Author Topic: Ice-T  (Read 1320 times)

Gatz N Rozes

Ice-T
« on: August 05, 2020, 08:13:30 AM »
in the game since tha 80s. influencial, controversial. reppin real hip hop. coast 2 coast. doesnt need big names to make n sell good music. eventhough hes still active he gets overlooked & underrated.
"return of the real" is my fav alvum by iceberg.

discuss

 

doggfather

Re: Ice-T
« Reply #1 on: August 05, 2020, 10:11:19 AM »
he is in my top 10. my 1st rap album ever was og original gangster.

this was the 1st i heard, and one of the 2st cds i bought!
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HELP

I'm an ol' school collecta from the 90's SO F.CK DIGITAL, RELEASE A CD!

RIP GANXSTA RIDD
RIP GODFATHER
RIP MONSTA O
RIP NATE DOGG
RIP BAD AZZ
 

Sccit

Re: Ice-T
« Reply #2 on: August 05, 2020, 10:38:05 AM »
legend

The Predator

Re: Ice-T
« Reply #3 on: August 05, 2020, 02:44:04 PM »
Still got both video tapes...

The Iceberg Video Film (1989) -



O.G. VHS (1991) (Click on video for full playlist)



Remember Darlene on the Power covers?


« Last Edit: August 05, 2020, 03:00:25 PM by The Predator »
 

Jay_J

Re: Ice-T
« Reply #4 on: August 05, 2020, 04:41:19 PM »
to me he is the godfather of west coast hip-hop.

he is one of true legends in the game.

but he is a retired rapper. he is still active with body count but he ain't rapping anymore. and its very sad while he is still able to sing and produce music.

my favorite ice-t album is "7th deadly sin"
 

Gatz N Rozes

Re: Ice-T
« Reply #5 on: August 05, 2020, 05:16:41 PM »
to me he is the godfather of west coast hip-hop.

he is one of true legends in the game.

but he is a retired rapper. he is still active with body count but he ain't rapping anymore. and its very sad while he is still able to sing and produce music.

my favorite ice-t album is "7th deadly sin"

new york, new york was my xxxx

7th deadly sin was dope..

havent checked gangsta rap (sick cover though)
 

Elko.

Re: Ice-T
« Reply #6 on: August 05, 2020, 09:47:00 PM »
A pioneer of West-Coast hip-hop. My first CD was O.G. Original Gangster and I was hooked.

Definitely one of the few forefathers of Gangsta Rap.
 

Gatz N Rozes

Re: Ice-T
« Reply #7 on: August 05, 2020, 11:24:37 PM »
ice-t is kinda like pac. keeps his circle close but pushes out good music still. ice t said: i can make a song w my gardener & it will sound fresh. meaning he has his own team & doesnt need big names on his cd.

p.s. afaik he really did a song w his gardener.
 

Jay_J

Re: Ice-T
« Reply #8 on: August 06, 2020, 03:20:17 AM »
to me he is the godfather of west coast hip-hop.

he is one of true legends in the game.

but he is a retired rapper. he is still active with body count but he ain't rapping anymore. and its very sad while he is still able to sing and produce music.

my favorite ice-t album is "7th deadly sin"

new york, new york was my xxxx

7th deadly sin was dope..

havent checked gangsta rap (sick cover though)

unfortunately gangsta rap album was a shame. its like he had some leftovers and wanted to release them like lost tapes.

but as u said 7th deadly sin was dope. people doesn't count it in his best albums and i don't know why.

before his music was based on breakbeats and music was behind, rap was front. 7th deadly sin and return of the real were his best albums musically which rap was no longer too front of all and very balanced. he was a good duo with dj ace. like how 2pac and jhonny j was.
 

The Predator

Re: Ice-T
« Reply #9 on: August 06, 2020, 05:25:13 AM »
A freind of mine had the Iceberg t-shirt, i still got my O.G. one.




