Public enemy number One

“People wanna know/People wanna know/Why I sag my pants/An’ I love to fuckin’ dance/People wanna know/Why my car is so low/An’ I ain’t happy ‘till the speakers blow/Why I game my game/How I can kick it with ten homies an’ I’ll never use their real name/They don’t understand/The gold around my neck/Or the diamonds on my hands/They seem so confused/About my language and my flavour and the slang I use/They can’t comprehend the dreads in my head/Or the braids I’m in/I talk loud and crowd/So we’ll fight all night ’cause my posse’s proud/My street culture’s kept/As you try to rip a brother off right and left/But you die to get the flavour I bring/Yeah, ’cause it’s a black thing.”

Ice T ‘Black Thing’ (From his upcoming album Return Of The Real)

Ice T talks shit and fucks with the system. Ice T is everything that rock ‘n’ roll (that’s his ancestry) is. Ice T entertains and educates. Ice T pisses you off and makes you laugh. Ice T is on time and ahead of the game.

Ice T is immense. And of course he embodies tons of contradictions. He’s all for racial harmony but his attitude towards women often stinks. But then we know Ice T. His attitudes are in our faces, not prettied up by foggy imagery, but there to be dissected. Like we know exactly what he’s saying. Not like the vast majority of our other pop and rock stars, who spew out production-line lurve songs and cliché-book philosophies. No, because that’s one of the big differences between rap and so much other music.

Rap is about the daily life of the rapper. You can like it or you can hate it but it’s real. And even when they are talking shit, it’s real. Because they talk that same shit on the streets. And that’s why rap leaves most other music looking tame – because it comes from a real energy, the energy of life. It gets its rhythms from the shit-talking and jiving and slam-dancing and boogieing and no-nonsense hoping and despairing of a people who have no option but to get down on it if they’re to get by at all.

And you can never guess Ice T’s next move. But one thing you can always be sure of is that although he may love talking shit, he will never accept taking it. He squares up to the system, juts out his chin and tells it that if you fuck with me I’ll fuck with you. Because he’s a ‘Straight Up Nigga’: “Damn right I’m a nigga/And I don’t care what you are/’Cause I’m a capital N-I-Double G-E-R… A steak and lobster eatin’/Billionaire meetin’/Cash money makin’, movin’, shakin’/Corporate jet glidin’/Limousine ridin’/Writin’ hits, filthy rich/Straight up nigga.”

Your European tour must be like putting the Home Invasion album theory into practice, bringing your Body Count outfit to predominantly white audiences?

Well, Home Invasion is kinda like talkin’ about the past, meaning we’ve been tourin’ to white neighbourhoods for years. So, in a way what I’m sayin’ with Home Invasion is not somethin’ that’s gonna happen; it’s somethin’ that’s already happened. I think now people are more maybe aware of it, you know. You know, Ice T has been tourin’, and Public Enemy have been tourin’. And there’s been fifty at least percent kids at the shows. With Body Count it’s like 90%. So, it’s nothing new, it’s just a continuation of what I’ve been doin’. Home Invasion is really sayin’, it’s too late, your house has been invaded, we’ve been in your house five years.

Why do you think more blacks aren’t involved in trash/metal, considering it has its roots in rock ‘n’ roll, and rock ‘n’ roll came from rhythm & blues and blues?

Well in America there was a major conspiracy to pull black people away from rock ‘n’ roll, back in the Fifties when rock initially was started, you know. I mean, if you read the newspapers from back in those days, rock ‘n’ roll was the black tribal drums that was supposed to corrupt the white youth of the world. And at that time it was black music. But then what happened was that they found out that they couldn’t really stop the music, so people like Pat Boone were used.

So early rock ‘n’ roll was the original home invasion?

Yeah, exactly. But it was infiltrated and twisted. Because what they did was that Pat Boone re-made all Little Richard records. And you know you have Elvis Presley, and he does a black version but he’s white. So, it was less threatening. Because like what I say in my records is I don’t really feel there’s a threat in any of the words on the record; I think it’s more of a fear of the white kids and the black kids gettin’ along. Or a little white girl takin’ down her Vanilla Ice poster and puttin’ a picture of me up over her bed, which bothers some of the racist parents in the world.

I’m sure a lot of white people are into rap for the voyeurism. But wouldn’t it also be true that many whites see a type of hard reality and brutal truth in rap that they can’t get from their parents or from the system?

Well, that’s the nature of youth. That’s the nature of children. You tell them the truth and they’ll love it. They just wanna know the truth. And adults have a habit of always, you know, givin’ kids part of the story. You know, you tell your kids, don’t do drugs. But you refuse to tell the kids you did drugs. You refuse to say, this is why I don’t want you to mess with them: I was strung out. And the kids know that parents and the news are givin them a vague illusion of what life is. It’s not real. And rap is just straight in the face. And they embrace it.

Will we see more black people getting involved in rock?

Right now, with a group like Body Count, it’ll be a slow transition but I think you’ll see more and more black kids coming into rock.

