RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — A sculpture of hip-hop icon and rapper Ice Cube now calls the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) in Richmond home.
The museum announced Monday that it has acquired “Roundel with Boy from the Hood,” a ceramic piece depicting Ice Cube in a black snapback with the word “Compton” and a black shirt. Created by Philadelphia-born potter and poet Roberto Lugo, the sculpture drew inspiration from Italian Renaissance ceramic roundels by the della Robbia family in Florence, Italy, according to a release.
Replacing the traditional Renaissance subjects with Ice Cube, whose real name is O’Shea Jackson, the sculpture celebrates the rapper’s pioneering work and pays homage to his rap group N.W.A. and their 1988 album Straight Outta Compton, which confronts racism, poverty and police brutality, the piece’s description reads.
“Ice Cube’s image from this period, particularly the black cap, has since become iconic and has come to symbolize a moment when hip-hop emerged as a powerful political and social force in American culture,” Alisa Chiles, VMFA’s curator of decorative arts, said in the Aug. 31 release…