ice cube

It’s not all that unusual to see Ice Cube at sporting events. After all, the man’s been famous since his early 20s when he was a member of NWA, and he even runs his own increasingly popular basketball league, The Big 3. But apparently, there are still some sporting events at which you wouldn’t expect to catch the internationally recognized rapper, as seen by the reaction to not only appearing at a Nascar race this past Sunday but performing there as well.

Cube was apparently commissioned for the halftime show at the Busch Light Clash at the LA Coliseum on Sunday (truthfully, I didn’t know car races even had halftimes, so I’m already shocked and confused by this story myself), where he performed hits from across his expansive catalog such as “Check Yoself,” “Friday,” and “You Know How We Do It.” Clearly, though, this wasn’t exactly the audience for an Ice Cube performance, as the audience’s reactions were decidedly mixed.

Online, though, there was as much amusement as bemusement (which actually mean wildly different things, go figure), with fans chiming in to either berate the Nascar audience for not appreciating a musical legend in their midst or demean Nascar for so baldly trying to expand its appeal — likely inspired by the upcoming Super Bowl’s halftime slate of Dr. Dre, Kendrick Lamar, Mary J. Blige, and Snoop Dogg.

It seems the Nascar audience is as reluctant to embrace hip-hop as the hip-hop audience is to embrace Nascar — or maybe, considering the popularity of the sport down South, they just need to tap some more Southern artists the next time around. Just saying, there’s probably a strong overlap between people who love cars and people who love Ludacris. Check out more responses below.