugh and I'll just keep coming back to your tire store and buying more winter tires in Los Angeles. You know, tractor tires. Yeah, tractor tires, every kind of tire. And that's the trick to get me to come in. Uh, they want me to come to their restaurant, just hire one waiter who just never gives it up and I'll go back every night. Yeah, yeah. Hey, look at this impression, you know. Uh, hey, why'd the chicken cross the road?

Um, yeah, I would totally upsell you all the time. You're also very trusting. I feel like you just believe people.

Okay. Do you think that that's— I'm asking the general community of ophthalmologists. I have one contact on my right eye, which is a completely different strength magnification than the one on the left. Is that crazy? And I keep crashing my car now.

Well, both eyes are never— not never, but they're not usually the same.

Right.

But it's weird that one is for reading and one is not.

They made the case that, that your eye just your brain figures it out and then you start— is Eduardo, you're nodding. What do you know about this? What you want to hear something really hilarious?

Yeah.

My ophthalmologist just called me as you guys were having this conversation.

Okay.

But anyhow, let's ask the question. I almost answered so that you could ask the ophthalmologist. But anyhow, no, it's completely normal. Your brain tricks your eyes into settling, in your case, adjusting to one. So this will adjust. Yes, absolutely. I mean, I think it already kind of has.

Did you ever have progressive or bifocals?

Because you get used to that too.

Yeah. I did. I got used to that.

Yeah.

Okay. So I just wanted to put it out there. Sometimes I like to use the podcast to just, um, discuss my medical maladies and see if I can get free advice.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Someone will call in and go, no, actually, you know, that's a, that's a pretty wise course of action. Or else, no, you've been played for a fool.

Your eyes are bleeding, we should tell you.

Oh, they always bled. They always bled. All right. Yeah.

Yeah.

That's sad.

But I would, I would lie just to make you keep coming back. Like if I was your dentist, I'd be like, you need braces. And then I would sell You braces.

I would like just to see me and giant headgear.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Giant neck brace. And a neck brace. And then I don't have a date for the prom.

Put your hands up here like this.

I'm in my early 60s and I don't have a date for the prom. What about— well, this is, this is really fascinating. The other thing I thought I could do is get a monocle.

Oh, God.

Really?

Really?

Can you, can you imagine if I had a monocle? Because one of the things When I got glasses, I was so happy because you can do bits with them. If I had a monocle and it had one of those, like, strings on it.

Yeah.

And, you know, like Colonel Klink in Hogan's Heroes. I just had a monocle in this eye for reading. But then if anyone said anything slightly shocking, I could drop out, which is, you know, just for the bit.

You want it?

You're saying I want it for the bit? I think more and more, if I thought there were a lot of good bits to, like, a prosthetic foot, I would have my foot taken off.

Oh my God, Conan!

No, if I said there were really— start with a monocle.

Start with the monocle. There are a lot of bits to—

I just— it'd be so much— oh my God, I don't have a— I don't have a leg to stand on. I'll pull my foot off. And then that— even those people that were hired not to laugh at me still laugh. Oh my God, he really did take his—

let me put my foot down.

What else is there? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to do some soul searching. Found it! Yeah, I mean, these are good bits. Yeah, what— whatever, you know, look at this. You're liking it. The podcast would I mean, how many times it would come across, it would, it would help the podcast. Yeah.

My grandpa had one leg.

What's that?

He did?

Dede.

My, my, yeah, my kid. No, no, not that Dede. My dad.

How many dedes do you have?

I have two. I had two dedes.

I don't know in your crazy culture what you got. Maybe you got seven.

Most people, everybody has two like grandpas.

I had two grandpas.

Well, I had two dedes.

So one of the dedes, how isn't one dede and the other like deda or something?

No, one is one. They're both dedes, but one of the dedes didn't live that long.

So he's dead.

The dead Dede.

God, that is dead.

I had a kid called Dede, which was my dad's Dede. I mean, my dad's dad. And then I had a Tania Dede, who was my mom's dad.

Okay.

What the fuck? Fuck you. That's gory.

You wish you had a Dede.

Hey, my grandpa had one leg too. He also had the other one.

Okay, nice, nice. You know what? This might be the best intro ever. But Sona, he had one leg. Why did he have one leg?

Because he had diabetes and they had to cut And he had a wooden leg.

It's better if they fall asleep on a train track. That's a better story.

That's better than diabetes?

Yeah, diabetes is just like, oh, that's no fun.

But the train track is gruesome.

But it's a better story.

Oh, oh, yeah, you're right.

Because now I just say, well, he was a hobo for a while and he fell asleep on the train track.

But just one leg.

Oh, his blood sugar was a little out of alignment. That's not good.

Yeah, but he had like one of the wooden ones. Like, like— Whoa, what? Yeah, yeah. Like a wooden leg. Now they're cool.

Do you want to buy him a parrot? It's just be a fun thing to go through.

No, I didn't buy Deda a parrot.

Okay, so he had a wooden—

fuck you.

He had a wooden leg.

He had a wooden leg.

Did it bend in the middle?

No, it was— his leg was cut at the knee and then he would sometimes take it off to show us his stuff.

It was made of wood? Yeah. When was this? Like 1911?

It was the '80s.

Deda was alive in the '80s.

I know they had better stuff than wood then. No, they didn't. Did they? Yeah, they had. Did they?

Yeah, but he's not going to be on blades like, you know, like You know, like the, like the Paralympics.

It'd be great if your Deda had been on a blade and his— so one leg walked at about 2 miles an hour and the other leg went 65 miles an hour. So all he did was go in— all he did was go in circles really fast. But a rollerblade. Oh my God.

Yeah.

No, I swear to God, there's an opening to the podcast here somewhere. But anyway, yeah. Can you imagine if I had one blade on my— and then I had a different contact? And one eye.

No, monocle and headgear.

And headgear.

Here we go.

We wrapped it all up.

He's the coolest guy in the world.

That was nicely done. Here he comes. Doing, doing, doing, doing, doing. I can't see where I am and I can't see where I was. My guest today. Settle down. My guest today is a founding member of the legendary rap group N.W.A. and has appeared. It's so— there's no way.