There are many in the trash/heavy metal world who don’t want to see black musicians playing the music. It’s like trash/heavy metal is one of the last bastions of totally white music. How would you respond to this?

Well, that’s what the whole song ‘There Goes The Neighbourhood’ is about. I played the role of the white guy in the audience was just sayin’: “They want everythin’, don’t they? They want everythin’” [“Here come those fuckin’ niggas/With their fancy cars/Who gave them fuckin’ niggas/Those rock guitars?”] But personally, since we’ve been doin’ Body Count, I have never run into that situation. I mean, every once in a while you run into your straight up asshole, you know. But that’s one out of every 10,000 people you meet. The kids who spend the money and take the time to come and see the show, they’ve already made the decision.

What about the attitude among musicians?

Personally, I don’t expect the fans to accept all this music right off the top. But I’m really impressed when you see the rock groups – the leaders, because the musicians are the leaders of the music – makin’ the step. We did this song just recently with Slayer. I mean, you know, you look at a lot of white supremacist footage, an’ all those kids are wearing Slayer t-shirts. (smiles) And then for Slayer to turn around and say, hey, we’ll do this. But then, hey, Tommy, the lead singer is Mexican. It’s like Axl Rose was supposed to be so racist, but Slash is black, you know. So it’s like people don’t even know what they’re really connectin’ themselves with. And when the artists step up and say (claps his hands) “Hey, let’s jam! Let’s make that first step” – you know, you pat Anthrax on the back. You pat Chuck D on the back.”

‘That’s How I’m Livin’ from the Home Invasion album is a very honest song about a lonely child finding his place in the world. Do you think perhaps if your mother had lived that you’d be a different person now?

Oh definitely. I feel that if I had two parents and the brothers and the sisters and all that, I wouldn’t be sitting here today. I’d be someplace off, probably working in a job, you know. Everything that I’m about has to do with the things I’ve gone through in life. And by being by myself a lot, I learned about people. And by being involved in crime, that allows me to speak on it to kids that are out there in trouble, as an authority. And they listen. So, I mean, this is what I’m supposed to be doin’. I can’t see it comin’ from another way. Of course I wish I had my parents but then . . . (pauses)

Is there a part of you which will always remain the outsider?

Definitely. It’s like, due to the fact of the background I came from and some of the stuff I’ve seen and been into, you know, when you get into this show business, everybody turns around and says, “Look here, snap out of it. Now you’re with us.” But you’re never really with them, you know. And the only way I can really keep my sanity in this business is like all my friends are still the guys I grew up with. You gotta watch these guys. These guys are the best in the business. They’re all from the streets. I feel more comfortable, I guess you could say, with criminals, than squares, because I know how they flow. I know ’em. That’s where I’m at. You’d just as soon see me hangin’ out with the drug dealers up in Harlem as with people from the music scene. I don’t feel comfortable really there.

Is Tracey Marrow – your original name – a very different and forgotten person?

Well, Tracey Marrow grew up and turned into Ice T. I could say that I was Tracey Marrow ‘till mid-Junior High, no nicknames. An’ then I tuned into Crazy Tray. That was when I was in the gangs – they used to call me Crazy Tray. Ice T was the name I got when I started smoothin’ it out, tryin’ to become more slick with my shit an’ all that. This rough/tough attitude got polished off. I became a more fine-tuned machine, because I realised jail wasn’t somethin’ that was somethin’. You know, when you’re in gangs you’re kinda dumb. You’re just like, “Yo, I wanna be tough.” You want all that masculine, tough shit. An’ then you get smoothed out.

I named my little son Ice. He’s two years old. An’ he walks and he does all those things, an’ it’s like wow! Now this kid’s born Ice, so I’m really wonderin’ what he’s goin’ to grow up to be. Because I had no flavour, I had no attitude until I was outta High School. But now there’s only Ice T. The other guy is gone. The trick to Ice T is that Ice T an’ his music portrays a lot of different areas in my life. In other words, I can flash back and rap to you as if I’m actively in a gang. So, the characters I play aren’t necessarily me currently. But it’s still me. But then at the same time it’s important that people know that Ice T, no matter how cool or tough you think I am, I drink milk, I play Nintendo all day long, I read comic books, I watch cartoons. I’m not somebody who sits around loading guns all day and shit like that. I’m a normal person, you know. (laughs)

Was there one event that made you say ‘I want to be a rapper’?

Rappin’ was just somethin’ I had picked up, an’ I got a chance to do a record, because I was rappin’ for these girls at a beauty parlour, an’ a guy walked in an’ said, I want you to rap on a record. An’ I’m, like, sure. I did the record [‘The Coldest Rap’], I didn’t make any money, and I didn’t really take it seriously, ‘cause at the time I did it there was no rappers really successful. There wasn’t no Run DMC or LL. So, how could you look at it as a career?

But that’s what it’s become.