Quote
Ice-T's O.G. Original Gangster Revisited

With his plain speaking, crisp production and fearsome focus, Ice-T was hugely influential

years on from his finest on-record hour, Ice-T sometimes looks like a hip hop underachiever. While politically contentious, he never seemed to command the news media like Chuck D; despite being a gangsta rap pioneer, you always got the sense he was maybe a bit tamer, a bit less parent-threatening, than NWA or Cube. Never a dynamic poet, never a west coast Rakim, nor a freewheeling master rap stylist a la Busta or Slick Rick, his name tends to get left out when true-school heads or rock-crit listmakers gather to anoint and appoint the approved membership list of the all-time hip hop canon. Even the former Treacherous Three leader Kool Mo Dee, in his 2003 book There's A God On The Mic: The True 50 Greatest MCs, which used an evidence-based empirical methodology to assemble a somewhat scientific list of the best of the best, only found room for him at No 35 - ahead of Lil' Kim and Kurrupt, but ten places below Heavy D. Without wishing to disrespect the Overweight Lover, even he would surely agree that that doesn't sound quite fair.

Ice's intermittent involvement in hip hop music-making from 1993 onwards meant he was absent from the fray as hip hop took over - and morphed into - mainstream pop. His public profile today is dominated by his small-screen acting career and his evident enjoyment of the life of a modern celebrity: his latest vehicle is a reality TV show with his former underwear model wife. A natural adept at social media, even the Twitter feed ostensibly written by his dog now has over 16,000 followers. It's easy to see how he's become a kind of sideshow, but that doesn't mean we have to accept that he should be denied his place at hip hop history's high table. Yet his fourth LP - a masterpiece, though usually only acknowledged as a personal milestone in the Ice-T discography rather than as a high-water mark for the genre as a whole - goes some way to explaining why.

By 1991, Ice-T wasn't quite the star he would soon become - his first three LPs had all sold over half a million copies in the US, which put him on a similar level to an EPMD or a pre-'Walk This Way' Run DMC. The people buying his records were still primarily hip hop fans, not the disaffected rock audience in need of some new sources of righteous rage he'd begun to court and would successfully cultivate over the next couple of years. Nor was he yet the cause celebre of the anti-censorship left - he didn't really end up in the eye of that particular storm until the beginning of 1993. Yet both those future paths are, in retrospect, clearly mapped out here.

It's an album that ought therefore to feel transitional, but O.G. is notable for its focus and clarity, its lyrical and production precision, and its maker's indomitable sense of both presence and permanence. And it's here that the first clue can be unearthed as to Ice's mysterious omission from the pantheon of the GOATs. He was among the first rappers signed to a major - and definitely the first from LA (though born in New Jersey, he moved West as a pre-teen), and his records always sounded... different. Even when he was using the standard rap sample source palette - and there's as much James Brown and P-Funk on this album as on any late-Golden Age New York elpee - there's a sheen and a gloss to the production that set it apart. Where New York rap was dark and grimy, Ice and his long-time production cohort Afrika Islam took the same sonic elements and dragged them out into the bright light of the California day. It's hip hop, but there's no place to hide: the sounds are all clearly defined, starkly illuminated, clean and distinct, almost separated in the mix as if being held up for examination using forceps and surgical gloves. This approach would prove profoundly, hugely influential - you can hear its echoes in Dr Dre's search for sonic perfection, and the crispness of O.G.'s production sounds entirely normal in today's digitally polished era - but at the time, it seemed a little odd, perhaps a little ersatz; as if it was hip hop filtered through the major label machine, and therefore maybe it seemed a little less raw, and its provenance suggested it was a tad less authentic.

Just like the music, Ice's raps favoured clarity - both aural and intellectual. Just as their sound was crisp and precise, so their meanings were never meant to be hidden. The listener wasn't supposed to have to work at getting to the crux of what an Ice-T song was about. The conventional measures of a great emcee aren't much help when assessing these raps' success or failure: Kool Mo Dee gives his lowest scores to Ice in the categories of Battle Skills, Freestyle Ability and Flow, and in his notes on Poetic Value, Mo Dee kills with kindness. "He doesn't actually do poetry," he writes, "but he approaches it poetically." This, too, has probably cost him a few places in the all-time lists, particularly those compiled by rock crits who, as a type, tend to prefer the obscure to the obvious and prize the occluded or occult over the plainly spoken, and assume those who mumble artfully must be profound, not just pretending. There are no guessing games to be played here: everything is easy to grab hold of.

