Ice T
Ice T
Tracy Lauren Marrow better known by his stage name Ice-T, is an American rapper and actor. He began his career as a rapper in the 1980s and was signed to Sire Records in 1987, when he released his debut album Rhyme Pays, the first hip-hop album to carry an explicit content sticker. The next year, he founded the record label Rhyme $yndicate Recordsand released another album, Power...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionRapper
Date of Birth16 February 1958
CityNewark, NJ
CountryUnited States of America
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.
What I'm trying to tell people is that police brutality in the 'hood is nothing new. And the thing is that whether this guy, the cop killer in my song, is real or not, believe it, there are people at that point.
It's not about being mad at everything. It's about being really mad at the right things.
As an actor, you can do what you want with your role. That's why they hire you; to take the role and make it real.
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 lot of people play single to work some angle. I'm always about keeping it real. If that's how I'm living, that's how I'm living.
Real men hold themselves accountable for stuff.
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.
Any New York group can come to L.A. and sell out every show, but an L.A. group who goes to New York might not do the same because the audience hasn't been introduced to the group.
Los Angeles is a microcosm of the United States. If L.A. falls, the country falls.
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, 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.
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.
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.