This guy named Alex Jordonoff had a club in LA. An’ he found my record an’ he asked me would I come perform. An’ I performed there an’ there were all these white kids, an’ they knew the words to the record. An’ I was like wow! To stand on the stage and see people say my words was really somethin’ to me. An’ I was like, man! An’ I started likin’ it an’ I started comin’ back to that club on the weekends just to perform. An’ I started diggin’. Now the theory of makin’ it into a career, I never really thought that could happen. That was an evolution of doin’ the movie Breakin’ an’ makin’ a record on the soundtrack an’ realisin’, yeah, you could. ’Cause you gotta remember up to this point I had never seen a dime from it. It was just kind of fun to do.

Were there significant negative events that shaped your music?

There’s been a lot of negativity that really moulds me. I can honestly say that a good 25-40% of the friends I grew up with are either dead from drugs or the streets, or seriously incarcerated for crimes or stuff, which is almost the equivalent of being dead. An’ every time one of them would get hit or die or go to gaol, it would just be like another Pow!! You know you gotta stay here, man. You gotta do the right thing. I mean recently I just had one of my friends who used to tour with me get 35 to life. Steppin’ back on the other side, tryin’ to do somethin’ wrong. And ah . . We call it a wake-up call around here. Everybody goes, See! See! See!

’Cause once you’re involved with crime or anythin’, you always have that itch to try. It’s somethin’ that’s in you. People who aren’t criminals don’t know it. But it’s just like you’re sittin’ around an’ you’re seein’ stuff. I mean, you walk into places and you see money bags sittin’ out. An’ usually you go, like, damn! Or you’ll see people leave briefcases down with half-a-million dollars around and you just like . . . (smiles) But you just gotta say, no, no, no, I work for a livin’ (laughs). We always say, look, we’re working, we got an honest job, we’re makin’ damn good money, you know. But the urge, it’s just part of it. It’s somethin’ that happens to you when you get involved in that shit. (laughs) I guess it’s like being a drug addict or an alcoholic. And you see a drink. And you’re like sayin’, (breathes heavily) no, no, let me not drink (laughs).

When was the first time you discovered that being black meant being discriminated against?

When you’re born, right, when you’re young, you don’t know your colour ’till somebody tells you you are a colour. I had one incident where I was little an’ I was goin’ to my friend’s house, a white named Todd Banhoffman. An’ I had another buddy named Kenneth, who lived in my neighbourhood and who was darker than me. An’ I was on my way over to Todd’s house and Kenneth wanted to come an’ Todd was like, “No, I can’t have any more friends over in my house.” So I was like, “OK man, you can’t come. We got all the cool stuff. So, see ya tomorrow.” Then on the way to Todd’s house, about five more kids rolled up, like runnin’ up. And Todd was like, “Come to my house, come on over.” So I like questioned him. I was like, “How come they can come an’ you told Kenneth he couldn’t?” “Oh, he’s a darkie,” he replied. So obviously Todd thought I was white ‘cause I’m light-skinned. So that was my first situation. I didn’t even really know what he meant. But I was like, OK. But obviously somebody had taught this kid somethin’. So, I was like kinda dumb to it still.

Spike Lee explores shades of blackness in Jungle Fever. You know, how some black men if they can’t get a white woman, go for the lightest-skinned black woman they can find and vice versa. Then, some darker black people will look down on lighter-skinned blacks. Is this colour inferiority/superiority complex a major issue within the black community?

The only thing I ever knew growin’ up bein’ light-skinned was that the darker Brothers would always try to beat you up. The lighter-skinned dudes either ended up bein’ real soft or ended up bein’ leaders. Because we always had to, you know, rebel. I never really had anybody black question whether my mother was white. Which she wasn’t. My mother was Creole, which is French and black from Louisiana. I don’t know whether my grand-mother was white or not. But my mother was the same colour as me. And my father was dark-skinned. But I never really had black people step to me and ask me questions like that. I always had white people step to me an say, ‘Are you white? Are you part-white?’ But the darker Brothers would always step to you, talkin’ about how they could beat you up, so we always ended up havin’ a fight.

Ice Cube, in his rap ‘Cave Bitch’, disses the basketball player Charles Barkley for having a white wife. What do you think of that?

Well see, the thing is, Ice Cube is connected with the Nation Of Islam. So they ain’t with that. But that’s a religious thing.

But you wouldn’t see a problem with it?

Oh no, I don’t really got no problems with that. My whole thing as far as inter-racial marriages and inter-racial relationships, is based on love. If you love her or you love him then it doesn’t really matter. But a lot of people marry people from different races for different reasons. In other words, you would have the white guy who would go after the Asian woman because he can dominate her. And there’s black men who’ll take the white woman because they want to be accepted into another side of life and vice versa. And there’s the white man who wants the black girl because it’s a like a candy or somethin’. Versus love. And you’ll find a lot of black people who say, you know, that black people got to get together as far re-building the culture. We’re so twisted and pulled apart now. I understand the theory of gettin’ it together but personally I just can’t look at somebody and say, oh you’re black or white, you’re wrong. Now Ice Cube and people that make comments like that, in a way I can listen to the shit and laugh. Oh shit, damn, Ice Cube’s pushin’ it. You know, but I don’t feel particularly like that.