Yet while that may suggest a lack of depth, the opposite is in fact true. O.G. benefits from a conceptual thoroughness that imbues the bleak subject matter with the timelessness of epic tragedy. It's a profoundly moral record, with pretty much every track working as a cautionary tale or redemptive testimony. At first glance, 'New Jack Hustler' is bullish bravado from a low-level crime lord, but it's as acute and nuanced an investigation of how political imperatives and social conditioning fuel the drug crime industry as any scholarly paper or lobbyist's briefing could have concocted. The story told in 'Midnight' ends with the cops kicking down his door; 'Escape From The Killing Fields' exhorts gang members to break the mental chains binding them to their inner city prisons; the last proper track, 'The Tower', closes the album in the only situation a survivor of drug wars is likely to end up, choices reduced to deciding which gang to side with in jail. Even the lighter moments come with barbs: 'Lifestyles of the Rich and Infamous' doesn't celebrate the rap star existence, preferring to focus on the work that goes in behind the scenes. Gangsta rappers before and since have viewed the sub-genre as a means to simply describe the crime life: Ice-T looked for meaning in the madness and when he lit upon it he wrote about it with no little wit and considerable power. There are many protagonists in these songs, but few unmistakable heroes or villains.

For all that his peers may dismiss his poetic gifts, and even if he was never a virtuoso wordsmith up there with the handful of unarguably next-level lyricists, there are moments of brilliance in these songs, each one the more effective for its ability to shine brightly in its context. 'New Jack Hustler' does this with the same brutal efficiency that the character he inhabits in the song constructs his crime empire: "I got nothin' to lose, much to gain/ In my brain I got a capitalist migraine" is as vivid an image as any in New Jack City, the film the song was the theme for (and which Ice starred in). In the majestic title track - which rendered a written autobiography so redundant that he was able to construct his first book (The Ice Opinion, 1993) as a series of thematically separate socio-political critiques - he finds a way of explaining his content (and its terrifying inevitability) that evokes myths or fairytales to burn its way into the listener's mind: "I try to write about fun and the good times/ But the pen yanks away and explodes and destroys the rhyme."

Best of all, these skills are deployed in the service of a greater good. While his previous, third album, The Iceberg, was largely an exercise in baiting Tipper Gore's Parents Music Resource Center (it even went so far as to feature a guest appearance from Jello Biafra, cannily opening Ice up to fans of highly politicised punk rock while only confusing, not alienating, his core constituency), O.G. refined the process. These are songs that could only have been written by the shrewdest of political operators. Realising early that his censorious opponents were incapable of distinguishing between medium and message, Ice took a momentous decision. He opted to become the monster they wished to paint him as, because he realised that from inside that new persona he would be better placed to fight back. Hence 'New Jack Hustler' and its peerless critique of how drug crime and political expediency have a co-dependent relationship (for an excellent deconstruction of this track, read Steve Huey's Allmusic entry); hence the title track and its patient deconstruction of the purpose of political hip hop; hence 'Bitches 2', an explanation of the use of language and a defence of an American citizen's constitutional right to freedom of expression.

This - the concept, and the making of O.G. both - also led to the formation of Body Count, the metal band Ice assembled not as a collision of rock and rap, but as a different kind of outlet for the same politicised fury. They appeared here for the first time, on the track of the same name, but briefly became Ice's principal musical focus. The furore caused by 'Cop Killer', a track from their debut album, released in 1992, brought Ice to the brink of catastrophe - dropped, regretfully, by Warners after pro-gun lobbyist and one-time Voice of God, Charlton Heston, turned up at a shareholder meeting to read out its lyrics as part of a campaign accusing Ice of supporting the murder of police officers - but it's hard not to see it in retrospect as a grand plan that, if anything, went a bit too well. That demon he'd built on O.G., the one who could speak truth to power only by becoming the establishment's biggest bugbear, would take over his working life. (And if you're looking for further confirmation of Ice's influence, consider that, while rap had always placed the rapper at the centre of the art, nobody before had managed to turn hip hop into a tool for launching pre-emptive attacks on outsiders. Eminem built a multi-million-dollar brand out of the same tactic.)