I can't believe this is the intro for him.

And has appeared in the legendary rap group N.W.A. and has appeared in such movies as Boyz n the Hood and Barbershop. He also founded the 3-on-3 basketball league— this sounds cool— uh, Big3, which is currently in its 9th season and can be streamed on Paramount Plus and Fubo. Very excited to chat with him today. I always love my time with this gentleman. Ice Cube, welcome. Bunch of years ago, we shot this goofy remote. We didn't think anything was going to happen. You, me, Kevin Hart. I can't go anywhere in the world without people coming up to me and talking about us with the Lyft driver. And then we shot another one with a student driver where we ended up downtown buying weed.

Yeah. And the good old days.

The good old days. I think just one of those has like 120 million views. I go anywhere, and what's funny is people think that I do that with you all the time. People are like, "How's Cube?" And I said, "Well, yesterday I was driving around." That was like this— We did it twice. It was really fun. And I had known you because you came on the show a lot. We always had great chemistry, but we did that thing. It blew up. I think half of it is you and Kevin just making fun of me, which was— People seemed to enjoy that.

It was totally improv, which was so cool. You know, when I heard— I said, "We're doing Conan on a Saturday? How?" You know, he's like, "No, we gonna do a skit." I'm like, "Well, what's the skit? We're looking for pages?" "No, no, no pages. You guys are gonna just, since you're doing a movie called Ride Along, you guys are just gonna, you know, call a Lyft." You know, when it pull up—

And it wasn't set up. The guy didn't know it was gonna be us. We called a Lyft.

Call a Lyft. They rushed a guy. You know, I think they gave him, you know, $120 or something. Put all these cameras in his car. And we jumped in and had fun. I was like, I said, "Conan is being cheap, man. We don't have no script. We just, we just, just going, what if it, we just gonna do some shit." Okay. So, so it was, it was funny because it was so real.

So fun.

Yeah, it was very real.

And, and you know, you can't, you can't script stuff like that. You know what I mean?

And you kept saying you wanted to put me out on the street as a male prostitute.

You kept saying, let's put you out on the street.

Turn him out, we'll make some good money.

Good money.

Good money.

Well, they'd make money.

Money.

Well, they might get like a chicken as barter. They might get— they could trade something.

I mean, have you, have you seen the hoes on Santa Monica? He would have made some money because he would have made some money, man, if they making money.

Oh, man. No, just great chemistry. And we've done a bunch of things over the years.

I love—

you were—

oh, shit.

Uh-oh. That's your agent saying I tried to cancel the Conan thing. I tried to get you out. I know you said no.

It's too late. I'm already here, man. All right, I'll hit you when I get out of here. And you're fired.

You know what? It's so funny to me because it's fascinating to me that clearly people that are funny were always funny. So you play comedy so well, you must have always been funny. And it's funny because when you first— it's interesting because when you first showed up on the scene with N.W.A., Straight Outta Compton, you show up, you didn't have to be funny at all. You were a great writer, great rapper. You're part of this revolutionary group.

But pretty soon afterwards, you must start realizing, "I can do comedy." Yeah, well, you know, people always talk about the Eazy-E record that started it all, Boyz n the Hood. But on the flip side of that, it was a song called "I Got a Fat Girl on My Jock." You know what I'm saying? So, it was just a rap about him running from a fat girl in the neighborhood. Right. And— It was funny. You know, people laughed. So we knew our message was hard, but we also wanted to figure out ways to sprinkle some comedy in it. You know, N.W.A. was real hard, but actually the Eazy-E record— full of, you know, kind of comedy, you know, little one-liners. You know, and we knew we wanted to be hard but entertaining at the same time.

It's interesting 'cause— rap has always had skits, like little sketches. And even in the hardest lyrics, there's really funny— There's funny insults.

Yeah, dark humor for sure.

Really dark humor.

Goddamn, man.

Jesus.

He's trying to get his job back.

Yeah, he's got there.

Get out of there. You still fired, motherfucker. You've got 9 phones. But yeah, so— 'Cause your first movie, Boyz n the Hood, not a comedy role, but there's comedy in there, and you're so great at deadpan. You've got such a good 1,000-yard stare. But there's funny moments in Boyz n the Hood, even though it's a very dark, sad story. There's also— lightness in there. And you could— I think that's what really makes it feel even more authentic, is that even in the worst situations, there's always comedy.

Without a doubt. You know, we laughed a lot. You know, all my friends, everybody I kind of gravitate to is funny. You know, so I had friends that was hilarious. And, you know, them making me laugh all the time, me making them laugh, and— That was just kind of the—

now guess what? Now my brother Neil is calling me.

Oh my God.

Neil, Neil, I'm on the podcast right now. I'm talking to Ice Cube, so I'm gonna jump off. But you wanna say hello to Ice Cube?

Hey Ice Cube, how are you?

That's Neil, my brother Neil. All right, Neil.

I don't, I don't want to hear it, man. Bring the money or you're not gonna get him back.

I'll talk to you later, Neil. That didn't— hey, I've got my do not disturb on. I don't even know how that came in. I honestly do. I don't know how.

Oh yeah, you're right.

You do. I do. So anyway, go ahead.

So comedy was always—

This is such a fucked up—

Wait, I'm getting a call from my daughter. She wants to talk to you as well.

All right, so go ahead. So comedy's always, always part of—

It's always been part of growing up. Like, I don't remember not laughing even through, you know, any situations that was going down in the hood. Like, even that's why we wrote Friday, because we was like, damn, we saw movies like Colors and South Central and Menace to Society and even Boyz n the Hood. And it was like, damn, they think we, you know, grew up, you know, in this crazy war zone. But we had a little more fun growing up. You know, I'm looking around at my guys, didn't we have fun? Yeah, you know, play football on the street.

Yeah.

You know, play stickball, basketball, you know, Tag and water balloon fights and all kind of stuff. So I'm like, "Man, we need to do a movie that really has more of the tone on how we grew up." And then that's how Friday came about. We wanted to be the anti-depressing LA hood movie, so to speak.