You got two points you gotta remember though. You have straight-up blatant racism, where it’s just I don’t like you because you’re white. An’ then you have what I call preference. Now, I’ve been with black women, white women, Asian women and stuff like that. Now my girl friend that I just had my baby by, is Mexican. I like Latin women. Because they have a different type of flavour and a flow to ‘em. They just got a different flavour and I just like it. That’s preference, that’s not racism. You know, some people prefer different types of women (laughs).

You and rappers like Ice Cube are involved in everything: rapping, films, clothes wear, running record labels, you’ve written a book. It’s like you’re trying to create the foundations for an indigenous set of black industries.

Well, I do things for two reasons. Coming from a background with no opportunity, now that I’m up, I’m not turnin’ them down. We used to say, I’m not turnin’ down nothin’ but my collar and I’m keepin’ that up! I’m tryin’ to take advantage of these opportunities, ‘cause I know there’s kids that don’t have them. So somebody says, ‘Ice, would you like to do a movie?’ Yeah! Shit Why not!? You know, I could fail, I could make it. As far as tryin’ to generate businesses, I just think we come from the generation of watchin’ the people before us end up broke. An’ I think we’ve realised that record labels are somethin’ that will be here long after us. So why should Ice Cube or Ice T just be a rapper when he could start a record label and create jobs. I found that by startin’ my own tour company, I can hire my own friends and stuff. And as far as black power and everything goes in America, and as long as we’ve been there, we’re never goin’ to come up with any power until we get some money. And that’s just the bottom line: power is who owns the label.

In the end, it all comes down to money and power?

I’m lookin’ at the Japanese, an’ we bombed them. And they said, OK, cool, we don’t even have an army but we’re going to take over the world. An’ they’ve basically done it intellectually and with money. So, I mean, if I’m goin’ to do anything, I’m goin’ to have to start controlling some money. An’ just bein’ the dancin’ black kid – that’s played out.

Also, I try to achieve on lots of different levels ‘cause I know there’s a lot of kids watchin’ me. An’ I don’t like to use the word role model but if I am one, I want to be the guy who tried a lot of things. ’Cause maybe there’s a kid out there who likes me but he’ll never be a rapper, so maybe he can be a writer or maybe he can be an actor. So every time I jump another hurdle I give another kid who likes me. Yo! Shit! Ice wrote a book, man! I could write a book.

The idea of the posse and the community is much more important for a rapper than it is for most white musicians. Names are named and you have messages about your people getting it together. So, is rap something larger than just the music?

Well, hip hop is a sub-culture that was created in the South Bronx. You had kids in the ghetto of South Bronx that were in gangs. And Afrika Bambaatta created a thing called the Zulu Nation, which said: let’s start throwin’ parties and let’s get these kids in here dancin’. And the kids they gotta put down their knives if they want to come into this party. An’ let’s turn the happenin’ gang into the party gang. And let’s take the tough guys and let them protect the fun. An’ the graffiti artists became involved. ‘Cause all of these art forms were done for nothin’. Spray cans: I’m gonna write my name all over this city and make a name. I’m a DJ an’ be known. I’m a rap about my neighbourhood and be known. So it’s very important: the posses and crews, that’s what rap is about. That’s what hip hop is about. It’s about walkin’ into a place and being with your crew. Yo, Ice T is here. My boy, my friends. It’s deep.

Because in many ways the ghettos don’t have politicians to represent them, it is often left up to the rappers to articulate the fears and desires of the people who live there.

Hip hop is a family of young people who have decided that they’re goin’ to turn their hats backwards, basically sayin’, fuck all you tellin’ me, I’m gonna do it this way. Even that little statement is sayin’, look, I know how I’m supposed to wear it. I’m goin’ to wear mine back, just to let you know that I’m breakin’ all these guidelines. Now, who’s goin’ to be our speaker? Who’s goin’ to say how we feel? And the rappers are the people who have created the platforms. So when you hear me singin’ a song like ‘Cop Killer’, that ain’t my idea. That’s what I hear when I go in the ’hood. An’ that’s what the kids are tellin’ me. I say, “What’s up, man?” And they’re like, “Man, we’re about to start killin’ some of these cops if they don’t start givin’ us some respect down here, man. They just beat up such and such, man. You know, they just shot homeboy’s sis. Man, this is about to go down.”

And that goes straight into the music?

I go back and I make the record. And say, listen, this is where we are at this point. So not only are we the politicians, we’re the voice of the streets. Minister Farrakhan says we’re the trumpets that have to blow. An’ when I spoke with him, he said, “Look Ice, ain’t nobody tellin’ you what to say. This is comin’ from your heart, this is comin’ from your people. So don’t worry about it. Just say what’s real. Tell the truth. Yell it from the top of your lungs, ‘cause if you don’t say it, who else is goin’ to say it?”

