![]() It took a while for Ice T to surface too. It took a while for it to get to the surface.” Rap had a hard time on the West Coast for a long time. They said rap couldn’t make it on the West Coast. “They said the rappers were soft and dainty out here. “They always said we couldn’t rap out here,” Ice T noted in a disgusted tone. Since rap’s roots are in the mean streets of New York, East Coast artists have always been considered the premier rappers. West Coast rappers were always regarded as second-rate. For years, though, it was a hollow title. Ice T is probably the West Coast’s ace rapper. The rhythms-the feel of street rhyme-just penetrated my soul. ![]() “I always liked to rhyme,” said Ice T, a Newark, N.J., native who’s been living in Los Angeles since early adolescence. His fascination with rapping-which he also calls power poetry and the real black music-began when he was a kid. He earned that nickname as a youngster by frequently reciting the racy, rhythmic prose of a writer named Iceberg Slim. “Mine shoots.”īy the way, don’t call him Mr. “I have a little gun like that,” she said. So this can be looked at as a peace symbol.Ī woman at the restaurant, fascinated by the gun, walked over to Ice T, gingerly touched the gun and asked him if it could really shoot. “The government takes our tax money and buys guns so they can keep peace. Even though I was talking that way on that record I still say I’m not a violent man.”īut something else about Ice T causes people to doubt this claim: It’s that little gun he wears dangling from a heavy chain around his neck. That record is a monument to me talking crazy. There’s some real hard-core murder stuff on it. Even he now admits it was excessively violent: “I wanted to make a rap record to end all rap records. One of Ice T’s early 12-inch singles, “Dog in the Wax,” got him into hot water. But that doesn’t make me a violent man and that doesn’t mean that I favor violence.” Violence is part of the streets and rap is the music of the streets, the poetry of the streets. “I’m not a violent man,” he insisted, though lyrics on songs like “Squeeze the Trigger” are riddled with violent images. Throughout his career, Ice T has been dogged by charges that he advocates violence. “It all depends on whether your mind is turned to sex or violence.” “It can be taken either way,” Ice T explained. This label, supposedly warning people of offensive material, is in a cylindrical shape that could either be a bullet or a condom. The sticker is a sly dig at the Parents Music Resource Center, the Virginia-based organization pressuring the record industry to clean up its act. To Ice T, that’s something to boast about: “That tells the kids that’s something in there they shouldn’t hear. □ “Back then, album covers used to be nearly as important as the music itself.” album bears a sticker warning of explicit lyrics. On this date: 35 years ago dropped his game-changing debut album □ Read the first-person story of how Ice made #RhymePays-and gave birth to West Coast gangsta rap-in #SplitDecision □ People across the country had Zero knowledge of LA gangs at the time. The very 1st LA Gang reference on a Hip Hop record. Respect due.Ĭheck out the tweets below where Ice-T and others provide some insights regarding this landmark recording, and the impact Ice has had on Hip-Hop in its entirety!ģ5 yrs ago today I dropped my 1st album. West Coast Styles salutes Rhyme Pays and thanks all those involved with its creation for the trail it blazed and the standards it set, some of which very few other albums have matched even all these years later. ![]() It is not only a collection of songs that introduced the world to “gangsta rap” before it was even a term but marked the arrival of one of Hip-Hop’s greatest storytellers. On this day, thirty-five years ago, Ice-T released his debut album, Rhyme Pays.
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