Ice T Biography
Summary
"Tracy Marrow" (born February 16, 1958), better known by stage name "Ice-T", and nickname "O.G. (Original Gangsta)" is an American rapper, rock musician, author, former United States Army soldier, and actor. He was instrumental in creating gangsta rap. Much of his music is politically oriented, although this has declined with time. Since 2000, he has played the role of Det. Fin Tutuola on "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit". As of 2007, Marrow resides in North Bergen, New Jersey.
Biography
Although one of West Coast rap's leading figures, Tracy Marrow, son of Solomon and Alice, was actually born in urban Newark, New Jersey, and christened Tracy by his father. Marrow has said that his father gave him a girl's name in order to 'teach a brother to fight.' . When he was a child, he moved from his native Newark to the upscale community of Summit, New Jersey, to live with an aunt, then finally to California after his parents died, his mother of a heart attack when he was in third grade and his father of a heart attack four years later.. After his father died, he went to live with his paternal aunt in South Central Los Angeles' Crenshaw district, he quickly became infatuated with the ways of 'ghetto street life' and eventually even joined in with one of the many sets of the infamous street gang, the Crips, as an affiliate of the West Side Rollin 30s Original Harlem Crips.
Marrow attended Crenshaw High School, where he became obsessed with rap, often reciting rhymes for classmates. It was during this time that he fathered a daughter, Letesha. After leaving high school, he joined the U.S. Army; he has stated he did not enjoy the experience, explaining, 'I didn't like total submission to a leader other than myself.' After leaving the army in 1983, Ice had intentions of starting a career in rap, but he once again became involved in the street life, first as a jewel thief, then later as a pimp. A car crash in 1985 was the turning point in Ice-T's life. He abandoned the street life and focused on rapping.
He was previously in a relationship with Darlene Ortiz (1986-2002), who was featured on the covers of his early albums. During that relationship, which ended in 2002, they had one child together who goes by the name of Tracy Marrow, Jr. In 2004, Ice married swimsuit model Nicole Austin, known professionally as 'CoCo' or 'Sygate'.
Career
Stage name
Marrow's stage name Ice-T was originally his street moniker, styled after the famous ex-pimp turned author Iceberg Slim. In an introduction to the 1996 Canongate Books reprint of Iceberg Slim's 1969 autobiography 'Pimp', Ice-T explained: 'Although I never met the man, Iceberg Slim was to have a profound effect on my career and life... Like him, I wanted to be somebody who didn't just die there out on the streets. I wanted to be able to document some of my experiences, and that's what I've been trying to do in my music for the past decade. I took my rap name in tribute to him, and I've never regretted it. He was a real hustler.'
All of Ice-T's records on Warner Bros. 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", "Ice Skillet", "Slippery Pete") and "Ice T" ("Ya Don't Quit"). Ice-T has also been referred to as 'Skillet' or 'Ice Skillet', a nickname used by fans in his early years, and "Iceberg", a nickname used on the albums "Freedom of Speech...Just Watch What You Say" and "Gangsta Rap", and in the 2004 video game "Def Jam: Fight for NY", where in the story mode of the game, a character based on him says, 'You cannot defeat the Iceberg, punk'.
Music career
After leaving the Army, Ice-T began his extremely long career of recording raps for various studios on 12'. These tracks were later compiled on 'The Classic Collection' and also featured on disc 2 of 'Legends of Hip-Hop'. His first rap was 'The Coldest Rap' in 1982; this was also the first hip hop record to use the words 'nigga' and 'ho,' although few recognize this early record as 'gangsta rap'. His first official 'gangsta rap' record was '6 in the Morning' one of the first gangsta rap records ever recorded. He said he was influenced by the Schoolly D record 'P.S.K.', considered by many to be the first gangsta rap record (as it lionized the Philadelphia gang, Park Side Killers).
He finally landed a deal with a major label Sire Records. Shortly after, he released his debut album "Rhyme Pays" in 1987. On "Rhyme Pays", 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. That same year, he recorded the theme song for Dennis Hopper's "Colors," a film about inner-city life in Los Angeles. The song -- also called 'Colors' -- was stronger, both lyrically and musically, with more incisive lyrics, than anything he had previously released. Ice-T formed his own record label, Rhyme Syndicate (which was distributed through Sire/Warner) in 1988, and released "Power". It was a more assured and impressive record, earning him strong reviews and his second gold record. 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.
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 '80s. This added to his already controversial fame and gave rise to the C-Walk's mainstream presentation in other videos via WC, Snoop Dogg, Warren G, and other Crip-affiliated rap artists.
In 1991 he released his classic album "", which is regarded as one of Gangsta Rap's defining albums. It was also on this album in which he introduced his heavy metal band Body Count. He has released 4 other rap albums since then. His first rap album since 1999, "Gangsta Rap", was released on October 31, 2006. The album's cover, which 'shows Ice T lying on his back in bed with his ravishing wife's ample posterior in full view and one of her legs coyly draped over his private parts,' was considered to be too suggestive for most retailers, many of which were reluctant to stock the album. Some reviews of the album were unenthusiastic, as many had hoped for a return to the political raps of Ice-T's most successful albums.
Besides fronting his own band, Ice-T has also collaborated with other hard rock and metal bands, such as Icepick, Slayer, Motörhead, Metallica, Pro-Pain, Black Sabbath, Six Feet Under. He has also covered songs by hardcore punk bands such as The Exploited, Jello Biafra, and Black Flag.