So like, I always say what rap is, like if you ever watch those TV shows like Cops and shit, an’ you just continuously see the people goin’ to gaol an’ all that. OK, that’s the cops. But will you ever get to hear the other guys talk? That’s me. An’ I’m yellin’, “You know what? You know why I just shot that gun off in that store? You know why?” And without this it’s so easy for people just to say, “Oh these people are just insane an’ we can murder ‘em.” If it wasn’t for rap, when we had the Uprising in South Central, it would have been easy for people an’ the police an’ the system to say, “They’re all savages.” But when we did it, the world said, “it was comin’ (laughs). Why was it comin’? ’Cause we heard Ice an’ ’em yell about it. They been tellin’ us.

In the rap ‘Escape From The Killing Fields’ you talk about getting out of the economic prisons of the ghettos. In the rap you were also responding to counter-arguments of “this is where we were born, this is where we die. Let’s stay put and turn this around.”

My whole theory is this: the ghetto is not a place you live in by choice. The ghetto isn’t a black community, it isn’t a white community, it’s a poor community. We have ghettos here in Belfast. Now, the ghetto is a place where poor people live. So the theory of mentally escaping the killing fields is more important than physically doin’ it. You have to realise at a point when you’re from the ghetto that, yo, you are just as much entitled to sail on that boat or ski on those mountains, or do anything that the rich people do. Because you’re from earth too and you’re pumpin’ the same blood. Now, when you’re in the ghetto, you get entrapped into the belief that this is where you’re from and this is where you’re meant to stay. “I don’t want to eat in a nice restaurant. I don’t want to be in a nice hotel room.” That is the killin’ fields right there. An’ my whole thing right now is that I got a nice house. I moved up into the Hills. My whole life when I was on the streets hustlin, I used to look at them Hills. An’ I used to say, one day I’m goin’ to get me a house on them fuckin’ Hills. You know what I’m sayin’? And now I did it. Now my objective is to tell everybody else how to get on these Hills. Turn that into the black community. You know, eliminate the poor community.

But there are those who argue that you have to stay put to develop the community.

I think that the person who said that you leavin’ the ghetto, you sellin’ out – I don’t think that was a poor person who made up that theory. That’s the same theory as tellin’ the Indians, why would you want to leave the reservation? Fuck. An’ I’m more into tellin’ kids, do not have any boundaries in their life. I’m tryin’ to tell black kids. Why don’t you want to surf, man? Why not? What’s wrong with that? That’s your wave. Let’s go jet skiin’. Let’s go play polo. Let’s expand!

I had this one black kid named Lord Finesse, who was signed to me. An’ he was straight out of the Projects. An’ we brought him to LA and we put him first class on the plane. An’ he had never been to no place like that before. An’ we got him to LA an’ instead of enjoyin’ himself he was sayin’, I don’t like ridin’ first class, ‘cause people were lookin’ at me. I don’t like the hotel room, it was too big. An’ he was like, Plus, I don’t live like that. I’m goin’ to have to go home, man. An’ it was like he was afraid to escape. It was safer.

In a way I could understand that reaction. Like when I came to the city from the country I felt uneasy about being in expensive hotels. But I understand what you’re getting at. It’s like a ‘proud to be poor’, ‘poor and honest’, ‘this is the way your parents lived’ attitude.

And I don’t think anybody poor created that theory (laughs). I think that’s somethin’ the rich give you. They say, “Stay poor, learn the life . . .”

Poor but honest…

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Be that, while we get all the money.

That’s bullshit. (laughs)

Unlike most other lyrics, raps are always naming the year and the events and people of that year. In this sense, are rappers kind of building a recorded history, whereby other blacks can listen back to rap albums and hear what was going on during those times?

That’s somethin’ I kinda like envisioned, you know. People would ask me what are you trying to do with your music? I was like sayin’, you know, all I hope is that maybe one day, fifty years from now, you can turn back and listen to one of my records and say, that’s how it was. Versus just a regular r & b record or a pop record, which doesn’t really give you any idea what was goin’ on at that time. Yeah, I think if you want to put somethin’ in a time-capsule, you should put a few of our albums.

There is no doubt that the white establishment is afraid of rap . . .

Well, no, no . . . The white racist establishment.

OK . . . And particularly having their children listening to it. Somebody said recently that the rise of white hardcore groups like Nirvana and the way they have been subsequently pushed and hyped, was a tool the establishment used to divert their teenagers attention away from rap.

Jello Biafra said that. First off, anything Jello Biafra says probably has a lot of reality to it, ’cause this dude, he knows what he’s talkin’ about. He’s a genius on conspiracies. (laughs) But if you really look at Nirvana and the whole grunge attitude, it’s basically another version of hip hop. Rebellion once again, you know. But the thing of it is that they can’t really stop hip hop, because hip hop is like embedded in these kids heads. So what they’re goin’ to do is they’re goin’ to turn to Nirvana and they’re goin’ to take that grunge attitude and it’s goin’ to come back in their face like Rage Against The Machine.

At the moment, many would say that it is not the establishment who is killing rap, but that rappers are digging their own graves. Flavour Flav is up on firearms charges, so is Snoop Doggy Dogg. Tupac Shakur is going to be up on alleged rape. Death Row’s chief Marion Knight has been charged with assault with a deadly weapon. Onyx rapper Sticky Fingax allegedly assaulted a passenger on a plane. Isn’t there a risk that rap will ultimately do itself in?

