Ice Cube performs during Toronto's Festival of Beer at Bandshell Park on July 28.

Ice Cube performs during Toronto's Festival of Beer at Bandshell Park on July 28.

In the hierarchy of Black male hairstyles that capture the complex duality of his position in America, none is higher than the Jheri curl. By itself, the hairstyle is a chemical manipulation of one’s God-given curl pattern that creates luxurious, flowing curls. During the 1970s and the late ’80s, Jheri curls were the preferred hairstyle of West Coast gang members, making the mashup of stern-faced violence and soft (possibly even moist), flamboyant curls strange bedfellows. The dichotomy was an opulent disturbance, a menacing luxuriousness. A juxtaposition of wealth framed by violence — both impending and imagined.

A beautiful mess.

Ice Cube and Tucker Carlson are jumbo shrimp. 

They are amazingly awful. They are icy hot. 

Carlson is the Jheri curl on top of Ice Cube’s head. 

It makes no sense. And yet here we are, in the year of our Lord Beyoncé, with the sentient soggy boat shoe and the man who gave us “Fuck tha Police” joining forces to vibrate over their nonconformity.