Ice T

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Image:Ice T.jpg Tracy "Ice T" Marrow (born February 16, 1958 in Newark, New Jersey) is an American rapper, author and actor. He is one of the pioneers of gangsta rap and was also instrumental in creating rapcore. His music includes a mix of the political awareness of Public Enemy and the hedonism of N.W.A.

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Career

Ice-T was born in Newark, but grew up in Los Angeles. After high school, he joined the Army and served as a ranger in the 25th Infantry. He did not enjoy the experience explaining "I didn't like total submission to a leader other than myself." [1] [2]

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Musician

Ice-T started out with other West Coast rap pioneers such as Kid Frost, DJ Flash, and Egyptian Lover with Electro recordings. Later on, he changed his style and was the first West Coast rapper to be accepted by the East Coast. His song "6'n The Morning" is sometimes seen as the track that triggered the whole gangster rap movement. It was produced by The Unknown DJ, who produced electro funk tracks before and went on to produce Compton's Most Wanted. The song was inspired by Schoolly D's "PSK" and became itself the inspiration for Eazy E and N.W.A.'s "Boyz N The Hood." Ice-T went on to work with Afrika Islam, the man behind the beats on 1987's Rhyme Pays, 1988's Power and 1989's The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech... Just watch what you say.

As the title of this third album suggests, Ice-T was from the start not merely a gangster rapper—although he was one of the driving forces behind the new style—but also used rap music as a platform for social and political activism; Seymour Stein called him "the Bob Dylan of rap." On "Freedom of Speech," Ice-T attacked Tipper Gore for introducing the Parental Advisory sticker. In 1991, Ice T's fourth album, Original Gangster, came out; including raps about child abuse and drunk driving as well as the theme song from the movie New Jack City by Mario Van Peebles, the movie that re-launched Ice's career as an actor.

In 1991, Ice formed the rapcore/crossover band Body Count. Their debut self-titled album contained a song called "Cop Killer", which led to the "Cop Killer controversy". This escalated to the point where death threats were sent to Warner Bros executives and stockholders threatened to pull out of the company. This eventually caused the album to be re-issued with "Cop Killer" removed, and Warner Brothers Records to drop him from the label. He answered the controversy by saying the song was written in character, and that "if you believe that I'm a cop killer, you believe David Bowie is an astronaut." Indeed, Ice-T has portrayed police officers many times in his acting career.

Virgin Records released his next album Home Invasion (1993), a politically-oriented album that featured a new female rapper named Grip and Ice T's longtime DJ Evil E as a rapper himself. On VI - Return of the Real, Ice returned to his gangsta rap roots. His 7th Deadly Sin (1999), one of the first records to be distributed via mp3 before appearing in record stores, continued in this vein.

In 2000, Ice-T teamed up with East Coast rap pioneer Kool Keith from the Ultramagnetic MCs to form the Analog Brothers, widely considered an artistically successful experiment. The same year also brought Ice-T's Greatest Hits: The Evidence. More recently, Ice-T formed a new group called SMG (Sex Money and Gunz) with East Coast gangsta rappers Smoothe Da Hustler and Trigger The Gambler.

Ice-T has written and performed songs for many movie soundtracks including "Big Gun" for Tank Girl as well as title tracks for Colors, Dick Tracy, New Jack City, Ricochet, and Trespass (with Ice Cube.) (He starred in all of them, save Dick Tracy'and 'Colors.) He teamed with Kid Frost to perform "Tears of a Mother" for the film No Mothers Crying, No Babies Dying.

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Actor

Image:Ice-t.jpg He debuted as a rapper in the films Breakin' and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo in 1984, only two years after his first 12" ("The Coldest Rap," 1982) appeared. In 1991, he embarked onto a serious acting career, playing a police detective in Mario Van Peebles' film New Jack City, followed by a notable lead role performance in Surviving the Game in addition to his many supporting roles. He has also appeared in films such as R'Xmas by Abel Ferrara and Tank Girl. He also starred in 3000 Miles to Graceland in 2001. In more current and recent acting engagements, Ice-T plays Det. Odafin "Fin" Tutuola on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, perhaps an ironic role, considering the early controversy surrounding his group Body Count. Another TV series that features Ice-T is "Players." Ice-T also appears in the movie Leprechaun in the Hood.

Ice-T also voiced Madd Dogg in the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and appears as himself in Def Jam: Fight for NY.

Ice-T has also made an apperence on Chappelle's Show as himself presenting the award for "Player Hater of the Year." He was dubbed the "Original Player Hater."