Naw. Naw, it’s not goin’ to do itself in. It’s goin’ through growin’ pains right now. You know, the situation with Tupac and all them, that’s just a way of lettin’ you know, “Hey look, whether we make the records or not, we’re still right down in there. We still walk the walk in the streets.” In a way it’s a sad way of validifying things. It’s a way of sayin’, this ain’t bullshit, this shit is real what they’re livin’. But naw, it ain’t doin’ itself in. Because rock ‘n’ roll people were crashin’ and burnin’ cars, shot their girls, done all kinds of shit. An’ these are like the growin’ pains. It has to go through some real humps that are supposed to take it out but just won’t take it out. Like ‘Cop Killer’ was a growin’ pain and it didn’t kill it. And these guys whether they go to gaol or not – I hope they don’t – it ain’t goin’ to stop. Take somebody like Snoop Dogg who’s doin’ hardcore rap. They think that’s what’ll make kids stop likin’ it. But kids like Snoop Dogg more! They like Axl Rose more if he wrecks his car because see, it’s all rock ‘n’ roll. See, rap is rock ‘n’ roll. An’ anything that’s a little bit off to the side or wrong, it just feeds the fire. So it doesn’t hurt it. (laughs)

You once said that Public Enemy broke a new rap age. What did you mean by that?

Public Enemy to me was the first rap group that really drove the nail in on message music. Melle Mel, to me, started it – message music – with the rightfully entitled ‘The Message’. It just like blew my mind. It was like, wow! You can say something in this music. Then Chuck came out using the word ‘black’. An’ he was like, ‘I’m black.’ Nobody was sayin’ they was black in music until Chuck D – since James Brown. Now everybody is black this, black this, black, black, black . . . I never really use the word ‘black’ on my records too much. You got to really look for that word in my records because Chuck D did it, and I respect other people’s areas. You know what I’m sayin’? That’s him. But man, shit, everybody, you know . . . Black power, oh, we got to get the black thing goin’ . . . Chuck D, Public Enemy, the one and only, did that, after James Brown. I don’t wanna hear that shit! (laughs)

You once said that anybody who liked Arrested Development could not like your music. Why?

At that point I was pissed at Arrested Development. I apologise for that comment. But at that time Arrested Development really insulted me and Public Enemy. There was a time when we wanted to go on tour with them. Me and Chuck were in Australia. And we had an idea for a tour of Public Enemy, Ice Cube, Ice T and Arrested Development. And they wouldn’t do it. And we thought that they had a new flavour that was positive. And we also thought that their positiveness would be a nice buffer to some of the aggression. First off, they said they didn’t want to tour with us ’cause they didn’t agree with our music, my music. Then also they went out and said that they make Life music and what I do is Death music. And I was just pissed. I mean, No. 1, if you guys make life music, cool. But you ain’t gotta refer to what I do as death music. No. 2, you new to this. We been doin’ this out here for ten years, breakin’ ground. There wouldn’t be an Arrested Development if it wasn’t for Public Enemy. So, I was just pissed. I was just pissed at them comin’ in playin’ that so holy approach.

But you know, see, I’m emotional. At times I get pissed and say shit. But they were new, an’ they just got into the business. An’ all of a sudden radio was playin’ their records. But they had one album out. An’ I’m up here with my ninth album. They have a little ways to go. “People love us.” People will turn on you (smacks his fist into his palm) like that. If they don’t have another big hit record, they’ll see, what the fuck this business is.

Umar Bin Hassan, from The Last Poets, wrote a rap entitled ‘Niggers Are Afraid Of Revolution’ around 1970. Are niggers still afraid of revolution?

It’s somethin’ I say a lot. You know, like right now we got a gang truce an’ all that. The Brothers are quick to fight each other but they think twice about fightin’ the Man, you know. And in a way, I’ve used that technique to try to stop them from killin’ each other. In a way I’m sayin’, look, ye all really ain’t big enough to go do somethin’ real. You wanna go out here an’ shoot somebody, but you’re not ready for revolution. An’ yet you’re still big tough guys who fight each other, you know. So why don’t you just calm that bullshit down? I believe we’re not ready either. I think that we’re ready to get ready.

It could be said about the South Central uprisings, that in fact what happened was black people shitting in their own back yards, that the anger and the rage wasn’t correctly focused.

I call it a tantrum, you know. Usually when a kid gets mad, he’ll break up his own toys before he starts wreckin’ up somethin’ else in the house. An’ I think people were just mad, an’ I really think that people didn’t really wanna move out of the neighbourhoods. They really didn’t wanna hurt nobody. It wasn’t a violent move towards people. They showed the Reginald Denny incident on TV and tried to show, well this is what the riots were like. But there were fifty-odd people who got killed in these riots, you know. An’ I’m sure if there was one more white person, that would have been on television too. So, a lot of black people lost their lives. A lot got hit by the police, a lot got hit by the National Guard, and other reasons.

Have things improved since then?