Right. Just shootouts every 5 seconds and darkness and bleakness.

I mean, yeah, that's— That's movies, you know? There's unpredictability in the hood, which you don't know what day is gonna— it's gonna be a good day or it's gonna be a day where, you know, something happened. You just never know, you know, walking out in the streets. So that's what made it, you know, kind of volatile, unpredictable.

What I read that— I was reading some interview with you and you said that, you started writing rap lyrics because you were taking a typewriting class.

Yeah.

And the other kids—

Way back in the 1900s.

And it got me thinking, are all great rappers, do they start in typewriting class? I mean, you talk to any of them, Jay-Z, whatever, they're like, yo, I was typing.

You know, I don't think so. But I actually I became a pretty good scriptwriter. And so maybe that's why I was in typewriting class. So this is through school? I never knew I was gonna use typewriting.

No, no, no. I, uh, it's so funny 'cause I remember being in high school and this is, this dates all of us, but I had to take a typewriting class with old typewriters. Yes.

Manual.

Yeah. Dear Mr. Johnson, I wish to inquire. They would give you these assignments to write these things. 'Cause no one knew that these things are gonna be in a landfill in, in 5 years. You clearly tapped into something, 'cause these kids dare you, start writing, which is an outlet for you. And your parents were supportive, right?

Very supportive. It started off in school. You know, I was real young, like 5th grade. I could do— You know, I could draw real good, so I got my teacher's attention. And then, when it was time to kind of write what you did for the summer, I was able to really, you know, write a nice paragraph for, you know, a 5th grader. And so they end up putting that in the school paper. So as a youngster, I'm running around with this little— it wasn't even a paper, it was like a pamphlet, you know, pointing, look, look, look, my, my little, you know, essay or whatever got, got used.

And you got positive, you know, affirmation. You, you You did something and it was singled out, which is huge when you're that age.

It is. And then they came to me when I went to the 6th grade, they was like, "Do you wanna do a speech for the class? Like, do you wanna talk to your graduating class?" And I'm like, "Yeah, I do." And I wrote my little speech and delivered it and it got a, you know, a nice reception. So I'm like, "Oh damn, I can write it and I can speak it." You know, it's not just stuck on the page. And that I think sparked something in, you know, when hip-hop started to grow. The typing thing came in the 9th grade when I was 14. I was late to all my counselors and shit. You know, you supposed to get your electives. They, "Go to the counselor, get your electives. Go to the counselor, get your electives." I never went. So when I got there, I had shitty electives. It was like typing, cooking, you know? Horticulture and shit. You know, I'm like, ah damn, how'd I? I'm like, I wanna go to wood, I wanna do metal, I wanna do electric.

You wrote so many songs about horticulture. 3 albums on horticulture.

That's probably why I like weed so much. But I learned how to grow it in 9th grade, you know? So, you know, I had some shitty, Electives, but I had to do 'em. So I'm like, I'm always like, if I'm here, we might as well win. Like, I'm not gonna be here not paying attention. I'm gonna get it and I'm gonna try to master it. And you know, you do those little, you know, they put some shit on the board and you gotta type it up, but they want you to do 30 words a minute or they want you to like beat a minute thing. So me and my guy, we like, we should be fucking secretaries, you know? We, this shit is kind of fun. You know, we like, you know, boom, boom, boom. And, you know—

This is just so— I love it. I just love it.

You know, we hitting it. We like, boom. And he's the same as me. You know, he didn't go to the counselors either. So he got shitty electives too. So we like, you know, the only two dudes in this class like us. So we're like, uh. And we beat the whole class, like, you know, and we're just talking. Everybody's still typing. And he looks at me and he's like, you ever wrote a rap before? Like, "Uh, nope. You write one, I'll write one, and we'll see which one's the best." And I was like, "Okay." And I wrote an original rap. He bit all kind of fucking raps. I'm like, "I heard that from LL. That's a line from the Fat Boys. That's from Curtis Blow." Like, "Dude, you cheating." And he couldn't rap it, so mine was way better. You know what I mean?

But a hell of a typist though.

Yeah, yeah. He's a hell of a typist now. But he couldn't write it. I mean, he couldn't rap it. So I beat him, you know, outside of class. We rapping with our little piece of paper and shit. I mean, I know that line, you know? And he stopped, I kept going, of course.

Yeah. You know what's crazy is I've heard you talk about your inspirations, and you said, you know, like me, you're a sponge picking up stuff that's going on in the '70s. And back then, the biggest star in the world was Muhammad Ali.

Mm-hmm.

And I've thought about this many times because I'm obsessed with Muhammad Ali. I've watched tons of the footage on him. He does feel like the first rapper in some ways because he loved poetry and he had attitude and he could back it up. And—

There you go.

Yeah. And so you're tuning into people like Muhammad Ali or Richard Pryor. They didn't necessarily— not necessarily other rappers, but people that displayed an attitude and a defiance.

James Brown too.

Yeah.

Yeah. You know, they were like the first— real-life superheroes in a way. The reason why Muhammad Ali, to me, like you said, becomes the first rapper, because he— it wasn't just rapping in a way. He was like, "I'mma kick your ass in 6 rounds, and by the 6th round, your ass is kicked." So it was like putting his money where his mouth is, backing it up. And so that made everything stick even more. And then you got this super fly kind of culture of just grown men doing a lot of shit talking. And so rapping really is shit talking to a beat. You just kind of shooting the shit, talking shit to a beat, and then you sprinkle a little game in there at the same time.

Yeah. And it's the same thing, which is you gotta back it up. Yep. And— but it's just amazing to me that even, like, early Eddie Murphy, there's a guy who's— he's a comedian, but he's got that "I'm gonna take over the world" attitude, and he's doing it.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah, he was a bad boy too.

Yeah. And you can sort of channel all of that, which is fascinating to me. And I mean, you couldn't have been prepared for what happened when you guys got together, 1989, Straight Outta Compton, and it just changed everything overnight.

