It's August 20, 2026, 05:36:29 AM
Ice-T on aging, rap and why he's back after 20 yearsThe hip-hop pioneer discusses his new album, Criminal Migraine, podcast culture and why rap artists shouldn't have an expiration date(andscape) When Ice-T released his last studio album in 2006, Twitter had just launched, skinny jeans were the hottest fashion trend, and Yung Joc's "It's Goin' Down" was the biggest hip-hop song of the year.Over the next 20 years, the Godfather of West Coast gangsta rap grew distant from the art form he helped pioneer. His 1986 classic "6 ‘N the Mornin'" had once paved the way for N.W.A's "F— Tha Police," but Ice-T eventually stepped back from the genre that made him a legend."What happened with hip-hop is it hit a left turn," says the rap icon and actor who spent much of the past two decades portraying Detective Odafin "Fin" Tutuola on the long-running NBC series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.Ice-T has also written books and been the frontman for his Grammy-winning heavy metal band Body Count."It went to ringtone rap and to AutoTune rap. I didn't know if hip-hop would ever come back to the way I knew it," he said.Which is why Ice-T's official return is such a defiant gamble. Criminal Migraine, an audacious 24-track double album set to release next month, showcases an older, wiser — and at times — prickly rhyme pugilist. Ice says he was inspired by what he describes as an "OG rap renaissance" that has seen the likes of Killer Mike, Jay-Z and Nas all turn back the clock.Still, there is the proverbial elephant in the room. What does a 68-year-old MC sound like in a youth-obsessed culture where podcasts and social media have become the new platform for hip-hop authenticity?"I'm not here to drag the new generation," the man born Tracy Marrow explains. "I'm more like trying to motivate them."The ever irreverent Ice-T has a lot to say.(Our conversation has been lightly edited and condensed.)You were 25 when you made your 1983 debut with "The Coldest Rap." Did you ever think that decades later you would be one of the oldest rappers in hip-hop?I never thought about it that way. I'm 68. If you are an artist, I don't think you ever stop doing what you love. Smokey Robinson is still doing shows [at 86]. Miles Davis did it until he died [at 65]. Ozzy Osbourne was performing up until his last concert [last year at 76]. I recently had George Clinton over to my house. He's 85! That man pulled up with a young thing. She was 52 [laughs].There are people who actually believe a 30-year-old rapper is ancient.And that's crazy. Who becomes wack at 30? The thing about hip-hop is it's only 52 years old. It's a baby, so we don't know if you really age out. Melle Mel is still performing [at 65]. Jay-Z just sold out Yankee Stadium [at 56]. But I'm the oldest rapper who is actually doing it ... still making new music. I've sold over 20 million albums in my career. If Criminal Migraine is successful, I've reset the bar for hip-hop to where there is no age. So everybody in hip-hop should root for this album, because it extends their life expectancy in rap.Twenty years is four lifetimes in hip-hop. What inspired you to get back in the booth?It was Killer Mike winning a Grammy [for Best Rap Album in 2024 for MICHAEL]. I was like, "Hmmm...OK. Killer Mike raps." I like Mike, and I like Run The Jewels. Then Nas dropped his albums, the Clipse released a critically acclaimed album, then Mobb Deep, Ghostface and Raekwon dropped albums. I'm like, "OK ... n‑‑‑‑s are really rapping again."A while back, we had a conversation about how you never wanted to be known as the old guy in the club. Were you cognizant of avoiding that trap during the making of Criminal Migraine?Yeah. At my age, I'm not supposed to be rapping about how I sell drugs or how I'm catching bodies. That would be corny for me. When I listen to a lot of rappers today, the wave again is coke rap. And I'm friends with a lot of the MCs who are the best at doing that, like Benny the Butcher. But at a certain point, when you hear a rapper say I'm the biggest drug dealer on the planet, I'm like, "Then why are you still rapping?" At a certain point it gets twisted.Beyond hardcore Ice-T fans, who do you think is Criminal Migraine's target audience?People who want to get some game. That's what they look for from an OG. Like, "OK, Ice, on your earlier records you were trying to get it." We heard that hunger. But by all observations, you've made it out of that life. You did what you set out to do. You were able to stay out of trouble. We ain't never heard about you getting arrested, getting caught with no goofy s‑‑‑. Tell us how to get there. You want to find out, go buy the album at IceT.com. F‑‑‑ streaming.In recent interviews you've been pretty vocal about your disdain for streaming platforms.I just think the labels sold the artists out. You need 330 million streams to make $1 million, right? Like who the f‑‑‑ can do that? Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny and maybe a few others. So I was like, "OK, let's go straight to the consumer." All I need is 10,000 people to spend $100. That's $1 million. You don't need 3 million fans. You don't need Drake fans. You just need E-40 fans. Everybody may not be a 40 fan, but he has a loyal fanbase.On the track, "Shut The F‑‑‑ Up," you take aim at the new generation of rappers incriminating themselves on social media. As a self-described OG, how alarming has it been seeing the birth of the podcast-to-prison pipeline?It's wild. The new drug is clout. All the OGs are sitting back like, "N‑‑‑‑, what are you doing? Why are you incriminating yourself?" These podcasts are interviewing people with no talent, so if you don't have talent and you associate with that gangster lifestyle, the only thing you can do is talk about your criminal activities.That's become a cottage industry for the likes of DJ Vlad and No Jumper.That's what they do. It's like an interviewer saying to me, "Ice, we heard you are fake." And I'm like, "Nah ... I got my gun on me right now!" [Laughs]. They bait you into proving you are real. You have kids cooking crack and showing off guns on the internet. But what they don't understand is the No. 1 tool of law enforcement is social media.During the "Cop Killer" firestorm that nearly ended your career, could you ever have imagined you'd spend nearly as long playing a cop as you have recording music?How about that? This will be my 28th season on Law & Order: SVU, and I'm still playing the police. Now that's what we call in acting a stretch [laughs].
No cd's? Only mp3 sucks!
$20 for digital download deezamni just copped nipsey new album on CD for $12 on amazon yesterday
Digital first, cd vinyl later.
Was $10 for last few weeks. Put it back up to full price yesterday. Least it's not as bad as Kokane who was charging $80 for a download only album. Now available for a bargain $70.
Ice-T's New Solo Album Is On the Way. Here's Where You Won't Find It.The hip-hop legend's 'Criminal Migraine' will be his first solo project in 20 years, but don't expect to hear it the conventional way (Vibe)We don't know it yet—but the United States is about to get obliterated by Belgium during the 2026 FIFA World Cup quarterfinals. With the game on in the background, Ice-T posts up inside his swanky, West Hollywood hotel room following an afternoon recording B-Real's podcast, Dr. Greenthumb. His son, Lil Ice, bounces back and forth between the balcony and another room as Ice-T's business partner, Courtney "Big Court" Richardson, kicks back on the couch.Ice-T catches a commercial for the new FOX series Nation's Dumbest, which he stars in alongside Steve-O, JoJo Siwa, Dr. Drew, and Anthony Michael Hall, among others, before rattling off some of the things he was asked."What's IMO stand for?" I tell him, "In my opinion.""What about TTYL? I didn't know that one."I say, "That's short for talk to you later.""What about who is the oldest Kardashian?" I say, "Kourtney."He quips, "Should I know that? OK, fuck that [laughs]."The topic quickly turns to The OG Network, a media hub he launched with Big Court, and his new website, Icet.com. It will be the only place to cop his forthcoming double album and first solo effort in 20 years, Criminal Migraine."Fuck streaming services," he says confidently. "I've been telling you how much I hate streaming and how I think that was the biggest rip-off in the history of music..."Ice-T pauses and shouts to Lil Ice, "Hey, you guys, I can hear you!"He resumes his thought without missing a beat. "The record labels sold us out. Once upon a time, the record label had to press a record, make the CD, ship it, go to the record store and collect the money. They just sold us out and said, ‘Fuck it, Spotify, give us whatever, and we'll take a big cut.' And the artists just got fucked."When me and Chuck D did record deals back in the day, we owned our own merch, our own publishing, and our own shows. The record label got money from selling the record, now they want money from selling my shirts and whatever else."He reminds me of one of his favorite sayings, "I never met a pimp that could break down a penny," the harsh reality of how much streaming services actually pay per spin."They figured out how to break a penny down," he continues. "Couldn't they just give us a penny? It takes 1,200 streams to be equivalent to one sale. 1,200 people have to listen to it for it to count. We've lost the entire record-buying experience to the digital download. I'm going to put my liner notes on my website."After nearly 40 years as a recording artist and one of hip-hop's elder statesmen, Ice-T has earned the hard-won wisdom that comes with experience. He knows there's no money in streaming for him, but he says, "If I sell 10,000 records for $10 a pop, there's money to be made. I believe fans want to give their artists the equivalent of a good Starbucks drink, you know?"It all started during the pandemic. Together with Treach, Ice-T invested in a New Jersey-based studio and began working on a project called Black Cadillac. He rapped as Coupe DeVille, and the Naughty By Nature OG went by Mackie Jackson. "We were both intergalactic pimps," he explains. It was the song "Lay Low" that gave him the rhyming bug again. Plus, seeing Big Daddy Kane announce another record and Clipse release Let God Sort ‘Em Out signaled the timing was right."That