It was sad. But the end result is that, No. 1, you have better communication between the black and Korean community than there ever was. I mean, finally the black people have realised that the Koreans are black too, you know. Are stuck right in there with ’em. They’re not leavin’ from their little stores on the corner an’ going to Beverly, because they live in them stores. An’ the Koreans have also learned that you just can’t move into the neighbourhood. So they have to think about that they’re part of the community. So now you’re goin’ to the same stores but there’ll be a little black girl workin’ there. An’ then also you gotta remember, a lot of the anger that went towards the Korean community was because of the Natasha Harward incident, where the Korean lady just shot the little girl in the back. That’s when the real kettle started boilin’. People were mad, watchin’ that lady go free. They were mad at the judge, you know. But a lot of people were stupid enough to get mad at the Korean lady.

I look at LA and I think it’s at its best that it’s ever been. After the second trial there was no violence or nothin’. People are re-buildin’ an’ you got the gang truce. You got 30% of the gangs want peace, another 30% considerin’ it, an’ the other 40% still want to keep it goin’ and shit. But it’s more than it’s ever been. And the world is finally lookin’ at our city. You know, it’s about a lot of hope in LA right now. You can walk the streets of LA an’ there’s a lot of hope.

You’ve explained the reasoning behind ‘Cop Killer’ – that what you were doing was articulating what people were saying on the streets. That people need to be respected by the police before the police will get respect back. The National Black Policeman’s Association supported your right to make the record.

The whole ‘Cop Killer’ turmoil was a very political move. It had nothin’ to do with freedom of speech, it was a political manoeuvre. There was the politics of changin’ the attention of America from the actual crimes that the cops were committing to a record. Point a finger at this record, “Ah, Ice T is the criminal, ah, ah, ah.” An’ America is so dumb it will believe it. “Oh, Ice T is so terrible.” They agree. An’ you don’t see what the cops have been doin’ for a while. An’ the Black Policeman’s Association were aware of that. You know, they were sayin’, “Hey shit, Ice T ain’t killed no cops. Why would we want to join in on this thing for? This is a smokescreen.”

Have you had to change your life style because of the death threats?

I’ve been gettin’ death threats from, shit, really the first album. They come in through the fan mail. Probably a couple a week. And myself I don’t really pay much attention to them because I believe that anybody who really wants to kill you, they won’t threaten you, you know. I grew up around killings and they don’t threaten me. They’re cowards, they don’t put a return address on. Because we could then threaten their lives back. Wait until I see you first (laughs). You know, there’s a part in that Malcolm X movie when Malcolm X just doesn’t want any more security around. And there’s a point in your life . . . I don’t have security around. When you realise how diabolical the enemy is, there’s no amount of security will help you when they’re willin’ to take you out. Shit, when I was out on the streets, there was people comin’ up to me an’ threatenin’ me. But all I gotta say is that if you comin’, you better come correctly. If you come correctly, you got me. If you come incorrectly, I got you. You know what I’m sayin’? (laughs).

There are many white people who accept that white history contains the ultimate in savagery. But when I look to black culture for a better alternative I always come up against black culture’s treatment of women. In Africa women still get their clitorises mutilated to deny them pleasure from sex. And in Black America – and in rap in particular – the woman is invariably somebody to be fucked or feared.

Well see, the thing about the role of women in a lot of rap is that first off, it is true that dealin’ with black men there’s a lotta, as you would say, control of women. Basically because of a control problem. Basically because you gotta remember the black male is not in charge of anything. So, when he goes to work he’s not in charge. When he goes with the cops he’s not in charge. So when he gets home he likes to feel he has control there. That’s one part of it. But the B-side of it is that most rap is just basically shit talkin’. An’ I call it male and female sparrin’. One thing about black culture is, black men and women talk shit to each other. Not like white men and women talk shit to each other. You walk in the house and a black woman say, “Motherfuck you, your feet stink.” And you go, “Shut up, bitch.” An’ then she’s say, “Ah you needle dick son-of-a-bitch.”

We do this. Seldomly do black women call the music sexist because they can volley the same anger back at us, an’ they’ve been doin’ it for years. White women aren’t used to this. Now, in London they asked me about it. And I said maybe you just gotta call it ghetto sexist. An’ maybe it just is. But to me sexism is like racism – that is if I were to look at a woman and to say, you are less than me. I don’t. But then see, the sexist whole game is twisted, because on one side of it, you have the women who say we want to be treated equal. Now, if you wanna be treated equal, an’ if you listen to an Ice T record, an’ I can kill 500 men. I smack one girl an’ I’m sexist. And you say you wanna be treated equal. Then why can’t I kill 500 women?

I think that the word that bothers white people is the word ‘bitch.’ ‘Bitch’ and ‘ho’, words like that. Those words were just slang that are thrown around the ghetto. An’ they really don’t have a whole thing of power in the black community. ‘Bitch’, it’s like a word that so obscure and it doesn’t really hold anything. There’s a way I can call a woman a bitch an’ she’ll be mad. But like we throw it around. But like you take a record like ‘99 Problems An’ A Bitch Ain’t One’. You take the same record and you call it ‘99 Problems And A Girl Ain’t One’, an’ it becomes a pop record.”