Yeah, we was planning to be just an underground, hardcore underground group. Locals, really. Compton, Long Beach, Watts, LA. We thought that was probably, you know, probably the— our nucleus and everything, you know, wasn't gonna be done too far from those places. That was our plan. Mindset 'cause we felt like the music we doing is too hard, too much profanity, and it's too LA, you know, street culture.

Yeah.

So—

Why would someone who's so niche?

Yeah. It's getting more nichey and nichey too. You know, we feel like we're gonna be some neighborhood stars though. Like we gonna run Compton, Watts, Lynwood, Long Beach. Like we running this. But as far as being big as Run-DMC or big as LL and all those super groups that we looked up to, we had no idea we would ever sniff that kind of fame.

Yeah. And it happened fast.

Overnight. It was like an article in the LA Times by Bob Hilburn.

Mm-hmm.

And it just took off from there. Everybody was on us. And we had some singles out, but when we put that album together, it just exploded. Then the record, Brian Turner at Priority Records calls us, "You gotta get up here. You guys gotta get up here." "What's up? What's up? What's up?" "You want us up there?" We go up there. He's like, "Man, did you see this shit? Do you see this?" He's showing us a letter from the FBI. Like, "Man, I just got this, man. And man, you know," "Well, this is crazy. What we gonna do? What we gonna do?" You know? And Eazy was like, "This it? This all they do? They not coming? No batter ram? No fucking LAPD?

No fucking, you know?" You look at it and go, "It's well-typed." Yes. Yes. Scary. That's a corona.

Yeah. Yeah. So we was like, it's like, "What the fuck is he so upset about?" And he's like, "Man, it's the fucking FBI." We so naive. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, man. And then Eazy like, "Sound like publicity to me, man. We should tell everybody they trying to intimidate us." And I'm like, "Okay, you know, long as it's not the LAPD or the sheriffs, I'm down to do whatever." 'Cause those are the ones that really, you know, did a number on our neighborhoods. So we was young, you know, I'm 17, 18 years old, not even thinking that this is a real issue here.

That's interesting that Eazy-E's a fascinating guy that in that moment, he could see, "This isn't a bad thing.

This is a good thing." That's why he's brilliant because he said the music was gonna be big. We said it's gonna be underground. He was like, "No." And we like, "Yeah, nobody's playing this on the radio." He's like, "Well, we gonna do radio versions. Make 'em play." "Take out the cussing." Yeah. "Okay. Smart." "All right, Mr. Eazy, you have something here." Add some acoustic guitars.

A tambourine. See if Michael Bolton's available.

Yeah, yeah.

Let's clean it up.

I mean, and that— I mean, I really love the movie. Of course, your son was in Straight Outta Compton. It's a really good movie. Did you feel that was a pretty accurate— representation, because when you guys hit, you go on this tour. And the tour just looked like the fall of Rome. It's just insanity.

It was damn near that. Yeah. It was damn near that.

Yeah.

You know, with a movie—

And you're that age.

Yeah.

You're that age, and you guys are on this tour and—

Having the time of our life. You know, with all the chaos, we were still— Like we on the same stage as Run-DMC, LL. We actually are on a national tour. Never thought it would happen. So everything after that was gravy.

Yeah.

Part of the adventure. Yeah, it was a crazy time. I forget the exact question you asked about.

Well, just—

About Straight Outta Compton. Yeah. Now, you know, you trying to sum up 10 years in 2 and a half hours. Yeah. So you have to create summaries of what happened. And you're actually making a movie, so you have to have character arcs, and you have to have, you know—

Conflict sometimes that can be summarized in a very simple way.

Yeah.

And we tried to make a universal movie 'cause, like, if you're not a fan of, you know, "A Bitch Is a Bitch" or "Fuck the Police," you know, why should you see an N.W.A. movie? And so, we was like, "Okay, let's make a movie about brotherhood. Let's make a movie about, you know, rags to riches, breakup to makeup, David versus Goliath." You know, all these universal themes wrapped into our story, you know? And that way, we was able to get the public to really fall in love with the characters and— and care for them. You know, even though the characters are actually us. Yeah. Yeah.

But you're doing— I mean, given all those constraints, I mean, I love the movie.

Thank you.

And—

We're proud of it.

And I thought your son killed it. O'Shea, he's amazing.

With a movie like that, there's 1,000 ways to get it wrong and only a few ways to get it right.

Yeah.

You know, and my son, I went to him early in the process and I'm like, "Hey man, this N.W.A. movie look like it's gonna happen." He said, "Man, good for you, man. I'm happy for you." You know, he's playing his game and shit. I need to talk to you for real. He said, "All right, what's up? What's up?" So, I want you to play me. He looked back, he said, Okay. I was like, ah, shit.

You know?

Yeah, he's like, all right, I got it. I'm like, wait a minute, man. You know, it's a process. We gotta, can't give it to you. You know what I mean? You gotta like become an actor. You gotta learn to type there.

Yeah, yeah.

And like audition and, you know, like the powers that be at Universal have to grant you this part.

I'm hearing video game noises while you're telling him all this. Yeah, you know, he like, boink, boink, boink, boink, boink, boink, boink.

You know, I got you. I'm a guy. I said, okay. So I'm like, video game noise. I said, okay, I already opened my mouth. I already opened my mouth. So I gotta make him quit.

Yeah.

I gotta make him say, I don't wanna do this. You know? So now I'm like, get me an acting coach. I want one in LA. Find one in New York. I'm gonna send him everywhere to get better at this and see if he really want it or he's gonna just, At some point he was like, "I don't wanna go to New York." You know? So he met with a couple of coaches and met with the one in LA. And I said, "So how's it going?" You know? He's like, "It's going good." He's like, "Man, me and my group gonna get together. We're gonna do some improv stuff." I'm like, "Okay." You know? He's falling in love with it.

You know?