Acting career
Ice-T debuted as an actor 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' feature film "New Jack City", gang leader King James in "Trespass" (1992), followed by a notable lead role performance in "Surviving the Game" in addition to his many supporting roles, such as J-Bone in "Johnny Mnemonic" (1995), and the marsupial mutant T-Saint in "Tank Girl", 1995. Ice-T was also interviewed in the Brent Owens documentary "Pimps Up, Ho's Down", in which he is quoted as saying 'I can't act, I really can't act', and raps at the Players Ball.
In 1995 he had a recurring role as vengeful drug dealer Danny Cort on the television series "New York Undercover", which was co-created by Dick Wolf. In 1997, Ice-T co-created the short-lived series "Players", which was produced by Wolf. These two collaborations led Wolf to add Ice-T to the cast of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit", where the rapper has portrayed a former undercover gang member, transferred to the Special Victims Unit, Detective Fin Tutuola since 2000. Ice-T also appeared in the Law & Order universe as pimp Seymour 'Kingston' Stockton in Exiled: A Law & Order Movie. His participation in this show is ironic, given the early controversy surrounding his group Body Count with their song 'Cop Killer'. Ice-T also appears in the movie "Leprechaun: In the Hood". He once was presenter on Channel 4's "Baaadasss TV".
In 1999, Ice-T starred in the HBO movie "Stealth Fighter" as a United States Naval Aviator who fakes his own death, steals a F-117 stealth fighter and threatens to destroy United States military bases. This movie is often criticized for its poor script, military inaccuracies, and significant use of footage from other movies.
Ice-T voiced Madd Dogg in the video game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" as well as Agent Cain in Sanity: Aiken's Artifact. He also appears as himself in "Def Jam: Fight for NY" and "UFC: Tapout" fighting video games.
Ice-T made an appearance on "Chappelle's Show" as himself presenting the award for 'Player Hater of the Year.' He was dubbed the 'Original Player Hater.'
At WrestleMania 2000, Ice-T performed his song 'Pimpin Ain't Easy' during The Godfather and D'Lo Brown's entrance.
In 2007, he appeared as a celebrity guest star on the MTV sketch comedy show "Short Circuitz".
Political views
Ice-T's 1984 single 'Killers' included comments on the death penalty, on nuclear war and on gang warfare. In 1986, 'Squeeze the Trigger' was a seven-minute long political release by Ice-T, which later appeared on 'Rhyme Pays'. Ice-T's career has seen comments on racism, police brutality, domestic violence, drug abuse, alcoholism, prison conditions, war and censorship. He was one of the very few rappers to condemn homophobia on tracks like 'Straight Up Nigga' and 'The Tower'. He also condemned anti-white bigotry amongst blacks on 'Momma's Gotta Die Tonight', and he condemned the anti-immigrant racism of the 1992 Los Angeles riots on 'Race War'.
In an interview with Ice-T by legendary musician and television and film producer Edmund Darris for his L.A. Hip-Hop show Street Vibe 95, Darris asked Ice-T what his greatest contribution the American Pop Culture might have been. Ice -T pointed out that he was the first black man to let America know that he was not in the public eye to smile or be an Uncle Tom, but to let America know that he was angry about the lives that blacks lived and the things that they were being subjected to. He also stated that he was the only person that stood up to the racist politicians and government pundits who tried to use rap music as an excuse for the deterioration of American society.
He has voiced theories regarding the involvement of the CIA in drug trafficking on tracks such as 'This One's for Me' and 'Message to the Soldier', and in sections of his book.
Although usually on the political left, he was criticized for misogyny in his lyrics, and this has deterred some liberals from supporting him. The track 'I Always Wanted To be a Ho' has sometimes been interpreted as a break with this failure to oppose sexism; it begins by encouraging women to follow their dreams. In "The Ice Opinion", he claimed that he was a feminist insofar as he believed in equal pay for women and equal rights generally. He argued against the position that being a stripper or a model is demeaning to women by an analogy with a man who considers a gay man to be demeaning all men by his actions, arguing that if the latter feeling is untenable, the former is as well.
The track 'Escape from the Killing Fields' expressed a difference in views from rappers like Chuck D and Ice Cube in that Ice-T did not see any virtue in staying in the ghetto, but rather encouraged Black people to leave the ghetto. The last track on "O.G. Original Gangster" is a spoken-word opposition to the Gulf War and to poor conditions in prisons. After "Born Dead" in 1994, Ice-T's music has contained much less political commentary than before.
In 1994, Ice-T wrote a book titled "The Ice Opinion: Who Gives a Fuck?". The purpose of the 199-page book was to respond to questions about his political beliefs, his life and the controversy surrounding his music. Having often voiced controversial statements about corruption, he goes into detail about his suspicions of police/CIA involvement in drug trafficking and of how certain businesses profit from prison-building. The ten chapters are:
The Jungle Creed
The Killing Fields
Crime and Punishment
Men, Women and Sex
Rap: the art of Shit Talkin'
Religion: One Percent Nation
Racism
Riots and Revolution
The Controversy
The Future / No Fear
Discography
1987: "Rhyme Pays"
1988: "Power"
1989: "The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech...Just Watch What You Say"
1991: "O.G. Original Gangster"
1993: "Home Invasion"
1996: "VI - Return of the Real"
1999: "The Seventh Deadly Sin"
2006: "Gangsta Rap"
External links
(The Full biography on the Coldest Rapper - Ice-T) authored by Balance: 411@hiphop.sh*** ( Westcoastpioneers Biography page) * (Ice-T on the Music-Map) * (Discography at discogs.com) * (Ice T - Rap Encyclopedia) * (Ice-T's Cyber Judge Show On JumpBoxTV) * (TheCyberKrib.com) - Interview by Neil Acharya
Credit
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article about Ice T.
