MyPremo’s Cody McDowell Talks Ice Cube Partnership: ‘When He Decides to Go… He Goes Hard’

Ice Cube completes an unlikely transition from outta Compton to MyPremo, a Perth-based tech startup.

The Rock Hall-inducted N.W.A rapper, producer and entrepreneur is partnering with the Australia-formed content monetisation platform, and is expected to use his influence to bring artists and content creators into its orbit. 

Cube’s role is a broad one, MyPremo co-founder Cody McDowell tells The Music Network.

“He is providing first-hand knowledge that comes with being in the music business for over 30 years. He knows what artists need and having his guidance in product development is crucial for us.”

Cube is, as his compatriots are known to say, a triple threat.

“He isn’t just a Rock And Roll Hall of Famer. He is a Hollywood Hall of Famer and a basketball Hall of Famer,” enthuses McDowell. “Nobody else has been inducted into all three of these halls of fame, ever.”

Founded in 2020 by McDowell and James Gillies, MyPremo enables artists to keep 80% of all money earned from their works. Creators can use MyPremo as a “Link in Bio” tool on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook, to direct their followers to anywhere they are online.

And if a user refers a friend or colleague to use the platform, they earn an additional 5% of that creator’s revenue, for life, according to a statement.

Ice Cube

With Cube on board, “We are in business with once in a generation type of person,” says McDowell. The hip-hop pioneer “will be actively speaking to the music community but also the film and sporting community. This includes the biggest names at the top of each of these industries.”

A touch of luck and good timing connected Cube (real name O’Shea Jackson Sr.) with the Australian business, which has the ambitious goal of “disrupting” the inequitable flow of streaming payments.

McDowell was in Los Angeles chatting about his business in a studio with another artist. That conversation was overheard, and Cube was linked-up.

On returning home, McDowell got a message that the hip-hop legend wanted to meet and talk, which they did on the sidelines of a basketball court in Las Vegas, for Cube’s BIG3 basketball draft and combine.

A question was put to Cube, “if you had a really cool 5-minute video where would you go right this second to upload it and sell it to your fans?” Cube didn’t have an immediate answer, McDowell explains. And this is where the talks got “really interesting.”

Ice Cube and Cody McDowell

Numbers were exchanged, and over six months a relationship was built. “Ever since then we have continued to grow the platform and vision together,” McDowell continues. “Cube is a very calculated mover. Very meticulous. But when he decides to go, he goes. And he goes hard.”

Ice Cube and N.W.A was inducted into the Rock Hall in 2016, a year after the release of the biopic Straight Outta Compton, which traced the early, trailblazing days of the west coast hip-hop act.

Cube has put an undisclosed investment into the new business, notes McDowell. How big a stake? “He will not want to see MyPremo fail.”