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"Cop Killer" is a controversial Song by North America n Heavy Metal band Body Count . It was co-written by Ice-T , the group's vocalist, and Ernie-C , the guitarist. It was originally released as the final track on the group's debut album, '' Body Count '' (1992). The song provoked a national Debate about Freedom Of Speech , and was eventually deleted from all future releases of the album. BACKGROUND Ice-T attributes the origin of the song to a recording session where he was humming the Talking Heads song Psycho Killer .1 Upon hearing this a fellow band member suggested that they needed a "cop killer" to retaliate for all the violence directed against civilians. The group had been playing a version of the song in concert for a year, including an appearance at the 1991 Lollapalooza tour. The recorded version mentions then- Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates , and Rodney King , a black motorist whose beating by LAPD officers had been caught on videotape. Shortly after the release of '' Body Count '', a Jury acquitted the officers and Riots Broke Out In South Central Los Angeles . Soon after the riots, a Dallas police group called for a Boycott of the album. Ice-T stated of the song, "I'm singing in the first person as a character who is fed up with police brutality. I ain't never killed no cop. I felt like it a lot of times. But I never did it."2 The criticism escalated to the point where death threats were sent to opted to release the band from its contract. Ice-T 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 ," in reference to Bowie's song " Space Oddity ". Ice T's view of the matter is as follows: "When I started out I was signed to Warner Bros. and they never Censor ed us. Everything we did, we have full control over. But what happened was when the cops moved on Body Count they issued pressure on the corporate division of Warner Bros., and that made the music division, they couldn't out-fight 'em in the battle, so even when you're in a business with somebody who might not wanna censor you, economically people can put restraints on 'em and cause 'em to be afraid. I learned that lesson in there, that you're never really safe as long as you're connected to any big corporation's money."4 Ice T has played the role of a police officer in several ''. In numerous interviews, he has commented openly on that irony. ''Cop Killer'' was removed from the album ''''. The song was not the album's only expression of anti-police feeling. The first track is a narrative section entitled ''Smoked Pork'', in which a disgruntled motorist (voiced by Ice-T ) is heard to fire shots at a police officer who does not help him to fix the flat tire of his car. This section remains on the album. ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE SONG Many people were vociferous in their criticism of the song. For example, Dennis R. Martin (Former President, National Association of Chiefs of Police) has argued that: ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF THE SONG Many people from the music world and other fields were supportive of the song. For example, in direct response to the criticism made by Dennis Martin above, Mark S. Hamm and Jeff Ferrell argued the following: COVER VERSIONS AND RELATED SONGS Grunge band Soundgarden did a cover of "Cop Killer" for the 1992 Chicago and Raleigh Lollapolooza shows. Lead singer Chris Cornell opened the song with a lengthy introduction about how the various music media giants (MTV and Rolling Stone) didn't make the event but the "people made this {Link without Title} event happen" and urged the crowd to chant the mid chorus 'Fuck The Police' to "sing for their rights as an American." The song has been featured on a Soundgarden bootleg called ''Coverin'', and is available across the internet. It was also covered by Argentinian metal band A.N.I.M.A.L. . The Gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello were inspired to write their song "60 Revolutions" thanks to Cop Killer. "Cop Killa" is also a song by the band The Dumpers . Although the song is not a cover of the original "Cop Killer" it entails similar themes and lyrics. The song also references "Fuck the Police" by N.W.A. The little known Trip Hop and Industrial band Hoodlum Priest also had a song called 'Cop Killer' which was refused by and later banned by record label UK based ZTT , due to heavy use of various 'cop killer' samples (most notably from movies like '' Robocop '', and took 2 years to collect most of them) and ZTT obviously had the idea this song would cause uproar. This later led to Hoodlum Priest leaving ZTT; frontman Derek Thompson later commented on the song saying it "wasn't supposed to be a great piece of music or Art, just 100% kill cops. If you don't do anything with your life...go and kill pigs".7 REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS
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