The Body Count controversy made him a First Amendment poster child; people who would otherwise have shunned his music for formal reasons or his lyrics for their apparent -isms found they had no choice but to support him. Body Count played Lollapalooza; Ice's face began appearing on the cover of magazines that didn't normally feature rappers prominently, if at all. His stock among non-rap fans soared, and his fifth hip hop LP - the 1993 independent release Home Invasion - gave him the last word on the episode. "Find me Charlton Heston and I might cut his head off," he snarled on opening track 'It's On', before spilling the beans on the title cut. Underlining the message behind the sleeve art imagery (a white teen listening to rap on headphones), Ice was able to pronounce himself victor in his career-long campaign of subversion: "I'm takin' your kids' brains - you ain't gettin' 'em back." Here he was, this demon created in the image of his opponents' fears, finally able to make off with their children's hearts and minds like a latterday rapping Pied Piper, solely because their attempts to shut him up had given him sufficient power. Whether he's considered one of the all-time rap greats is irrelevant next to the dispensation of such beautifully poetic justice.

Quote
Revisits: Ice-T – The Iceberg/Freedom Of Speech… Just Watch What You Say!

Ice-T, of course, has explored, stretched, the concept of freedom of speech throughout his career. Especially in the song, “Cop Killer”, with his rock band, Body Count, which was withdrawn from subsequent copies of their self-titled debut in 1992.

His album, The Iceberg/Freedom Of Speech…Just Watch What You Say!, is 27 years old as of Monday, October 10, and, preceding that song by a few years, was the genesis of a harder edged style for the rapper. This coming from a rapper whom, two albums previous, Rhyme Pays, had already birthed, arguably, gangsta rap with breakout track, “6 ‘N The Morning”.

Charting-wise the album reached thirty-seventh on the US Billboard 200, and eleventh on the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums (Billboard). The album cover, featuring what appears to be a cartoonish version of Ice with a shotgun shoved in his mouth, and two pistols pressed inside each ear, is explained as follows, “’Go ahead and say what you want. But here comes the government and here come the parents, and they are ready to destroy you when you open your mouth’”.

The shocking “Shut Up, Be Happy”, featuring Jello Biafra, opens with heavy rain and the toll of a bell. This’s a sample of Black Sabbath’s “Black Sabbath”, as the ensuing guitar and drum confirm. The aforementioned cameo, of Dead Kennedys fame, appears as the voice of a totalitarian American military state. Basically this is black rap political conscience married with that of a, at times, very similar, yet largely white, punk ethos.

“The Iceberg” is quite a funky one, quite at odds with the album opener. This appears to start where “I’m Your Pusher” (from previous effort, 1988’s Power) left off, educating the music consuming public on what’s worth listening to, and what’s not. Yes, as it develops, it’s laidback, but you could suppose it has an element of social commentary maybe not totally at odds with the opener.

On point “Lethal Weapon” is a bit more like it. High octane and ominous, very much suiting its name, it has chopped up samples of Rakim, who, it turns out, is in similar ferocious form. “My lethal weapon’s my mind” is hardcore lyricism yet acknowledging he isn’t, strictly, a gun toting gangster. The fadeout has some brooding percussion, as Ice tells us the power of brain power.

Brilliant track, “You Played Yourself”, is easily one of the most classic songs in Ice’s entire discography. You daresay Jeru Tha Damaja found inspiration with his similar named track in 1996 (“Ya Playin’ Yaself”). He mixes hardcore delivery and ferocity with uplifting raps about staying in school and the like. He also seems to take aim at rap artists who become as such that they think they’re bigger than their fans, the ones who put them in that elevated position in the first place.