He's like taking it serious. I'm like, "Well, I want you to—" "Yo, I want you to go meet with this other person in New York." He's like, "When you want me to go? I'm ready." So I'm like, "Okay, this dude is—" And I was happy that he just got bit by the bug and he just started to kind of fall in love with the process. And then I had to convince Gary Gray, you know, when I told him, I said, "I want my son to play me." He was like, "Man, goddamn, Q. I thought we was making a real movie." I said, "Look." I said, "We are making a real movie, man." I said, "He's gonna be great. Now you're gonna help him through this process like John Singleton helped me with Boyz n the Hood. You gonna help him and he's gonna be great." And he was like, "Man." So he was looking at me sideways till the auditions. So now the auditions are here. And my son gotta go. I'm not there. I sent him, he gotta do a screen test. I'm like, "I don't want to have no influence on nothing." Either you're good enough or not.

And he gets there and there's 4 other Ice Cubes there ready to audition. So now he's pissed. He's like, "Y'all trying to take this outta my mouth." So he really turns into Ice Cube and gets the part. Gary calls me, "Yeah, he was the best one. You know, he's good." You know, and they, "Oh, I told you, like I told you, man." You know, and now he's, I mean, he's doing Star Wars, he's doing Godzilla. I can't get those damn movies. He's doing, he's doing, he's doing.

It'd be great if you also auditioned to play Ice Cube, but he beat you.

Yeah, he beat me in, turned me down.

So. He's more Ice Cube-y than you.

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, that's—

you know what's crazy is I was thinking about it. It's not that you dabbled in acting, you've had a great acting career. That rap, the music, which was a phenomenal success, you could have just lived off of that the rest of your life and been thought of as one of the great legends of this art form. And then you look at— yeah, it's Boyz n the Hood, Barbershop, the whole franchise, the whole Friday franchise, Ride Along? Yeah. No, the Ride Along movies, but also, I mean, the comedy you do in 21 Jump Street. Captain Dixley. Yeah, yeah. Which I always loved because I just— Years ago, said someone's got to comment on police captains, sergeants that are always mad no matter what happens. You know? "You two are on my last nerve!" And you were the perfect guy to play that police sergeant. Yeah.

I said, "I want to be the craziest one, though." Yeah, yeah. Like, I don't want nobody to beat me out as the craziest captain ever. The Black, mad captain, you know, who's always beating on the desk. I love those.

I mean, 'cause in the '70s, I watched all those movies, and they obviously went into the '80s too. But just that same thing that you were having fun with in such a great way, but, you know, the cops would always do something amazing. Like, they'd break up the ring, they'd save the day, they'd defuse the bomb that was going to blow up Los Angeles. They'd do all this stuff, and then cut to the captain going, "You idiots! You dented the Buick Skylark! It was community property!" You know? "What?" It's the same thing in Top Gun, actually. The new Top Gun movie that Tom Cruise made, it's Jon Hamm. But I asked Jon Hamm about this. Like, Tom Cruise is just saving the world left and right, and Jon Hamm's always saying, "You listen to me, you piece of shit. If you ever save the world again without our permission..." Love it. Just love it. But you have— I mean, it's— You are so good at being mad in a comedy way.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's— You know, I want to thank John Singleton again. Yeah. Because, you know, a lot of those that, you know, I kind of decided to just take the bull by the horns and produce 'em and, you know, write or, you know, direct or, you know, just kind of get behind the scenes. 'Cause when I was doing Boyz n the Hood, I would meet with John a lot. You know, he would have me coming over watching movies. He would put you through film school, you know, he's like, like Clockwork Orange and all these movies. I'm like, oh damn. It's like, I gotta show you what's a good movie and what's a bad movie and why. And one day he looked at me, he said, when you gonna write a movie? And I'm like, John, damn, man. Come on, man. Like, I'm just now trying to act. Like, you want me to write? I just got here. Yeah. I'm like, you know, I'm still not sure I can act. And he said, you think you gonna get movies good as Boyz n the Hood for you? I'm like, "Uh, bruh, I don't know." He said, "No." He said, "They have no movies for you, Cube.

You gonna have to write your own." And I'm like, "Hmm, okay." And then when I end up falling in love with the process of making a movie, and then, you know, going to his film school, so to speak, I started writing, and he helped me. You know, my first 2 scripts was terrible. And my third one was Friday. That's crazy.

And then there's just so many moments from that, lines that are just part of the culture.

Yeah, that's great.

Which is, I mean, you think about all the different ways, without getting a swelled head, that you've been part of kind of like the history of the culture.

It's pretty amazing. I mean, not being a comedian and having a comedy that's considered a classic and, you know, You know, making, you know, my favorite comedians laugh is like the biggest kick I get out of all of this. You know, having, you know, a person like Eddie Murphy or, you know, Dave Chappelle or somebody be like, "Yeah, love that Friday movie. You know, it's just funny." And I'm like, "Damn, as much as y'all made me laugh and I get to make you laugh a little bit." You know, it's very cool as a fan of comedy. Comedy and comedians.

I was thinking about that today. Like, yeah, the whole movie aspect of your career wasn't really the plan, and it's been massive.

It's been huge. Yeah, I fell in love with the process of just creating on that. I'm like, "Man, there's no bigger canvas for an artist than a movie screen." Yeah. And a movie, you know, 2 hours of, you know, whatever story you need to tell. And I'm like, like, this the place I want to be. Because like you said, the music, there are the skits. We did love, you know, trying to make it sound real, you know, just using audio. You know, we had— they had these little sound effects CDs that, you know, you could buy 250 of them, and it's the same scream that you hear, it's the same car horns, it's the same city sounds, you know. And you were trying to use them and blend them and EQ them to where, you know, the environment that we're in, we're trying to bring it sonically. So to be able to do that, like, visually, sonically, effects, you know, the whole shebang on a screen, I'm like, "Man, I'm there." I go to Outside Land with my daughter, and I see Doechii perform, and she's killing it, But halfway through, they cut—

they cut to this screen, and it's a sketch, and it's like a takeoff on like a sitcom, but it's insane. And it ends with one of the characters being thrown out the door, and it's a dummy. It's one of the funniest things I've ever seen. And then she goes back to being this insanely amazing rapper, dancer. And I thought, this is It's everything. It's great dancing, great, incredible, intricate rap, and then one of the funniest sketches, hands down, I've seen anyone do anywhere. And then she's back into it again. And it's just— Yeah, it's all of it. It's the humor, it's the darkness, it's everything. Yeah. And I think—

And honesty. Yeah, yeah. And I think that's important too. When people know you coming from a real place, they want to see how you package it and present it. You know, they don't want— they don't want you to always stay in the lines. They want you to go outside the lines a little bit. Yeah. Don't be so safe. You've got all these different passions.

