Del tha Funkee Homosapien and Ice Cube are first cousins. Both grew up in Los Angeles. Both are West Coast hip-hop legends. But their paths diverged in ways that illuminate the full range of what West Coast rap could be in the early 1990s — and the choice Del made when he left Los Angeles for Oakland shaped the entire Hieroglyphics story.
The Family Connection
Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson) and Del (Teren Delvon Jones) are cousins through their fathers. Ice Cube, three years older, was already a founding member of N.W.A. when Del was developing his rap style. The connection gave Del early exposure to the music industry — he was signed to Elektra Records in 1991 with Ice Cube as executive producer on his debut.
That debut — I Wish My Brother George Was Here — was a declaration of independence from the moment it landed. Del’s style was deliberately unlike the gangster rap template that N.W.A. had popularized: more playful, more surreal, more intellectually wide-ranging. He rapped about topics that were unusual for West Coast rap at the time — video games, science fiction, internal rhyme schemes for their own sake.
The Oakland Move
Del relocated to Oakland, California — his mother’s hometown — and connected with the circle of young MCs who would become Hieroglyphics. The Bay Area underground in the early 1990s was developing its own aesthetic that was distinct from both the gangster rap of LA and the boom-bap of New York: jazz-influenced, introspective, technically complex.
That environment suited Del’s approach. In Oakland he found Tajai, A-Plus, Opio, Phesto, Casual, Pep Love, and Domino — artists who shared his commitment to technical skill and artistic range over commercial formula. Together they built Hieroglyphics Imperium.
Two Different Models
Ice Cube’s post-N.W.A. career took him through Priority Records to film stardom to his own label (Lench Mob Records) while maintaining major distribution. His path was successful by every metric: his solo work is some of the most important in hip-hop, and his cultural footprint extends far beyond music.
Del’s path was narrower but more controlled. He built a collective of artists who owned everything. The commercial ceiling was lower. The artistic freedom was total.
The two cousins have remained on good terms — Del has spoken about Ice Cube’s early support, and Ice Cube has acknowledged Del’s influence on his own musical thinking. Their diverging paths are not a split but a branching: two different approaches to the same fundamental commitment to Black artistic expression.
The Legacy Comparison
Ice Cube’s mainstream impact is enormous and undeniable. Del’s impact is narrower but arguably deeper in the specific communities that care most about hip-hop as a lyrical art form. His influence on the underground — on the MCs who followed Hieroglyphics’ model of independent operation and technical seriousness — runs through decades of American rap in ways that are harder to trace but equally real.
Deltron 3030 introduced Del to millions of people who wouldn’t have found him otherwise. The Gorillaz connection amplified that. But the core audience who has followed him from Oakland since 1991 forms the foundation of one of hip-hop’s most devoted communities.