“Peel Their Caps Back” is moody, harking back to the sounds the album opened on. As such, it’s one of this reviewer’s favourite hidden gems regarding Ice’s discography. It has foreboding, sharp bass with a big drum sound that combines for an effort conveying much drama, accentuating the dark, lyrical subject matter.

A departure, “The Girl Tried To Kill Me”, is a rap rock number. If the album opened up with “Black Sabbath”, you could assume that such a track as this would appear eventually. It’s definitely of its time, with infectious Run-D.M.C energy. “She didn’t use a gun or knife/Took me within an inch of my life” sums up the sentiments, roughly.

Skit “Black ‘N’ Decker” opens with a heated discussion on Ice-T being labelled as violent, before pontificating what a power drill through the skull would sound…

“Hit The Deck” has a striking, maybe incendiary, sampled quote opening it: “I’m the minstrel man, the cleaning man/The pole man, the shoeshine man/I’m a n*gga man, watch me dance”. It’s high energy, arguably one to dance to. If you can keep up, that is. It’s a real workout for Ice, but he remains, never mind the tempo, as authoritative and commanding as ever. It’s complemented with some scratching, adding another moody aspect to the already tense soundscape. He doesn’t waste a spare second, spitting venomously to the end.

The principled “This One’s For Me” sees a more laidback vibe, but he’s as serious as ever. The beat, although slower, is triumphant, heralding verses full of wisdom. Arguably the spokesman for a generation. Particularly as the eminent emcee of the West Coast who, in turn, is roundly respected on the East Coast. Lines like “Sellin’ drugs is straight up genocide/They’re gonna laugh, while we all die” and “You know I want it, sure as I’m Ice-T/I make records for you/but this one’s for me” encapsulate the track perfectly.

“The Hunted Child” is frantic, very much evoking a child, maybe a byword for innocence, on the run, hunted by the police, parents and government. His raps come forward like machine gun fire, countering the onslaught of being amidst the chase. They’re delivered with passion and anger, you know he believes every word spat forth, like, “My life on Earth was hell, you understand?/But when I die I’m goin’ to hell, again”.

Second cameo track, “What Ya Wanna Do?”, features Rhyme Syndicate, and seems to start like an oldschool party number, as probably, furthermore, the exclamation of “Party!” suggests. This clocks almost nine minutes, evocative of an all-nighter, no doubt. The track’s proof Ice’s not the only weighty emcee in the Syndicate, emphasised by the fact he chooses only to appear on it very briefly.

“Freedom Of Speech” seems to concern the fact that Ice feels the notion, particularly in the States, of there being such a thing as freedom of speech quite laughable. Bass drum heavy beat, interspersed with James Brown hollering every so often, is the foundation for passionate raps that are veiled hollering in themselves. Punk rocker Jello seems to reappear, again. Via sample, though.

The album finishes with the slightly ridiculous “My Word Is Bond”. This quite braggadocio, as if to say every statement rapped is a matter of fact. A rap from one of Ice’s cohorts, Donald D, “Looked around for my brother, to see where he went/And then I had to pay my mother’s rent”, is half boast and half, yes, statement of fact. Highlighting, of course, the poverty of his past and, maybe now, his current financial power. Intermittent declarations of “stop lyin’!” makes the listener wonder, putting the ball in their court.

The high points on the album are tracks like “Lethal Weapon”, “You Played Yourself”, “Peel Their Caps Back”, “This One’s For Me”, “The Hunted Child” and “My Word Is Bond”. Excluding the skit, not even clocking a minute and a half, this is a healthy return for an album. These make up about half the album, and even then the remaining tracks aren’t too bad themselves, neither.

In “Lethal Weapon” you’re given hardcore, aggressive listening through metaphor rather than gangster posturing. “You Played Yourself”, furthermore, is one of his classics, a greatest hit, and must be worth something if Jeru Tha Damaja adapted its hook years later. “Peel Their Caps Back”, meanwhile, is dark and gritty, the personification of the whole album.