You've always been passionate about basketball, huge fan. And then a bunch of years ago, you started this 3-on-3 idea, which is— starts out small, just like anything else. You started out, but you've been working on it since, like, 2017, I think. And now you've got this thing, Big3. It's a 3-on-3 basketball league. It's streaming. Where is it streaming?

Is it Paramount? Right now we're on CBS, Paramount+. I think it's on— FUBO. Yeah.

And explain how— what it's 3-on-3 and who's participating.

We just professionalized 3-on-3, you know. Um, you seen 5-on-5 everywhere, and we're like, man, I had more fun playing 3-on-3 growing up. Like, yeah, why is it in the parking lot? Like, Mountain Dew and Nike used to do these Weekend Warrior tournaments, 3-on-3, and we're I'm like, where's the pros? I mean, like, it's a void in the market because after the Finals end with the NBA, if you're not into those summer sports, you're waiting for the NFL. So there's 3 months of you want to kill yourself, you know.

Uh, I wouldn't go that far.

No, it's true. No, no, I don't know what to do in those 3 months. Yeah. You know, after 40 years of that, I just, I couldn't take no more. You know, I'm like—

So this is, this is, this is, I mean, this is way fans could be watching. And who's, who's playing 3-on-3? Is it—

It's some, some players that used to play in the NBA, former NBA players. Some of these players play in other countries all around the world, and it's just the best of the best at this format. You know, a lot of guys that's in the NBA wouldn't be great at this format because some of those guys are specialists. They're a 3-point guy, they're, you know, defensive guy or whatever. You have to be an all-around player for 3-on-3, like pass, dribble, shoot, defend at a high level, or you gonna get exposed. So we're kind of developing our own athletes that can play basketball on this level And if you look at what we're doing compared to the Olympics, it's night and day. The Olympics feels very amateurish. Well, it is amateur sports, but ours feel more like the NBA, more like a pro experience.

You guys have a 4-point shot?

4-point. How do you get a 4-point? We got 3 4-point circles. So, one of 'em's in the middle and 2 on the side. And if you just have a fingernail touching one of the circles, you— it counts. So, but if you shoot that far and not touch the circle, it, it is just a 3-pointer.

So, so how do you get the 4-pointer?

You gotta be standing on the 4-point circle.

Oh, you can get a 4-point.

Okay. So you gotta shoot from those areas.

Okay. Yeah. I always think of ways to improve a sport. And I used to think the NBA should have something where if you can somehow put a special hat on while you're playing and sink a shot, it should be like a 5-point shot.

You don't know about that. Oh, come on. Stick with the 4-point circles.

Yeah, that's a little bad idea.

Hear me out. Hear me out. I've got lots of ideas for different sports.

What, you still want to hear you out on that? No, no, no, no.

We're good. I think we heard enough.

If you could, it's a hat that if you can access it. Yeah, we got that part. And it's like a fun hat. It's an interesting hat. Is there a hat guy? There's an area of the court where they have a hat on a little table. If you can get that hat on and get the shot off, off and it's in a certain area then it's a 5-point shot okay I also think in baseball you should be able to choose which way you run when you hit the— When You Hit The Ball? You can run first or you can run third once you pick a direction you have to stick in that direction! You have players crossing each other on the baseline this is a better version of baseball if we could add an hat to that no oh no no no no no no I think I saw that one on Banana Ball. Do you play? Definitely not. No, no, but I mean for fun. Serious? No, no, no, I know, I know, I know that you don't play in the league, but do you play a lot?

No, I retired and I went to the podium. You didn't see the— you didn't see me?

I did, I did.

I saw that they lowered a banner. Yeah, all that. So I'm done. Do you shoot around then? I shoot around a little You know, but I kept seeing some of my friends who are amateurs for sure, getting pro injuries. You know, they were like popping Achilles and, you know, tearing knees. And I'm like, who needs this? Like, why would Ice Cube be on crutches? And people said, what happened, Cube? How was you playing basketball?

Do you talk about yourself? Do you talk about yourself? You often talk about yourself in the third person as Ice Cube. It slips out sometimes. You know? Ice Cube wants pudding. Yeah.

Okay, I'll get you pudding. It does slip out, and I kind of catch myself.

I remember when we shot the second remote, we go downtown, and then I think it was your guy's idea that we should get weed. We stop off at a dispensary.

That was your idea, man. Come on. Oh, please.

I would never. No, he wanted to add a hat into it. Yeah, yeah. I wanted to go hat shopping. You and Kevin Hart fucked up that idea. But we, uh— We go, we get all this. We buy so much, and we stock the car with it. And then the remote's over. We end up in a parking lot somewhere. I'm thanking you guys. You know, SUVs pull up. You know, Kevin Hart gets in his SUV. People are gonna leave. I'm talking to my crew. I'm like, "Oh my God, that's great. People are gonna love that. It's gonna be really good." And then I wander back, and someone said, "Hey, where's the weed?" It's all gone. And they said, Cube took it. I'm like, this man, you do, you do blame it on the rapper. You know, you do pretty well. Yeah. Oh, so you're denying you took it? You're denying you took it?

I'm denying I took it. Kev Hart, did he leave first? He left first. Thank you. He left in a hurry. He left in a hurry.

That's true. Okay. I think he said you took it. Took it. I don't know, but that would be like him to say, oh, Cube took it. You weren't gonna take it. Oh no. Yes.

No, I wasn't. No, it's good that it went somewhere. If they had been commemorative presidential coins.

Who took the Martin Van Buren coins? Don't look at me.

