Ice-T: Never-heard 1991 interview

I Couldn't Throw It Out, Season 2, Episode 26
Ice-T: Never-heard 1991 Interview

Michael Small:
On this episode of I Couldn't Throw It Out, one of the most successful performers for nearly four decades talks about how he got where he is today.

[Recorded interview starts]

Ice-T:
When I was out here stealing and robbing, I know what I was trying to get. And that was get me some money so I wouldn't have to live in the conditions in the ghetto. Anybody who says other than that is full of shit.

[Recorded interview ends]

Michael Small:
To hear more, keep listening.

[Song excerpt begins]

I couldn't throw it out
I had to scream and shout
Before I turned to dust I've got to throw it out

[Song excerpt ends]

Michael Small:
Hello, Sally Libby.

Sally Libby:
Hello, Michael Small.

Michael Small:
OK, so we've done some talking on this podcast, especially me. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.  But today we got someone who could talk both of us right out of the room. I reached into my boxes, as I always do, and I found the tape of an interview that I never threw out. And you know I still don't want to throw it out. And that's because it's one of the greatest talkers of all time. You want to tell us who it is?

Sally Libby:
I do. It's the one and only rapper and actor, Ice-T.

Michael Small:
Yes. And I did this interview with Ice-T for my book about rap music back in 1991. So it's really important to put this in context. That was 33 years ago. Things were really different then. For one thing, Ice was 33 years old and now he's 66.

Sally Libby:
Think about how much has happened to him and to all of us. His whole image has changed. Now I think most people know him for being on Law and Order SVU.

Michael Small:
Yeah, maybe. And for this kind of persona he's created.

Sally Libby:
I read that he's been on Law and Order for 25 years. When I Googled him, I saw that he had been in so many TV shows and movies.

Michael Small:
And then there are all these articles about him all the time on People .com, on the news sites. They love him.

Sally Libby:
Back in the old days, he was like too scary for the mainstream press.

Michael Small:
You couldn't find him on Google because there was no Google.

Sally Libby:
Seriously!

Michael Small:
Yes, and no internet either. He had appeared in a few movies like New Jack City, but he was mostly known as a rapper. He was representing a new West Coast style called gangster rap.

Sally Libby:
I bet what he told you about violence and guns and police was really different from what he'd say today because the world was so different then. The worst school shootings hadn't happened. And he mentioned the Rodney King beating, but there was no George Floyd, no Black Lives Matter.

Michael Small:
Also, the year after I spoke with him, his metal band Body Count released the song Cop Killer. Remember that?

Sally Libby:
Uh-huh.

Michael Small:
It caused a huge controversy. The song was banned and it was denounced by the first George Bush because he was running for reelection as president in 1992. So it's really interesting to hear that Ice -T talks about Bush with me before all that happened.

Sally Libby:
Of course, I like to hear him talk about his kids. Do you know how old they are now?

Michael Small:
His daughter LeTesha is 48. Wow. And his son, Tracy Jr., had just been born before my interview, so he must be 33. Back then, Ice was living with his girlfriend, Darlene, and now he's been married for something like 23 years to Coco Austin. She was a swimsuit model when they met and she now has all kinds of fashion oriented businesses.

Sally Libby:
Yes, I know all about her from Ice Loves Coco.

Michael Small:
Which was the reality TV show they made in 2011 about their lives. It ran for three seasons.

Sally Libby:
I watched a little of it and let's just say it wasn't for me. But I reality TV fans loved it.

Michael Small:
They loved it enough that Ice and Coco are producing another one.

Sally Libby:
No!

Michael Small:
Yes. It's going to be about their daughter, Chanel, who is eight. She's already on social media, so you can see her. She's very cute, by the way.

Sally Libby:
So he's got an eight -year -old daughter and a 48 -year -old daughter.

Michael Small:
That's right.

Sally Libby:
I guess he and she still have a lot of energy.

Michael Small:
He doesn't do things the way other people do them. You know, you have to remember even when he started out with his career, he was doing something very different. Rap was still very much a fringe type of music.

Sally Libby:
Right. And he told you they banned rap music then for foul language.

Michael Small:
Now, if you don't put an F -bomb in a song, there's no chance it'll be a hit.

Sally Libby:
And there's so much rap at the Grammys now.

Michael Small:
Ice -T won two of them, though only one was for rap. The other one was with his metal band Body Count.

Sally Libby:
Didn't he start that band like right before you talked to him?

Michael Small:
Exactly. And now, 33 years later, they just did a tour of Europe and a big concert in New York City.

