![]() ![]() And I just gave up hustling completely."īecause every hip-hop artist needs a nom de guerre, "Ice-T" came into being with help from author Robert Maupin Beck III, whose pen name "Iceberg Slim" became Tracy Marrow's inspiration. Do that rap thing.' And that word 'chance' messed up my mind. In an interview, Ice-T recalled his breaking point: "I had a friend who I looked up to, 'cause he made more money than me. Crime paid for a time, allowing Ice-T to take impromptu trips to the Bahamas and collect over 350 pairs of sneakers, but soon his addiction to the high life began to fade. Turning normal teenage delinquency on its head, he later admitted to "acting like I was ditching class when I was really ditching my friends so I could slip back to school." Rap Careerīefore beginning his rap career in the early 1980s, Ice-T spent four years in the United States Army, after which he returned to Los Angeles and took up a life as a self-styled hustler. ![]() Despite disapproval from his friends, Ice-T managed to graduate from high school with good grades. It was there that the sixth grader became involved in inner-city life that would define his career as a rapper and later give him the credibility to become a spokesman against gang violence. And being an only child, I was going through all of it in my own little bubble," says Ice-T.Īfter the death of his dad, Ice-T moved to South Central Los Angeles to live with his aunt. "I was still so young that the experiences of both of my parents' deaths are kind of blurred together in my mind. Just four years later, his dad also suffered a fatal heart attack. ![]() I only have a few specific memories of her, vague and distant, like some grainy home movie, someplace in the back of my mind." He says, "My mother was a very supportive and smart woman, and I know she cared about me, although she wasn't very affectionate toward me. When Ice-T was in third grade, his mother suddenly died of a heart attack. Black and White, they were all cool with one another." All my father's friends, all the guys he worked with, were white working-class dudes. Despite the fact that Summit is predominantly white, I can't say there was overt prejudice in the town, at least not within the adult world as I observed it. In his book Ice: A Memoir of Gangster Life and Redemption-From South Central to Hollywood, Ice-T says of his dad, "He was a working man, a quiet, blue-collar dude. He grew up in Summit, New Jersey, with his parents. The man who would become famous as Ice-T was born Tracy Marrow in Newark, New Jersey, on February 16, 1958. In the 1990s, Ice-T became famous for his controversial political songs like "Cop Killer." The rapper also has a career as an actor, most notably playing a detective on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit since 2000. His talent for rhyme saved him from a life on the streets, and in 1987 he released his debut album, Rhyme Pays. After moving to south central Los Angeles to live with an aunt, he became involved with inner city crime and hustling. It was through the maturation and diversity of Ice-T’s music over the several albums that helped solidify him as a pioneer of gangster rap as he found new and innovative ways to bring the harsh reality of the streets to the ears of listeners in the suburbs.Born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1958, Ice-T lost his parents at a young age. Former President George Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle cited the song as promoting violence against law enforcement officials prompting Ice-T to remove it from the final album. On the album was a song called “Cop Killer,” which gathered attention from the President of the United States at the time. Later, in 1992, Ice-T released Body Count, an album put together with his heavy metal band of the same name. The album was a political commentary that spoke on hip hop censorship. Going even further, in 1983, Ice-T released the album The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech… Just Watch What You Say. In his second album, Ice-T rapped about death and street life, bringing the stresses of inner-city life to the ears of hundreds of thousands of Americans. Gangster rap is defined as being a musical style in which the stress of urban life is told through explicit lyrics over a bass-heavy, fluid beat.
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