Rapper, actor and producer Ice Cube has addressed the controversy swirling around the lack of diversity in this year's Oscars, saying: "You could get a little more diversity in there."
The 46-year-old star, real name O'Shea Jackson, also said he won't be dwelling on the fact that his NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton failed to be recognised with an Oscar nomination for Best Picture.
Speaking to RTÉ, he said: "I think you could get a little more diversity in there. You look at how the Oscar academy is built, but you know that is their problem. Why should we make it our problem? They have to fix their own house..."
"We feel like if we had a slave or a civil rights movement [film], maybe we'd have got a nod. We are happy with what we got. The movie did over $200 million worldwide, people love Straight Outta Compton, people understand it," he told Ryan Tubridy in a pre-recorded interview for Friday's Late Late Show.
Straight Outta Compton, which was released last August, earned just one Oscar nomination, for Best Original Screenplay, and the film's lack of inclusion in the acting categories and the Best Picture category has been fuelling the #OscarsSoWhite debate. More on that here.
Straight Outta Compton charts the rise and fall of rap super-group NWA
In Friday's interview Cube also said that he is not quite sure how his mother came to give him the distinctly Irish 'O’Shea' moniker.
"I don't know, man, my mother must have had a little Irish thing on the side! I think she really liked the name, how it flowed off the tongue," he said.
During the interview, Cube's Ride Along 2 co-star Kevin Hart shared his own theory about why Ice Cube might have ended up with that Irish name.
"Black people, there is no theory behind the names that we get. What happened? His mother heard it in the background and it stuck. Like someone was playing a game and they yelled out 'Oh Shea'!" he said.
Wherever it came from, Ice Cube told host Tubridy the name stood him well in school and he decided to give it to his first son, O'Shea Jackson Jnr, who plays his father in Straight Outta Compton.
Ice Cube with his son O’Shea Jackson Jnr
"I knew the name was unique, I was the only person in school named O’Shea so everybody knew me. It was kind of cool so I named him O’Shea, my first son, and he has taken the name further than I have," he said.
Ice Cube and Hart were in Dublin on Friday promoting Ride Along 2.
While the Oscars situation was not addressed at the Q&A hosted by Baz Ashmawy, much to TEN's disappointment, we did however get some relationship advice from Cube, who has been married for 22 years - and yes, there was a resounding 'awh' from the auditorium.
"True love [is the secret]. She's my partner, we're into it... It's a thing where we developed a partnership, friendship and we handle our business ourselves and we don't put it out there for the world. It's about us and our family. You keep your business your own, and I think that's the key," he told the audience.
Ice Cube and his wife Kimberly Woodruff pictured together in 2002
"It's about keeping people out of your business and working things out with your partner, with your mate. That's the first step. Then it's really about trying to make sure that you respect each other on all levels, there's no takeovers, like 'You my woman, you do this' you know? It don't go down like that, it's like, 'We're in this world together, we fight this world together and we have our backs together', so that's what it's all about."
Ride Along 2 is in cinemas now.
