Ice-T. US

Ice-T

American Gangsta Rap Artist

Cop Killer

Wiki photo

Tracy Marrow (born February 16, 1958), better known by his stage name Ice-T, is a Grammy Award-winning American rapper, actor and author. He is credited with helping pioneer Gangsta Rap in the late 80’s. As an actor, he is best known for his role in the police drama „Law and Order: Special Victims Unit”.

……….

1997. May 15^th . Budapest small Sports Arena venue.

Ice-T & Body Count

Promoting: VI – Return of the Real (1996, Virgin EMI).

Opening act: Channel Zero (Belgium)

(CZB intro). We didn’t have any of the Major Record Companies in Romania at the time. I got this interview by knowing Dan Panaitescu after the ’96 Sziget Festival in Budapest. He couldn’t put me on the official Press interview list but he let me hang out backstage for a couple of hours in the afternoon. I was hoping that the Artist would get there earlier so I could sneak in and grab some answers from him. The plan worked. I was told when they arrived and I waited on a flight of stairs they had to come up on. I had seen pictures of him and recognized him in his off-stage look (this was a time when I had no Internet access. All I knew about him for the interview came out of early 90’s Bravo Magazines, from Germany). I asked Mr. Tracy Marrow if he would let me talk to him for a few minutes because I had come from another East European country and was not officially on the interview list. He liked that I knew his REAL name and invited me backstage with him and the band.

This was a half time – half legal interview.

CZB: Would you say you have a bad attitude?

Ice-T: Who?

CZB: You.

Ice-T: (long silence)

CZB: What was it like with the Crenshaw High Gang?

Ice-T: What was it like? Shit! It was really different because at the time I was involved with the Gangs; it wasn’t really violent, you know. It was about who you were hanging out with, who your friends are. I was just kicking it with my friends, you know; it wasn’t like the way the gangs are at this point. It was more like a club, you know? So, it was something really fun for me ‘cause I didn’t have a real family. A lot of times the Gang will take the place of the Family.

CZB: You lost your parents when you were a little boy?

Ice-T:  Ya. My Mother died when I was in the third grade. My Dad died when I was in the seventh. I moved to Los Angeles to live with my aunt. So, when I went to High School I got connected with these cats and they said, “you ain’t got no brothers, you ain’t got no sisters, but you’ve got us”. So it was fun, you know, I don’t think people get involved with those kind of things now to do something fun. You know, people that do drugs do it because they enjoy it, and they’re having fun. I was having fun but it turned out to be something very dangerous. A lot of people ended up dying, like my friends. So in retrospect, I wouldn’t advise anybody to ever get involved with the Gangs. At the time I was young, looking to belong to something.

CZB: I read somewhere that you got shot a couple of times.

Ice-T: Ya. I got shot once in a robbery and I got shot once in a Dry Bar. But I wasn’t the target. I just got hit by a ricocheted bullet. So, I know what it’s like to be shot.

CZB: What is it like?

Ice-T: It doesn’t feel good. It feels like you hit a rock really hard, then it feels like someone hits you with cold water, freezing, that’s when the blood starts pouring, then you feel a burn in the actual entry of the bullet. Then you think you’re gonna die; then you start panicking and it’s fucked up, you know. It’s not no joke, you know.

CZB: Why did you choose the name “Ice-T”?

Ice-T: You know, when I was in High School, I pulled a lot of Iceberg Slim’s words, you know, the writer, Iceberg Slim. So, I started getting called Ice-Berg. It has a cool ring to it. It has nothing to do with the trend, just about the way they said the word “Ice-Berg”

Pretty much, if you ask any of my friends, I’m a pretty much laid back, cool individual. I’ve got the potential of being wild, and all that but really I’m kinda laid back.

CZB: How did you hook up with the guys in Body Count?

Ice-T: well, Ernie and I have been friends, you know, since High School. When we went to Crenshaw, he would play guitar, you know, contrary to it being a Black High School, he was a guitarist, playing in the School Shows … Peter Frampton, Isaac Brothers – and just by knowing certain people, we always stayed in contact – and as my career as a Rapper blew up, to be honest …not to many people know this because I don’t say this in interviews. Early when I first tried to make my first rap record, Ernie and the guys were trying to play the background but we just didn’t make a Rap record. (turning around to Ernie, “Remember that Ernie?” Ernie, “What?, No, we didn’t really know what Rap was and he called me up and he said he wanted us to do Rap and I said, what?”) and they had a real big jam session going and we had a buddy called Michael Bivins who said he was going to be the keyboard player but couldn’t play. (Ernie says, “yeah, we were listening to like early Run DMC records. We were trying to figure it out from that.”) …and then we just said Fuck it! And I hooked up with Africa Islam and made the first Rap record but there was always that vibe that maybe I get big enough maybe we’d be able to fit it in someplace. Once it got to this certain point, we said let’s try to make a Rock band because we listen to a lot of Rock music. He’s digging that stuff in the van. We just went for it. Really we just did it jus’ … We never thought we’d make it out of L.A. to be honest. We just did small clubs … and people started billing … and now we’re here.

