Death Certificate

Ice Cube's second solo album is split into two halves, the Death Side and the Life Side, one describing the state of Black America and the other a way out of it. Mario Castellanos photographed the cover in a morgue, with Kevin Hosmann directing the art for Priority Records.

Cube stands in the shadows, scowling over a corpse laid out on a gurney beneath an American flag. Only the bare feet are visible, and a tag hanging from one toe reads "Uncle Sam." The message was blunt: the album would perform an autopsy on the country that had failed the neighbourhoods Cube was rapping about.

Released on 29 October 1991, months after the Rodney King beating and only months before the Los Angeles riots, the record went platinum and drew fierce criticism for several of its lyrics. The cover's dead Uncle Sam has since become one of the most quoted political images in West Coast rap.