Did you say he was gonna sell it?

Was he gonna sell it? If you— why are you looking for the weed?

I would love to see you try to sell something.

Turning tricks on— yeah, while I'm turning tricks. Yeah, buy my weed. If not, I'll blow you. You're going to blow people to buy your weed? That's the incentive to get the weed.

Business proposal.

I'm throwing in the blowjob. That's just— this is a good businessman. You have to have a multi-pronged model. It's your loss leader to get people in the door.

You don't find my weed, I'll blow you.

That's terrible. Come on, why don't you want this weed? I said I'd blow you. Uh, what the fuck happened here, Cube? I don't know. When we get together, it's, it's good, but it's also— this is— no, I'm gonna blame you. I know you took the weed and you got me into this blowjob thing.

No, you derailed it at hats.

Okay, let's just— okay, well, Sona, before we go, you talk all this shit about Cube all the time. Now he's here. So much time. No, there's— there's— why don't you tell him?

What's going on? There's 3 LA natives in this, me and Eduardo and Matt. And the 3 of us, I mean, you— what you've done for LA is huge. And you know what? My cousin from Australia came on his honeymoon, and I said, where do you want to go? Anywhere in LA. And he says, I want to go to Compton. And so we drove around Compton.

Really? Yeah, we really did. It's like Disneyland now.

Yeah, I mean, you know, he's just like— because that's like his— in his mind, that's LA culture is driving around Compton. So yeah, I'm not mad. And you're just a prime—

because, yeah, When you would have been pretty young when Straight Outta Compton came out.

I was, yeah. I mean, I was born in '82, but I was in high school when it came out.

It was huge.

Yeah, it was huge. Well, I was fucking around. Where was I? In Boston? I don't know. It doesn't matter where I was.

You were not listening to Straight Outta Compton.

I was listening to— Yeah, you were listening to some 1920s record that, like, button up your overcoat, wear the windblown street, have a Put on the record. '78. Has the big horn, take horn, cattle will shout, you will belong to me, oh, de, oh, de, oh. I can't wait to meet Cube. You were listening to— I was telling him about my Rudy Valley record collection. Straight out of Brookline. Yeah, straight out of Brookline. It was pretty tough. Someone stole my 5th Izod shirt. Cube, every time I hang with you, it's one of the— it's just a great day. It really is a great day. A, just a phenomenal force. I'm so happy for you. I want to check out this Big 3, so I'm going to start watching it because I do— I really got into the Finals, the NBA Finals. And yeah, now we've, you know, okay, I could watch World Cup, but oh wow, 1 zip, another exciting game.

Lot of running, lot of running, lot of running.

Another play broken up, that's 98 2 plays in a row broken up. Fun's fun. Take it easy. Buy a hat. Now, if they put a hat on. Yeah. But Cube, yeah, so I'm going to check that out. It's Big Three. And excited to see it. And just come on by anytime because we love having you here.

I love to be here, man. Anytime, man. Just—

You still throwing up in your mouth a little bit talking to me?

Little bit, but I'm good. You know what I mean? I just need a Coke before I leave. You know what I mean? Taste buds, you know.

All right, all right, all right, man. All right. If you're listening, I'm sure there is a way for you to access video. Yeah. If you want to check out what's up. Team Coco YouTube channel. Yeah. But you also can just take my word for for it. Yes, everything you're describing is correct. It looks like I just stepped out of the shower. Yes. Yeah, let me explain what happened very recently. I don't know when this drops, but, uh, a little over a week ago, my wife and I attended the grand opening of the Obama Presidential Library. Seems like you're bragging. Okay, it's not a— it's not a humble brag. It's not a brag of any kind. It's just a brag brag. No, it's not a brag. I'm giving the story of what happened. Yeah. I was in attendance, as were many people, uh, much greater, higher, more important people than me were there. Uh, but we were very thrilled to be invited along. What I hadn't realized is that, um, our seats were outside. I hadn't really thought about it. And at the last second, as my wife and I were in our hotel room in Chicago, as we're headed out the door, I think, oh, we're going to be outside.

So I splashed some some sunblock on my face. Okay? We go to the event, we're sitting outside, and I'll just say, in our row, at the end of our row, I see, "Oh, there's Stephen Colbert. Hi, Stephen. Good to see you. And there's David Letterman. Oh, wow. I love these guys. These are great." We're all sitting in this row together, and the clouds break, the sun comes out. It's a wonderful event. Amazing speeches, incredible performances, Now you are bragging.

It has nothing to do with your hair. That's all I'm saying. I'm not bragging.

I mean, I'm bragging on the amount I made. I dropped on this floor.

I know. I don't know.

You're not understanding. All I'm saying is the Obamas threw an amazing bash. There's another— no, but wait, that is all I'm saying is that the former president, the first lady, threw an incredible thing.

We get it. We get it. Oprah was there. Yeah, of course.

Did you talk to Oprah? Uh, no, uh, she— Oprah was very good at keeping me back. Let's just put it that way. As were most the people there. Most people there had security whose only job was to keep Conan away. Had you in a Conan section. I noticed that other people could just wander up to them. Strangers could wander up to them. Um, yeah, and but they're very good. Uh, they're called Conan Bashers. You can hire a Conan basher. Didn't know that was an option. Yeah, and, um, you can get one. Uh, anyway, it's 3 hours plus. And when it's over, I'm so glad that I put the sunblock on, and I'm feeling really good about myself, like, smart move. I walk over and I see Stephen Colbert, David Letterman. They look like they've been playing in a sandbox with plutonium. Oh. Their faces are just bright, bright red. Mm. And I'm like, well, those suckers don't know how to put sunblock on. A day or two later after the event, I feel like my skull is on fire, and then And then 2 days after that, my skull is really itchy, my scalp. And whenever I itch it, it looks like a snow globe.