CZB: How did you react when Warner (Music) kicked you out because of “Cop Killer”?

Ice-T:  No. No. That’s not what happened. What happened was that after the “Cop Killer Situation”, they made it hard for me to record my next record. They never kicked us off, they just said, “we want to check the words”. I just said, “I can’t really work under these conditions”. You see sometimes people won’t fire you, they’ll just make conditions where you can’t really work. I officially sent a letter to them and asked for Release – and they let us go. So, I mean, you know, the rumor’s BIFF. Ya, I mean in a way… You know, for them to kick me off would mean that they wrote me a letter saying, you know, “you’ve gotta go”. Really, they just made the conditions to where I couldn’t work, so we RESIGNED from Warner Brothers. That was like, “Yo!”, you know, that’s the kinda shit that happens. You know, when you’re doing Hardcore music – and I’ve always done it – it’s hard to be connected to a Major Company because we at Body Count know that if Purcy (one of the guys in the band) wakes up tomorrow and says, “I wanna make a record called “I feel like shittin’ on a Muthafucka’s head”, we might do it. We’ve got to know that we can make any kind of record – and Warner Brothers wasn’t the place. At Virgin, they haven’t been fuckin’ with any of the words. Free Speech is important, especially in the artistic environment. When you’re trying to create, you gotta, you can’t feel limitations cause a’ watcha’ are. So that’s why we left but we’re alright.

CZB: What’s it like having drug dealing neighbors?

Ice-T:  It’s kinda cool cause you don’t have to go far to cop (the whole room bursts in laughter). No, I don’t have drug dealing neighbors. I moved to a nice neighborhood; the guy next to me is gay. So, they’re shooting gay videos at his house, or they’re watching them, or I don’t know…on the balcony sometimes… The guy across from me lives in a BIG house and he sells art. I was like, “he sells art?”, but I was like, “he sells art? He must sell a lot of fucking art!” ( I mean I was just playing with the fact that he must be a drug dealer but naw, I mean. That house got bought by the Dude that owns The Club in Frisco. So, no, you probably have more drug dealers living in The Hood than where I live.

This is where the Promoter, who was rather upset, came into the room, tapped his cheek with his finger and said that two TV crews are waiting outside for their scheduled interviews. He also added, “this is not nice”, looking straight at me.

Ice-T: OK. In the middle of our interview, with my Man from Romania, the Promoter … we are one step from whooping his ass … came in and threw my Man out, so, I’d love to keep talkin’ but I’ve got to go. Peace.

I don’t want to have you get thrown out of the concert. …Thank you very much.

CZB: Thank you.

Thanks to Dan at Sziget, my former bosses at TV Satelit (founded in Cluj), and the big guy in L.A., Ice-T, for letting me sit backstage and get this great soul interview.

The article appeared in TV Satelit 14/1997 (28 JUN – 11 JUL), on page 58.

2009 - reality check

• D-Roc The Executioner

played rhythm guitar.
died from lymphoma August 17th, 2004, aged 45.

• Mooseman

the bassist. He was killed in a random shooting in front of a hardware store in South Central Los Angeles on February 22, 2001.

• Drummer Beatmaster V, from Body Count, died the year before I met Ice-T.

I didn’t know at the time. Victor Ray Wilson (February 20, 1959 – April 30, 1996). Rest in Peace.

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www.icet.com

This article was first posted on the Wordpress Blog in 2009.

Photos: RiCo

• The Cover Photo was borrowed from the artist LastFM page and the Portrait Photo is borrowed from the artist's Wikipedia page. No copyright infringements are intended!
• FOTO1: The Budapest crowd. This was the first (and only) time Ice-T played Budapest.
• FOTO2: 1997. Ice-T on-stage
• FOTO3: 1997. Ernie C. guitar
• FOTO4: 1997. Mooseman. bass. *(d. February 22, 2001) Rest in Peace.
• FOTO5: 1997. D-Roc. The Executioner. guitar. *(August 17th, 2004) Rest in Peace.
• FOTO6: 1997. Ernie C. guitar
• FOTO7: 1997. Ice-T on-stage
• FOTO8: TV Satelit 14/97. June 28, 1997 p. 58. The translated Romanian article I wrote for the national magazine I was working for at the time.
• FOTO9: 1997. Ice-T Budapest Gig Pass 1997

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