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Name

Ice-T was influenced by and takes his name from Iceberg Slim, an African American pimp-turned-author (and the same inspiration for the stage name of rapper Ice Cube) who wrote an autobiography and many other books. Ice-T wrote an introduction to Iceberg Slim's last book, Doom Fox.

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Discography

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Albums

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Scores

  • Below Utopia: The Lost Score (Noo Trybe, 1998, soundtrack/to the movie Below Utopia aka Body Count)
  • Music from the Motion Picture Judgment Night (1993, together with Slayer, song Disorder)
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Singles

  • "The Coldest Rap" (1982)
  • "Body Rock" (1984)
  • "Killers" (1984)
  • "Ya Don't Quit" (1985)
  • "Dog N The Wax" (1986)
  • "6 In The Mornin'" (1986)
  • "Colors" (1988)
  • "I'm Your Pusher" (1988)
  • "High Rollers" (1989)
  • "You Played Yourself" (1989)
  • "Lethal Weapon" (1989)
  • "Dick Tracy" (1990)
  • "Superfly 1990" (1990) performed by Curtis Mayfield and Ice-T
  • "New Jack Hustler" (1991)
  • "Ricochet" (1991)
  • "Trespass" (1992) performed by Ice-T and Ice Cube
  • "Disorder" (1992) "Judgment Night" performed by Slayer and Ice-T
  • "That's How I'm Livin'"/"99 Problems" (1993)
  • "Born To Raise Hell" performed by Motörhead, Whitfield Crane and Ice-T
  • "Gotta Lotta Love" (1994)
  • "I Must Stand" (1996)
  • "Don't Hate the Player" (1999)
  • "Money, Power, Women" (2000)
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Compilations and Bootlegs

  • Ice-T & King Tee Having a T Party (Rams Horn 1991)
  • The Classic Collection (Excello/Rhino 1993) Exec. Producer DJ Flash
  • Cold as Ever (Blue Dolphin/Hitman/Caroline 1996) Exec. Producer DJ Flash
  • Greatest Hits: The Evidence (Coroner/Warner 2000)
  • The Early Years (2002)
  • Gang Culture (Snapper, 2004) (Ice-T live in Montreux, Switzerland, 1995) (bootleg recording, released and distributed by a Dutch label called Disky and by Snapper/Charly in the UK)
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with Body Count

  • Body Count (1992)
  • Born Dead (1994)
  • Violent Demise: The Last Days (1997)
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Ice T presents the West Coast Rydaz

  • What Really Goez On (1998)
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Analog Brothers

  • "Pimp to Eat" (2000)
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Ice T Presents

  • Pimpin 101 - The Soundtrack (2003)
  • Pimp Penal Code (2003)
  • Westside (2004)
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with SMG (Sex Money and Gunz)

  • Repossession (2004)
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Videography

  • The Iceberg Video (1989)
  • O.G.: The Original Gangster Video (1991)
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Awards

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Note

Although one of West Coast rap's leading figures, Tracy Morrow (commonly known as Ice-T) was actually born in Newark, New Jersey. He moved from Newark, when his parents died in a motor vehicle accident. Still a young child he went to live with relatives in Los Angeles.

After settling down with relatives, who lived in South Los Angeles' (more often referred to as South Central) Crenshaw district, he quickly became infatuated with the ways of "ghetto street life" and eventually even joined in with one of the many Crips sets, an infamous street gang, which took root in South Central Los Angeles. He would ultimately end up taking the street moniker Ice-T after the famous ex-pimp turned author Iceberg Slim. He was a member of one of the Hoover Crips' sub-sets. However, as of 1995, all Hoover sets changed their name to the Hoover Criminal Gangsters (HCG), keeping the original initial. This was supposedly to loosen their ties with other Crips sets, with whom there was constant, deep-seated rivalry.

He also attended Crenshaw High School, where he would become obsessed with rap, often reciting rhymes for classmates. After leaving high school he would join the US Army Rangers until 1981. Then would begin his extremely long career of recording raps for various studios before finally landing a deal with a major label, Sire Records, and shortly after releasing his debut album "Rhyme Pays".

Ice-T is believed to be the first rapper to have ever performed the notorious Crip Walk (or C-Walk) up on stage, in front of cameras sometime in the 80's. This added to his already controversial fame and gave rise to the C-Walks mainstream in other video's via WC (pronounced Dub C, or just simply Dub), Snoop Dogg, Warren G, and other Crip-turned-rapper artists.

All of Ice-T's records on Warner Brothers spell his name Ice-T, while the spelling without the hyphen is more often used on more recent records. His earliest 12" shows the spelling Ice "T", other 12"s use Ice-T ("Reckless") and Ice T ("Ya Don't Quit").

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External links

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