Sally Libby:
You see? Some things from back then are still relevant.

Michael Small:
That's what surprised me when I listened to the interview, Way back then, we talked about Clarence Thomas and how he was threatening affirmative action.

Sally Libby:
That's definitely relevant.

Michael Small:
Yes. And Ice was one of the few rappers who also mentioned Donald Trump. Trump had already kind of built this fake persona as the ultimate rich person. And that kind of image really appealed to gangster rappers.

Sally Libby:
Right. But I saw an interview where he called Trump a con artist.

Michael Small:
Well, based on Ice -T's history, I think he's an expert about that. So we should trust him.

Sally Libby:
I just want to say that your interview made me love Ice -T.  He was so full of life and open to different things. So prolific. He's amazing. The fact that he's willing to correct himself and admit that he made a mistake is refreshing.

Michael Small:
He's still that way. Of course, he's outdone us when it comes to podcasting. He released 261 episodes of Ice -T's Daily Game, which went on hiatus in February, but knowing Ice, it'll be back.

Sally Libby:
Let's hear the interview.

Michael Small:
Just one more thing: When you listen, remember - I wasn't a famous journalist.  I couldn't promise a huge audience. And Ice-T had no problem with that. He didn't rush me.  He was willing to talk with me until I ran out of questions. And he put up with that clicking sound you'll hear in the background.  That is me typing as he talked -- because I didn't trust the tape recorder that was attached to my landline phone with a little suction cup. That's how we recorded in those days. Anyway, Ice-T started by explaining this new thing that no one understood called Gangster Rap.  So here we go...

[Recorded interview begins]Ice-T:

Michael Small:
Would you say you're the first person who started doing gangsta rap?

Ice-T:
Well, let's put it like this.  When I started, I didn't really look at it as gangsta rap. I had my first record out in 1982 which was called The Coldest Rap and that's the first not really gangsta orientated rap, but very street orientated where I talked about being a pimp. It was very crime orientated because I said "In the summer day I played in the snow," which deals with dealing with cocaine. I was doing that and then I did a couple of records that were similar to New York records because New York records basically rap about rocking house parties, but I never really rocked house parties. That wasn't my thing. But then my guys told me, Ice, rap about what we know, rap about how we live and I wrote the song "6 in the mornin." Now the only other record that could be similar to that was PSK done by Schoolly D and it was about gangsterism, but it was very vague. "6 in the mornin" was the first record about having a gun, going to jail, running from the police, beating people up in the streets. It was the first of that format but I tend to shy away from the use of gangster rap because I wasn't really gangster and I was just living. I think now a lot of people choose to try to sound like a gangster. People call that being a gangster, but it was more reality -based rap.

Michael Small:
A lot of people said gangster rap is theater, it's people acting, it's not real. If they were real gangsters, they'd be dead. Right. How do you respond to that?

Ice-T:
No, I'm a real gangster. I rap from true experiences. One thing I do do, I'm able to draw to the character Ice-T other people's experiences. Like the writer I used to read Donald Goines would do. If you were to tell me like a situation, yo Ice, I was out in the street and the cops raided my car and they cut my back seat open with a box cutter, right? I would say like, was it two cops? As long as I know it's real, then the character Ice -T can live out this situation because now Ice -T is like a culmination of all the kids in the street. I call it faction. Factual technique, but fictional story.

Michael Small:
I know in one of the songs you said something like, I grab a 40, but then I saw you on MTV and you said you personally never drink, right?

Ice-T:
On New Jack Hustler, I say, I gotta get paid, I got money to earn with my posse out on the a**, bump my sounds, crack a 40 and laugh. Cool out and watch my new Benz glean. Okay, now, New Jack Hustler is a song that's like Colors. This is another style I invented where I become somebody else. That's when you go into that theater level. What I do is I put my brain back on the mentality of a gangbanger and I become the character. Or I put my brain in the mentality of a drug dealing hustler and I become him. Most hustlers would drink 40. The particular guy playing that song, yeah, he crack the 40, but I don't, you know?

Michael Small:
In the crowd you run in, everybody drinks. How can you get away with not drinking?

