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Tracy "Ice-T" Morrow (born February 16, 1958) is an American rapper, rock musician, author, and actor. He is one of the pioneers of gangsta rap and was also instrumental in creating rapcore. His music represents a meeting between the political awareness of Public Enemy and the hedonism of N.W.A.. In recent years, he is perhaps best known for his role as Detective Fin Tutuola on Special Victims Unit.

Biography

Although one of West Coast rap's leading figures, Tracy Morrow was actually born in Newark, New Jersey. When his parents died in a motor vehicle accident while he was a young child, he went to live with relatives 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 sets of the infamous street gang, the Crips, as a member of one of the Hoover Crips' sub-sets.

Morrow attended Crenshaw High School, where he would become obsessed with rap, often reciting rhymes for classmates. After leaving high school, he joined the US Army, becoming an Army Ranger in the 25th Infantry until 1981. He has stated he did not enjoy the experience, explaining, "I didn't like total submission to a leader other than myself." *

Career

Stage name

Morrow's stage name Ice-T was originally his street moniker, styled after the famous ex-pimp turned author Iceberg Slim.

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").

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 feature 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 "nigger" and "ho", and could be seen as the beginning of gangsta rap.

He finally landing a deal with a major label, Sire Records, and shortly after releasing his debut album Rhyme Pays in 1987, he did the vocal arrangements for Mr. T's motivational children's video "Be Somebody or Be Somebody's Fool." 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-Walks mainstream in other videos via WC, Snoop Dogg, Warren G, and other Crip-turned-rapper artists.

In 1990 he released his classic album O.G. (Original Gangster) which is regarded as one of Gangsta Rap's defining albums. It was also on this album in which he introduced us to his heavy metal band Body Count.

Besides fronting his own band, Ice T has also collaborated with other Hard Rock/Metal bands, Slayer, Motörhead, Six Feet Under. And has also covered songs by Hardcore Punk bands, The Exploited and Black Flag.

Political views

"Killers" in 1984 is probably the first explicitly political single to be released in hiphop; it includes 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 saw 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 racism amongst Blacks on "Momma's Gotta Die Tonight", and he condemned the anti-Korean racism of the 1992 riots on "Race War".

Whilst usually on the political left, he was criticised for misogyny in his lyrics, and this 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 in so far as he believed in equal pay for women and equal rights generally. He argued against the position that a stripper or a model is demeaning women by an analogy with a man who considers a gay man to be demeaning all men by his actions. If the latter feeling is unjust, then so is the former.

The track "Escape from the Killing Fields" made explicit 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. He has even abandoned his long-term opposition to drug use and adopted the gangsta rap cliches of hustling drugs.

The Ice Opinion

In 1994, Ice-T wrote a book entitled The Ice Opinion. The purpose of this was to provide clear answers to questions that he was constantly asked in interviews about his political beliefs, his life and the controversy surrounding his music. It lasted 196 pages, and had an extra 3 pages as a "Pimptionary" of pimp slang. There were ten chapters:
  • 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

Acting career

He debuted as a rapper in the films Breakin' and 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, followed by a notable lead role performance in Surviving the Game in addition to his many supporting roles.

In more current and recent acting engagements, Ice-T plays Detective Odafin "Fin" Tutuola on Special Victims Unit. This can perhaps be considered an ironic role, considering the early controversy surrounding his group Body Count with their song Cop Killer. Another TV series that featured Ice-T was Players. Ice-T also appears in the movie Leprechaun in the Hood.

Ice-T also voiced Madd Dogg in the video game San Andreas and appears as himself in Fight for NY.

Ice-T has also 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 16 Ice-T performed Charles Wright (wrestler), a.k.a The Godfather, and D-Lo Brown to The Ring with his song "Pimpin Aint Easy"

Discography

Albums

Soundtracks

  • Below Utopia: The Lost Score (Noo Trybe, 1998, score to the movie Below Utopia (also known as Body Count), starring Alyssa Milano amongst others)
  • Music from the Motion Picture Judgment Night (1993, song "Disorder" together with Slayer)

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)
  • "Holler 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)
  • "Pimping Ain't Easy" (2000)

Compilations and bootlegs

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

With Body Count

Ice T presents the West Coast Rydaz

  • What Really Goez On (1998)

Analog Brothers

  • Pimp to Eat (2000)

Ice T Presents

  • Pimpin 101 - The Soundtrack (2003)
  • Pimp Penal Code (2003)
  • Westside (2004)

With SMG (Sex Money and Gunz)

  • Repossession (2004)

Videography

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

Selected filmography

1958 births | African-American actors | American film actors | American rappers | American television actors | Crips | Batman actors | Law & Order: Special Victims Unit actors | Law & Order actors | Grand Theft Auto actors | Rappers | Living people | Musical activists | New Jersey actors | New Jersey musicians | Newarkers | United States Army soldiers | Artist-producers | American anti Iraq War activists | Ice T | ترايسي مورو | Ice-T | Ice-T | Ice T | Ice T

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Ice T".

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