When I was in the 12th grade, I got my girlfriend pregnant. I just got out of school, she was a 10th-grader. I'm a teen parent, and I'm at a point where I'm like, 'Man I've got to do something.'
— Ice T
Every once in a while, I hear somebody call me Tracy to try to let me know that they know me, you know, personally. But most of my real friends will call me Trey, or 'Ice' was basically short for Iceberg. So they would call me - some of my boys call me Berg.
I think singing and acting go hand in hand. Take an R&B singer: one song says, 'I love you,' the next is, 'Baby, don't leave me', the next is, 'If you leave me I don't care.' You have to drop in and out of different perspectives.
Being cool is when you win, you don't get too happy; and when you lose, you don't get too mad.
I think, people look at me, and they say, 'You were very aggressive,' I say, 'Yeah,' you know, and I've made a better life for myself, for my son, so I should reflect that with my music now. I shouldn't still be rhyming like that; that would be me lying.
I think the most successful are the most paranoid. The first thing people do when they buy a mansion is they build the biggest wall you could possibly build around it. What happens is, now you become a target. If I go into the hood, I'm at a disadvantage. They could carry guns. I can't. They can hit me in the face. I can't.
I make an effort to keep it as real as I possibly can.
You have the core hip-hop, which would just be beats and breaks, more something like what you hear with DJ Premier. Then you get into the more highly produced hip-hop, which is something like what DJ Khaled does. But at some point, it starts to get kind of pop.
I started writing rhymes first and then put it to the music. I figured out I could lock it to the beat better if I heard the music first. I like to get a lot of tracks, put the track up and let the music talk to me about what it's about.
Jay-Z is like a rap-savant, he doesn't have to write the rhymes down, he can create complex raps in his head. I mean he does memorize it, he just doesn't write it down on paper. He doesn't freestyle onto the track, it's all thought out.
I think everybody wants to redeem themselves after they've done something that might be considered negative. I don't think anyone wants to go to the grave negative.
My father's family came from Virginia and Philadelphia. He wasn't a brother who talked a lot. He was a workingman, a quiet, blue-collar dude.
I couldn't possibly have lived all the things that Ice-T on the records lived.
If I do a song where I'm angry, when it's time to perform it live I'm not mad, I'm happy. I'm at a concert. But I have to somehow drum up that rage. That's acting.
Military is a great place for a jock. That's the first thing they test you, they test you physically. If you can run, if you can do the pushups, it's not as hard a transition. If you can't do that, you're going to have a problem because they're going to really work it out of you or work it into you.
The right to bear arms is because it's the last form of defense against tyranny.
I mean rappin' to me is easy, it's something you can do over a week.
My father was a dark-skinned brother, but my mother was a very fair-skinned lady. From what I understand, she was Creole; we think her people originally came from New Orleans. She looked almost like a white woman, which meant she could pass - as folks used to say back then. Her hair was jet-black. She was slim and very attractive.
'New Jack City' was a perfect marriage of music and film. They used a lot of musicians: myself, Christopher Williams. People that were popular because of their music were given the chance to act. And the soundtrack was incredible.
When I first started out in music, I was so negative. I was knee-deep in the streets. Then my friends started going to jail. They said, 'Boy, you better start taking this seriously; you got a chance to do something with your life.' That's when I realised I had to focus. The music led to the acting.
My name, my real name, is Tracy. I always thought I was like a boy named Sue. So I made my friends call me 'Tray.'
I think L.A. radio is learning from the Bay. The Bay is a very classic place. Mac Mall, C-Bo, all that stuff, they love their artists, they're old school up there. My first big concert was playing in the Bay; I played the Fillmore.
I'm normal. I just had a different occupation for a while, and when you're in a different occupation, you have to carry yourself a different way. Most of my art is me bringing you stories from that era of my life. My life now is kind of boring.
I think that men need to have a little bit of manism. You have feminism. I don't have a problem with that.
If I'm going to be a jazz player, I need to understand Miles Davis.
A lot of the younger kids now can rap, but they're scared of the crowd. Mastery of that stage is an MC. I don't know if you've seen any great MCs on stage but when you do it's like wow, this is more than the words to rhymes.
I don't feel that rap has been respected as an art form. Because people have seen rappers rap off the top of their heads, they don't think it is difficult.
Redemption just means you just make a change in your life and you try to do right, versus what you were doing, which was wrong.
I was born in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in Summit, an upscale town in north Jersey. There was this tiny area of Summit where most of the black families lived. My parents and I lived in a duplex house on Williams Street.
No, I'll stay Ice-T. This is what got me here, I'm always going to stay true to that. If it weren't for hip-hop I wouldn't be doing all these other things.
The music led to the acting. But movies aren't something you can just will yourself into. Someone has to choose you, and you have to be quite fortunate to be chosen.
I started rapping before anybody had ever bought a car from it. It was truly about the art form and the culture, more so than now, where it's a successful way to make money. Back then you had to be doing it because you liked it.
When you start a business, go for the lowest hanging fruit.
So you don't have to take us too seriously; I mean, we're already intimidating enough on stage.
Because I first made my name as a rapper claiming South Central L.A., people often assume I'm strictly a West Coast cat. But my family was actually from back East. I was born in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in Summit, an upscale town in north Jersey.
Some music comes from a real place; some music comes from your imagination. It's difficult to find out what's real and what's not, especially with the gangster stuff.
I'm in a very good place to make records. Needing to make money off music is very dangerous.
I've evolved, but I'm the same dude, I'm just in a different place. We all change, we all grow. I shouldn't be in the same place that I was 30 years ago; I should be more intelligent, you know.
I'm just disillusioned with the hip-hop sound right now. It's too materialistic. You know, I'm the kind of guy ... I can't do that. If you track my movement, you'll never see a picture of me with any girl that wasn't mine, or my own car. My jewelry, my clothes. What kind of gangsta rapper has a stylist? A stylist?!
Most interviewers are looking for a headline. They're not skilled. They're looking for shock value.
I think when people say 'real hip-hop,' they want it more buried in the streets. They want it more connected to the streets and the grime and the roughness of the streets. They don't want the fluff.
A good emcee will rhyme a lot of different ways. Don't limit yourself.
An MC is somebody who can control the crowd. An MC is a master of ceremonies so not only can you say your rap, you can rock the party.
I have no hatred for cops. I have hatred for racists and brutal people, but not necessarily the cops. The cops are just doing what they're told to do.
My mother passed when I was in the third grade, my father when I was in the seventh, and that's when I was shipped to Los Angeles to live with an aunt.
Ice-T in the music has done some outrageous things.
Hollywood has its own way of telling stories. I was just telling stories that I was familiar with. And it's what I want to do in the future: I want to take my audio cinema and put it on the screen.
I think men, growing up, you have to go through some form of hardship. You've got to harden the metal.
If somebody wants to kill people, they don't need a gun to do it.
As long as I'm around the cats in the hip hop scene, they'll throw me a track and I'll write a rap over it.
