Information AboutIce T |
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Tracy "Ice T" Marrow (born February 16 , 1958 in Newark, New Jersey ) is an American Rapper , Rocker , Author and Actor . He is one of the pioneers of Gangsta Rap and was also instrumental in creating Rapcore . His music includes a mix of the political awareness of Public Enemy and the Hedonism of N.W.A . CAREER Ice-T was born in Newark, but grew up in Los Angeles . After high school, he joined the Army and served as a ranger in the 25th Infantry. He did not enjoy the experience explaining "I didn't like total submission to a leader other than myself." [http://media.www.dailytargum.com/media/paper168/news/2004/02/23/PageOne/IceT-Addresses.Group.Provides.Inspiration-614605.shtml?sourcedomain=www.dailytargum.com&MIIHost=media.collegepublisher.com Musician Ice-T started out with other West Coast rap pioneers such as Kid Frost , DJ Flash , and Egyptian Lover with Electro recordings. Later on, he changed his style and was the first West Coast rapper to be accepted by the East Coast . His song "6'n The Morning" is sometimes seen as the track that triggered the whole Gangster Rap movement. It was produced by The Unknown DJ , who produced electro funk tracks before and went on to produce '' Compton's Most Wanted ''. The song was inspired by Schoolly D 's "PSK" and became itself the inspiration for Eazy E and N.W.A. 's "Boyz N The Hood." Ice-T went on to work with Afrika Islam , the man behind the beats on 1987 's ''Rhyme Pays'', 1988 's ''Power'' and 1989 's ''The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech... Just watch what you say''. As the title of this third album suggests, Ice-T was from the start not merely a gangster rapper—although he was one of the driving forces behind the new style—but also used rap music as a platform for Social and Political Activism ; Seymour Stein called him "the Bob Dylan of rap." On " Freedom Of Speech ," Ice-T attacked Tipper Gore for introducing the Parental Advisory sticker. In 1991 , Ice T's fourth album, '' Original Gangster '', came out; including raps about child abuse and drunk driving as well as the theme song from the movie '' New Jack City '' by Mario Van Peebles , the movie that re-launched Ice's career as an actor. In 1991 , Ice formed the Heavy Metal / Thrash Metal band Body Count . Their debut self-titled album contained a song called " Cop Killer ", which led to the "Cop Killer controversy". This escalated to the point where death threats were sent to Warner Bros executives and stockholders threatened to pull out of the company. This eventually caused the album to be re-issued with "Cop Killer" removed, and Warner Brothers Records to drop him from the label. He answered the controversy by saying the song was written in character, and that "if you believe that I'm a cop killer, you believe David Bowie is an Astronaut ." Indeed, Ice-T has portrayed police officers many times in his acting career. NOTE: Ice has also collaborated on duets with other rock/metal bands such as Slayer , Six Feet Under , Motörhead and has covered songs by Hardcore Punk bands The Exploited and Black Flag . Virgin Records released his next album '' Home Invasion '' ( 1993 ), a politically-oriented album that featured a new female rapper named Grip and Ice T's longtime DJ Evil E as a rapper himself. On '' VI - Return Of The Real '', Ice returned to his gangsta rap roots. His '' 7th Deadly Sin '' ( 1999 ), one of the first records to be distributed via Mp3 before appearing in record stores, continued in this vein. In ''. More recently, Ice-T formed a new group called SMG (Sex Money and Gunz) with East Coast Gangsta Rappers Smoothe Da Hustler and Trigger The Gambler. Ice-T has written and performed songs for many movie Soundtrack s including "Big Gun" for '' Tank Girl '' as well as Title Tracks for '' Colors '', '' Dick Tracy '', '' New Jack City '', ''Ricochet'', and ''Trespass'' (with Ice Cube .) (He starred in all of them, save ''Dick Tracy'and 'Colors''.) He teamed with Kid Frost to perform "Tears of a Mother" for the film '' No Mothers Crying, No Babies Dying ''. Actor He debuted as a rapper in the films '''', perhaps an ironic role, considering the early controversy surrounding his group Body Count . Another TV series that features Ice-T is "Players." Ice-T also appears in the movie Leprechaun In The Hood . Ice-T also voiced Madd Dogg in the video game ''''. 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." Name Ice-T was influenced by and takes his name from Iceberg Slim, an African American pimp-turned-author who wrote an autobiography and many other books. DISCOGRAPHY Albums
Soundtracks
Singles
Compilations and Bootlegs
with Body Count
Ice T presents the West Coast Rydaz
Analog Brothers
Ice T Presents
with SMG (Sex Money and Gunz)
VIDEOGRAPHY
NOTE Although one of West Coast Rap's leading figures, Tracy Morrow (commonly known as Ice-T) was actually born in Newark , New Jersey . He moved from Newark, when his parents died in a motor vehicle accident. Still a young child he went to live with relatives in Los Angeles. After settling down with relatives, who lived 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 Crips sets, an infamous street gang, which took root in South Central Los Angeles. He would ultimately end up taking the street moniker Ice-T after the famous ex-pimp turned author Iceberg Slim . He was a member of one of the Hoover Crips ' sub-sets. However, as of 1995, all Hoover sets changed their name to the Hoover '''C'''riminal '''G'''angsters ('''HCG'''), keeping the original initial. This was supposedly to loosen their ties with other Crips sets, with whom there was constant, deep-seated rivalry. He also attended Crenshaw High School, where he would become obsessed with rap, often reciting rhymes for classmates. After leaving high school he would join the US Army Rangers until 1981. Then would begin his extremely long career of recording raps for various studios before finally landing a deal with a major label, Sire Records , and shortly after releasing his debut album "Rhyme Pays". 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 80's. This added to his already controversial fame and gave rise to the C-Walks mainstream in other video's via WC (pronounced Dub C, or just simply Dub), Snoop Dogg , Warren G , and other Crip-turned-rapper artists. 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"). EXTERNAL LINKS
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