You put the fourteen-year-old female rapper, Grip’s track ‘Funky Gripsta’ directly after ‘99 Problems’. Was that in some way intended to be a balancing act?

Absolutely. I mean, I brought in Markese [2 Live Crew] just to say the worst sexist shit possible. Just the worst shit, because I find somethin’ funny in just sayin’ the worst shit. Number 1, I know it bothers the fuck out of people. It’s like Andrew Dice Clay, just say the worst shit, just so as some girl goes, “Oh my God, they’re terrible.” That is funny. If it’s known that it’s just bullshit. I call it male/female sparring. OK, now girl come back and hit me with it. Let me hear what you gotta say about it. And when we did it we had Grip on the album, and we were like, OK, we love Grip, that’s our girl, we’re down with her. We got ‘99 Problems’. If any woman’s listenin’ to this she’ll be mad at this point. Let’s put the girl right after it so that they can say, “OK, alright, how mad can we be?” When you listen to 2 Live Crew and shit like that . . . I mean, I hate to say it, it’s a cliché, but it’s a black thing. It’s a black thing. Black people deal with sex in a way no other race deals with it.

But when I listen to 2 Live Crew they sound mean and nasty. The woman to them is merely a tool.

The theory to them is that they’re just sayin’ the worst shit. Remember that comment. They’re goin’ for the worst possible thing they can say. They’re not tryin’ to make you understand. They’re just workin’ off a, “What’s the most terrible thing we can say to a girl? I wanna pull out my dick and piss on you when I finish.” And the girls go, “Ah, you’re terrible, you shitheads!” An’ that’s what they’re doin’. An’ they’re goin’ for shock, wrong shit. But it’s all shit talkin’. I mean, a black man will say, “Man, I could take my dick out and throw it across five of these walls, come up through the hotel elevator an’ fuck you Mama.” This is the kind of shit black people say. An’ a black girl be like, “Man, my pussy was fartin’ last night. I was fuckin’ this dude an’ he had to wear ear plugs.” It’s just nasty talk. I think one thing white people do with rap, and especially in the sexual areas, I think they intellectualise it too much.

Original Gangster was a highly political album, with very few sex raps on it. Whereas Home Invasion was more a mixture of the politics, sex, gangsterism and the personal. Was there a bit of a rowing back with Home Invasion?

Well, when I make records I try to make records that deal with how I’m feelin’ at the time of the album. That’s the only way I can make music. In other words, I am makin’ music for the fans but at the same time I try to make albums I wanna hear. So, Original Gangster was the attitude at the moment, of ‘The Tower’, ‘The House’ and things like that. Home Invasion was done durin’ a shit storm. Home Invasion was written during ‘Cop Killer’ drama. So, there’s a lot of anger, and it’s a very personal album. I’m shootin’ at a lot of people. I ripped up Source Magazine, I ripped a lot of people. I ripped sell-out MC’s. I did ‘Message To The Soldier’. It was very personal. Like a lot of my rap fans were like, “Yo, man, it felt like you were sayin’ shit that really was comin’ off your chest.” I was mad about a lot of shit. An’ I’m not goin’ to put that to the side and rap about other topics.

So where do you go from here?

The new album I’m doin’, it’s called Return Of The Real, which is attemptin’ to go back to phase one. In other words, try to hit the nail on the head with the correct mixture of shit talkin’ rhymes, story rhymes and political rhymes. The only thing you’re gonna see in Return Of The Real is a more musical base for the clubs. Ice T has never been a record that you would play at a club. So I’m lookin’ for some good fat beats that you can bounce your head to this year. ‘Cause I think that’s important. And also new rhyming styles. I’m rhyming much more . . . it’s just different. Like I got one called ‘Brain Damage’. It’s kinda got a topic like Home Invasion. One song called ‘Return Of The Real’ goes: “1994, the sixth encore of the nigger who put triggers and gats into rap/The motherfucker who was cold, dry rollin’, trucks gold, got my ho’s throughout the world/With James Brown, I got my soul/I got my beats bumpin’ and my freaks in check/Possess a mad game ‘cause I stacks the deck/I’m not a nigger you should trip with/’Cause I’m floatin’ swift . . . I’ll leave you lookin’ out my trunk/You little wack ass punk.”

Now this is a real Ice T rap right here. And this is like from Return Of The Real. This is like no messin’. It’s called a ‘Victim Of The Criminal Zone’: “It was Saturday night in LA/Time to play/My beeper’s hummin’ like a vibrator/Gotta make the streets pay/I’m packin’ two gats an’ I wish I could carry more/Might sound crazy but I ran outta slugs before/Yeah, I know the Feds watch me/But my best class is hard, I have Saachi/So I’m just rollin in my Black 5 hun’/I used to low-ride, now it’s just for fun/I had five cars but now I got one/It’s hard to keep fallin’ when you’re on the run/I had two keys in my trunk and a shovel/Stepped on them once, so now I got double/The shovel’s for drama/Need I say more…?”