“This One’s For Me” proves he’s as much out to please himself than write songs just for fans, never to sell-out. “The Hunted Child” mixes his perfect diction with a righteous anger and venom, very much his signature sound. Finally, although “My Word Is Bond” dwells very much in exaggeration, Donald D’s line about paying his mother’s mortgage, now that he’s high profile and wealthy, sounds more like pride than idle boast.

Ice-T, opening with the doomy, bludgeoning sounds of Black Sabbath’s crushing instrumentation, and the foreboding predictions of Biafra regarding our potentially bleak future, released an album far darker and grittier than ever before. This, indeed, wasn’t much of a departure from his, as then, accrued discography. The opposite trajectory of selling out. You can purchase The Iceberg/Freedom Of Speech…Just Watch What You Say! on iTunes here.


 

Okka

Re: Ice-T
« Reply #10 on: August 06, 2020, 02:04:29 PM »
Glad to see Ice gettin' some love. "7th Deadly Sin" is also my favorite album from him. Here's a classic song from him that was only on his "Greatest Hits" album.

 

Gatz N Rozes

Re: Ice-T
« Reply #11 on: August 09, 2020, 02:14:50 AM »
Glad to see Ice gettin' some love. "7th Deadly Sin" is also my favorite album from him. Here's a classic song from him that was only on his "Greatest Hits" album.



love the scarface sample
 

TRAX (SFV)

Re: Ice-T
« Reply #12 on: August 09, 2020, 09:20:26 AM »
OG is def his best album.  Great variety, love the article about it above.  I never thought about the production of it but yea it's on point.
YOU CAN PIMP ME BITCH....WHEN THEY MAKE DILDOS OUTTA DAYTON SPOKES!
 

Malcy

Re: Ice-T
« Reply #13 on: August 09, 2020, 12:03:01 PM »
Ice T was one of the first hip hop artists that I actively started seeking out all their works. I helped that a record shop not too far for me had most of his back catalogue for £5 a CD.

As someone else said above I think Return Of The Real would be my favourite. I Must Stand is one of my all time favourite hip hop songs. I just find him very listenable. I'm interested in what he has to say. I'd add Midnight to the list of his best tracks. First time I heard it and realised it was basically a prequel to 6 In Tha Morning I was blown away.

I have been cataloguing all my physical media on Discogs recently and was surprised how much of his output I have. Fuck it add Reckless and there's probably my top 3.

Not just a west coast legend but a pioneer of the the genre. I have think he has been largely forgotten by the masses but at the end of the day that doesn't matter. If you personally enjoy what an artist does then why give a fuck about anyone else's opinion.

The man is humble and doesn't look to be appreciated or respected about what he does. He does it because he can and wants to. And 99% of hip hop (and so called hip hop fans) needs to wake up and take note of that. There is so much they can learn from him and that attitude.

It's about doing what you love, having fun and enjoying yourself. Not what car you drive, what chains you rock or how much money you have.

Big respect to Tracey Marrow, he's cold as ice.
 
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The Predator

Re: Ice-T
« Reply #14 on: August 10, 2020, 02:30:47 AM »
Ice-T A Memoir (Audiobook)...

Quote
He's a hip-hop icon credited with single-handedly creating gangsta rap. Television viewers know him as Detective Odafin "Fin" Tutuola on the top-rated drama Law & Order: SVU. But where the hype and the headlines end, the real story of Ice-T—the one few of his millions of fans have ever heard—truly begins. Ice is Ice-T in his own words—raw, uncensored, and unafraid to speak his mind. About his orphan upbringing on the gang-infested streets of South Central, his four-year stint in the U.S. Army, his successful career as a hustler and thief, and his fateful decision to turn away from a life of crime and forge his own path to international stardom. Along the way, Ice shares never-before-told stories about friends such as Tupac, Dick Wolf, Chris Rock, and Flavor Flav, among others. And he offers up candid observations on marriage and monogamy, the current state of hip-hop, and his latest passion: mentoring at-risk youths around the country. With insights into the cutthroat world of the street—and the cutthroat world of Hollywood—Ice is the unforgettable story of a true American original.



 
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