Ice-T
- Actor
- Producer
- Composer
The legendary gangsta hip-hop emcee Ice-T was born Tracy Marrow on
February 16, 1958, in Newark, New Jersey. He moved to Los Angeles,
California, to live with his paternal aunt after the death of his
father while he was in the sixth grade; his mother had died earlier
when he was in the third grade. His aunt lived in the South Los Angeles
district of Crenshaw, colloquially referred to as South Central. He
became immersed in the street life of the inner-city and eventually
became a member of the West Side Rollin 30s Original Harlem Crips.
In 1979, Marrow joined the Army after leaving Crenshaw High School, but
his 4-year hitch was enough for him, as he was a leader, not a
follower. "I didn't like total submission to a leader other than
myself," he said. After ETSing from the Army in 1983, he returned to
South Central with the intention of becoming a hip-hop musician. More
than music, his life got caught up in street life as as a jewel thief
and as a pimp. (His nomme de guerre, Ice T, is an homage to the fabled
pimp and raconteur Iceberg Slim (Robert Beck). He committed himself totally
to his music after a 1985 car crash.
As a musician, Ice-T played a major role in the creation of the gangsta
incarnation of hip-hop music and was a colossus of the West Coast
hip-hop scene, despite his East Coast, greater New York, origins.
Though his music displays a political consciousness, like the
indictments of racism that were a hallmark of seminal hip-hop group
Public Enemy, it also is nihilistic as befits a chronicler of street life.
His most infamous song, the heavy metal "Cop Killer," was one of the
major battle in the cultural wars of the 1990s, in which cultural
conservatives enlisted the Moses of the right wing, Charlton Heston, to get
Ice-T dropped from his then-label, Sire/Warner Bros.
The charismatic Ice-T has also achieved success as an actor in movies
and on TV. He plays Detective Odafin Tutuola on the TV series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999),
which is ironic for someone famous for "Cop Killer" and his feud with
the L.A.P.D. Ice-T currently resides in North Bergen, New Jersey, with
his wife, Coco Austin.
February 16, 1958, in Newark, New Jersey. He moved to Los Angeles,
California, to live with his paternal aunt after the death of his
father while he was in the sixth grade; his mother had died earlier
when he was in the third grade. His aunt lived in the South Los Angeles
district of Crenshaw, colloquially referred to as South Central. He
became immersed in the street life of the inner-city and eventually
became a member of the West Side Rollin 30s Original Harlem Crips.
In 1979, Marrow joined the Army after leaving Crenshaw High School, but
his 4-year hitch was enough for him, as he was a leader, not a
follower. "I didn't like total submission to a leader other than
myself," he said. After ETSing from the Army in 1983, he returned to
South Central with the intention of becoming a hip-hop musician. More
than music, his life got caught up in street life as as a jewel thief
and as a pimp. (His nomme de guerre, Ice T, is an homage to the fabled
pimp and raconteur Iceberg Slim (Robert Beck). He committed himself totally
to his music after a 1985 car crash.
As a musician, Ice-T played a major role in the creation of the gangsta
incarnation of hip-hop music and was a colossus of the West Coast
hip-hop scene, despite his East Coast, greater New York, origins.
Though his music displays a political consciousness, like the
indictments of racism that were a hallmark of seminal hip-hop group
Public Enemy, it also is nihilistic as befits a chronicler of street life.
His most infamous song, the heavy metal "Cop Killer," was one of the
major battle in the cultural wars of the 1990s, in which cultural
conservatives enlisted the Moses of the right wing, Charlton Heston, to get
Ice-T dropped from his then-label, Sire/Warner Bros.
The charismatic Ice-T has also achieved success as an actor in movies
and on TV. He plays Detective Odafin Tutuola on the TV series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999),
which is ironic for someone famous for "Cop Killer" and his feud with
the L.A.P.D. Ice-T currently resides in North Bergen, New Jersey, with
his wife, Coco Austin.