inspires people from my generation," he says. "I don't believe artists ever stop being artists. I think they can lose passion. You can go through a period when Rembrandt might not want to paint, but then he picks up the brush again and regains his passion."Hip-Hop went from what I did into ringtone rap, then into Auto-tune rap, then into trap, then drill and mumble rap. Some people from my era made the mistake of trying to do those forms of rap, which is not what you should do. You should stick to what you do."In the case of Criminal Migraine, Ice-T is rapping like it's the Original Gangsta era all over again, this time trading bars with the likes of Treach, Freddy Foxx (Bumpy Knuckles) and Ras Kass.Over an ominous beat, the 24-track effort begins with Ice-T explaining what prompted him to get back in the booth before he launches into "It's What You Say," one of many songs that find him spitting game for those willing to listen."You stick to the formula," he says. "It took those other artists—and I think the first was Killer Mike with Michael. He wanted to grab you. I was like, ‘Yep. This is it.'"The hotel phone rings—Big Court picks it up and is informed their neighbor called security for the weed smoke billowing from the balcony. "The hotel is smoke-free," the person on the other end says. We all laugh—don't they know it's legal in California?The irony is that Ice-T has a few bars about the pitfalls of snitching and how it's changed since he was coming up. But so has his life. Not only is he a successful, Grammy Award-winning artist (Body Count is among his other musical endeavors), but he's also an accomplished actor, having starred in 27 consecutive seasons of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. (And if you haven't caught his cameo in the new season of the Netflix series Survival of the Thickest, look it up). What his life looks like now, compared to the street life he led in the 1980s, is drastically different, and he still manages to stay true to his evolution on each and every song."You had that desperation to make it in the beginning, but now you're so successful and have accomplished so much; is it harder to write from that place than it was when you first started?" I ask."It's just a different energy," he says. "I like that word ‘desperation,' when you're trying to make it. When you get to this other place, you're still surrounded by desperation. It's just other people. They're looking to you for the answers. They're like, ‘Help me get up out of here.' Now my phone is ringing. Everybody wants help. Before I needed help. Now everybody wants help."I always tell people the difference between Ice-T then and Ice-T now. The old Ice-T was like, ‘I will kill everybody.' The new Ice-T is like, ‘You know I'll kill you, right?' [laughs]. If you watch martial artists, the new students walk around the dojo like this [puffs out his chest], but the master walks like this [puts his arms behind his back]. At some point as a man, you walk like the master because there's nothing left to prove."Much like his Twitter account, Criminal Migraine is busting at the seams with his "Ice Cold Facts," and it's natural to wonder if people will even appreciate the free advice he's doling out."I've had people tell me ‘You Played Yourself' [from his third album, The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech...Just Watch What You Say] didn't make sense until they were on the bus to prison," he recalls. "You can make your choice now, and I'm making an effort to hopefully get you to stop what you're doing before it's too late."At 68, Ice-T is still blazing trails and showing the culture what Hip-Hop looks like more than 50 years after Kool Herc and Cindy Campbell threw their infamous "Back to School Jam" at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx. He feels a sense of social responsibility to pass down what he's learned."I feel it," he says of wanting to share his experiences. "I get rewarded by people that say, ‘Hey, man, you know, that game helped me,' so I like it. If I give you the game and you use it, I like to give it to you. If I give you the game and you reject it, I kill the game. I guess you got it."Belgium scores again. It's 3-1, and the U.S. is in bad shape. "Shit," he mutters, and we go back to talking, now about the magic of George Clinton, who is about to turn 85 on July 22, and what he's learned from his predecessors."What I've learned from George Clinton, Ozzy Osbourne and James Brown is if you're real, you never change who you are," he says. "You become an older version of yourself, but you're still the same. Hip-hop doesn't age out. I'm rapping better. Everything is tighter. I've moved over 20 million records during my career. People who love Ice-T, I just want 10,000 solid fans to get on my website. Hopefully I'm creating a wave of artists that start to do their own websites and go away from streaming and don't just get fucked. I want to activate that."Criminal Migraine is expected to arrive sometime in August. Keep an eye on Ice-T's website https://icet.com/ and check out The OG Network here https://www.theognetwork.net/
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