It looks like confetti. White, white, freckled confetti is pouring off of my head. It's disgusting. I'm like, what is going on? I'm going crazy. And I talked to someone and they said, yeah, you got a sunburn on your scalp, which I'm not used to because I've got so much hair. But this sun just went, blasted right through my hair and it roasted my scalp. And someone said, "To treat this, you've got to rub oil into it." So this morning I rubbed oil into it, not thinking about the podcast, because I'm going to be on camera. And then I come in and I look like I'm in Shanana. I'm a greaseball. I'm just this— And so greasy. Like Frankie Valli. I'm Frankie Valli. Yeah. And so I've got this comb. And you have this comb. I've got this comb, and I've got this— all this grease in my hair, which is weighing my hair down. My hair can't do its normal thing. Yeah. And I'm just like— But I look— Like you're in Grease. Yeah. I look like I want to fight one of you in the parking lot by swinging a chain at you in 1952.

Jesus. Or a little switchblade.

Yeah, dude.

Eduardo, I'm going to come at you with a switchblade. Yeah. But that's how I feel.

But do you feel different with your hair like this?

I really do. I really feel different. I want to— I just want to fight people on the street. I want to get a hot rod and drive it around. I want to get Rizzo pregnant so that Rizzo has a bun in the oven. You know what I mean? You think you're Kanicki? Yeah.

Okay, you're not Kanicki.

Yeah, I might be Kanicki.

You're like one of the—

I'm one of the extra ones. I'm one of the other. I'm one of the Thunderbirds that is easily 55 years old. That's my favorite thing is when you look at still, when you look at still photographs of the Thunderbirds. I know. And it's like, okay, well, there's John Travolta. There's Danny Zuko. And there's Kanicki. Kanicki. And then you look at the other guys and there's two of them that easily look like they fought in a war 30 years ago. No, not him. No, not him. You're not him.

Find him.

He's not Eugene.

No, no, no, you got to find— not Eugene. Eugene is, by the way, Eddie Deezen. That's Eddie Deezen, King of the Nerds. Come on, did you, did you know that his name is Eddie Deezen and he's King of the Nerds? That's who you think you are. You're having a hard time here. You're not who you think you are. We need all the T-Birds. Yeah, just Google T-Birds.

Yeah, but he thinks he's that guy. No, no, I—

yes, and I think I am. Conan, I want to put a cigarette behind my ear. And you know what, as a joke, recently David got me bubblegum cigarettes, so I'm going to put a bubblegum cigarette Behind my ear. There we go. Okay. Look at the guy who is— he's in high school. He's in high school. Yeah. No, he's not in high school. He was— he's a pipefitter who fought in the Korean War. That guy's— I think he's— he's 48 years old. He just had a stent put in. It's unbelievable.

They're like, you think you can play high school?

Sure, I can play high school. Hey, what's wrong with your knee? I had it replaced. We just photoshopped Conan's face into that photo. Oh, I know we should. I'm a greaseball now, and I'm just going to keep rubbing oil into my head until this— my skull heals. I think— what kind of oil is it? What is it? I just grabbed— they said— this person just said oil, so I got some WD-40. Oh, okay.

I don't know. I kind of like this look on you.

Do you really? I do.

I think this makes you look very refined.

Refined? Well, that would be if I combed it straight back.

Yeah, it's sort of Michael Caine in Druaga.

Pretty Rotten Scoundrels.

Yes, it's like, it's like Al Pacino.

We don't have a mirror here because we suck. Um, what? Well, we do. Come on, we've been doing this a long time and there's no mirror. I never get any makeup. We're not a real— Oh, I do my own makeup.

Maybe you can do your own makeup.

So you like this?

I don't hate it. I don't— you don't like it?

I like it. No, it's very different, but it is like, it is like a Conan 2.0. This is undiluted Fat Irish face. This is just big block of Irish face. Come on. I think the hair can at least obscure and soften this. It's very Wall Street, which I think is like against kind of who you are. No, it— no, I think greed is good. No, I am Gordon Gekko. No. Yes, it's Gordon Gekko.

No. In a world of Gordon Gekkos, be Martin Sheen.

Now I'm just a gecko. I don't know. Now I'm just acting like a gecko.

That's why you can never be like Gordon Gekko. No, that's why you can never be like him. That's why this hair won't suit you, is because you do that stuff.

Fix the burn.

I know. When's your hair gonna stop?

I don't know. It's just—

it actually—

we should get it ready. Isn't there like a powder sunscreen we can get for your scalp? I'm gonna order some for you. It's good. No, you know what's called wear a hat. You know who's wearing a hat? Hillary Clinton was up there wearing a hat, and it wasn't just any hat. It was— I mean, it looked like a giant sail on a sailboat. It was a huge hat. She's smart. Yeah, she's smart. She's laughing at me right now.

Yeah, she is. And she's fine. She has no itchy scalp. She really doesn't. But I also— I— it's been long enough. I really don't think that you have to deal with it anymore. Does your scalp even still itch? Like, when I get sunburnt and I do it, my skin starts to— this is my question. It's like a day.

No, this is— I know, that's what I'm curious about. It's been over a week. No. So something's This could be a worse problem.

Oh, come on. Don't do that. Don't get into that hypochondriac thing.

I'm turning into Gordon Gekko. Or if it's plural, Gordon Gek-hi. Why did I force that?

I don't know. Anyway, I'm sure I'm fine.

I just got to oil up this melon. This is an Irish mafia. I got to run. I got to oil up this melon.

Yeah. And I just said Irish mafia and you said oil up this melon.

Got to oil up this melon.

That's not very Irish mafia. And then I got to go see Danny Zuko.

'Cause we're about to graduate high school, and then he's gonna drive me in for my lung transplant. All right, pray for me. Pray for me.

Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend with Conan O'Brien, Sonam Sethian, and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and Nick Liao. Theme song by The White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy. Our supervising producer is Erin Blair, and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering and mixing by Eduardo Perez and Brendan Burns. Additional production support by Mars Melnick. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Battista, and Brit Kahn. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts, and you might might find your review read on a future episode. Got a question for Conan? Call the Team Coco hotline at 669-587-2847 and leave a message. It too could be featured on a future episode. You can also get 3 free months of SiriusXM when you sign up at SiriusXM.com/Conan. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.