![]() ![]() On the basis of the track "Cop Killer" - where he sang from the point-of-view of a police murderer - the record ignited a national controversy it was protested by the NRA and police activist groups. The following year, the rapper decided to released an entire album with the band, also called Body Count.īody Count proved to be a major turning point in Ice-T's career. The tour set-up increased his appeal with both alternative music fans and middle-class teenagers. ![]() Ice-T took the band out on tour that summer, as he performed on the first Lollapalooza tour. also featured a metal track called "Body Count" recorded with Ice-T's band of the same name. "New Jack Hustler" became one of the centerpieces of 1991's O.G.: Original Gangster, which became his most successful album to date. Two years later, Ice-T began an acting career, starring in the updated blaxploitation film New Jack City he also recorded "New Jack Hustler" for the film. Released in 1989, The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech.Just Watch What You Say established him as a true hip-hop superstar by matching excellent abrasive music with fierce, intelligent narratives, and political commentaries, especially about hip-hop censorship. ![]() Power was a more assured and impressive record, earning him strong reviews and his second gold record. Ice-T formed his own record label, Rhyme Syndicate (which was distributed through Sire/Warner) in 1988, and released Power. The song - also called "Colors" - was stronger, both lyrically and musically, with more incisive lyrics, than anything he had previously released. That same year, he recorded the theme song for Dennis Hopper's Colors, a film about inner-city life in Los Angeles. On the record, he is supported by DJ Aladdin and producer Afrika Islam, who helped create the rolling, spare beats and samples that provided a backdrop for the rapper's charismatic rhymes, which were mainly party-oriented the record wound up going gold. Ice-T finally landed a major-label record deal with Sire Records in 1987, releasing his debut album, Rhyme Pays. He also appeared in the low-budget hip-hop films Rappin', Breakin', and Breakin' II: Electric Boogaloo as he was trying to establish a career. After he left high school, he recorded several undistinguished 12" singles in the early '80s. Ice-T used to memorize lines of Iceberg Slim's poetry, reciting them for friends and classmates. Ice-T took his name from Iceberg Slim, a pimp who wrote novels and poetry. While he was in high school, he became obsessed with rap while he went to Crenshaw High School in South Central Los Angeles. All the while, he has withstood a constant barrage of criticism and controversy to become a respected figure not only in the music press, but the mainstream media as well.Īlthough he was one of the leading figures of Californian hip-hop in the '80s, Ice-T was born in Newark, NJ., then moved to Los Angeles at the age of 12. With his music, Ice-T has made a conscious effort to win the vast audience of white male adolescents, as his frequent excursions with his heavy metal band Body Count show. Ice-T's best recordings have always been made in conjunction with strong collaborators, whether it's the Bomb Squad or Jello Biafra. Just as often, he can slip into sexism and gratuitous violence, and even then his rhymes are clever and biting. At his best, the rapper has written some of the best portraits of ghetto life and gangsters, as well as some of the best social commentary hip-hop has produced. Otherwise, this is a hardcore fan's album, and a spotty one at that.Ice-T (born Tracy Marrow) has proven to be one of hip-hop's most articulate and intelligent stars, as well as one of its most frustrating. If you've been pining for the stripped-down, ball to you fall attitude of his debut, go for it. Instead, he macks on about money, ho's, and the game for 16 tracks, and with no sweet beat to latch onto, the results are numbing. T's protégés and guest stars aren't that gripping either and you'd think the Bush Jr. Problem is, "Pray" is the only time the production is excellent and the B-list beatmakers rounded up for Ice-T's comeback seem much less enthused than they should be. "My Baby" is a worthy sequel to the nasty "Girls L.G.B.N.A.F." from his 1988 album Power and the fascinating beat laid on "Pray" is as icy cold as the lyrics. The word-filled and moving "Dear God Can You Hear Me" displays some growth and on "New Life" he sounds suitably reborn. He's still hard - much harder than you'd expect a VH-1 regular to be - and he's still uncompromising with the language and his attitude towards women (ladies, unless you want to learn how to go from "ho" to "pro," avoid this album). Lyrically, the Iceberg hasn't changed much. Ice-T's first solo rap CD since 1999's 7th Deadly Sin is a mixed bag. ![]()
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