Ice-T:
Cause I'm I'm I don't have to you  know. Don't nobody don't tell me what to do. When I was young, right? Bunch fuckers used to try to get me high. They used to want to make me want to, you know, like, yo, you got to smoke weed. We would sell weed. I never really got off into cocaine. But I never even hit a joint. Because I would always tell people, if you could tell me a benefit, I'd do it. So once my guys, they used to try to tackle me and hold me down and blow into my face. But I'm not afraid to be in a room where people are getting high. I don't have no problem with that. It's not like I don't want to get the contact. I never smoked cigarettes. Okay, drink wise, I mean if we was out tonight and you had some champagne, I'll sip the champagne. I've never bought any liquor. I'll tell you the truth, when my guys found out that I wasn't with it, but I was still crazy, they kinda said, cool, let me be the sober one, because if the police ever stopped us, I would talk. If we ever was in a party or a fight, I would be able to get everybody out.

Michael Small:
Chuck D's on this big campaign against the malt liquors. Do you have any strong feeling about the effect that they have had on the community?

Ice-T:
It's no puzzle that some of these liquors aren't really, shouldn't be consumed by human beings because, I mean, they're only sold in our neighborhoods. Definitely you can't get night train and a lot of these particular liquors one block out of the ghetto area. They don't sell them, you know. My attitude is if you drink it, and you think it's good, then I'm cool to endorse it. You see what I'm saying? I mean, if Cube drinks it, and he likes it, regardless of whether it's fucking him up, if he drinks it, that's cool. I mean, you couldn't get me to do it, because I don't drink. But I think it's necessary for Chuck to let motherfuckers know that, this shit you drinking ain't necessarily the best shit.

Michael Small:
I've interviewed about 35 rappers so far and some of them said, Gangsta rap's over, it's gone to too great extremes, NWA have killed it in a way because they've turned it into a parody, it's just funny, it's not real anymore. How do you respond to that?

Ice-T:
Well, you know, for those people who say that, they're full of shit. First off, let's not use gangster rapper, let's call it hardcore. Hardcore rappers. It's not going nowhere. The reason it'll never die is because too many kids live that lifestyle. Now see, all music has what I call a pop swell. Meaning it will swell up. Gangsta rap swole up because it was popular. Pop people will leave it. But the core will never leave because the core, that's their music. I'll never stop listening to it because that's me.

Michael Small:
A really tough letter was written about you to one of the fan magazines and this one kid said, look, this guy lives in a fancy house in an all white neighborhood. Why should I believe him as a gangster rapper? Now how do you answer this kid who wrote in this letter?

Ice-T:
Cause number one, the kid's an idiot because all gangsters live in fancy houses. What the fuck do you think I was out here killing and tripping to get? If you go to Gotti's house, he's got ducks. If you go to any major drug dealer cartel member, he's got swans and fucking lawn flamingos out in the fucking lawn. Why would you believe a gangster who's still broke?

Michael Small:
Chuck D. and you and Ice Cube to a certain extent, seem to have a disagreement from things I've heard at various places. Chuck D. says, stay in that ghetto, open a business there, turn it around. And I've heard you say, run out of there as fast as you can go. What do you answer to Ice Cube and Chuck D?

Ice-T:
They're full of shit. They know it. What you do at the ghetto is, first off, you have to understand that nobody lives in the ghetto by choice. You live there because it's a poor community. It is not a black community, not a white community. It is not a Mexican community. It is a poor community. Your mother lived there because she didn't have any money. Your father lived there because he didn't have any money. Also, the jungle creed is the strong must feed on any prey at hand. Anybody who knows, once you get some money in the ghetto, eventually you're gonna get vic-ed. Because you're the only guy on the block with money. Everybody else is broke. They're gonna have to hit you. They have no choice. My whole concept is, get everybody out. I left out, I've got so far, 20 of my guys moved into apartments. Now these guys have the chance to worry about dying of old age. I mean, just to be able to know that they might live and take the money and educate these kids. My attitude is leave the ghetto a barren wasteland. Rebuild it, then maybe we'll move back. But as long as that place is set up in that way, nobody's ever gonna, it's not gonna, there's no help. Now Chuck can say what he wants, but he don't live in the ghetto and Ice Cube is building a house in Marina Del Rey.

Michael Small:
He made a big deal about that he still lives in the ghetto.

Ice-T:
He lives in Windsor Hills, which is the upper class black neighborhood. Come on be serious, Cube knows. I hang out in the hood every day with my guys and all they're saying is Ice, get me the fuck out of here. I don't want to stay here. The first escaping of the killing field is the mental escape. The mental escape. The mindset that says, I don't want to surf. I don't want to snow ski. I don't want to ride horses. That's for white people. White people eat nice restaurants. I don't want that. So what is left for the black kid staying on the corner in his ghetto? As long as you don't want to escape that hood mentally, you're always going to be fucked. They have to know that there's better levels and that attitude is not selling out. They don't realize that's a mind trip that the system has put on them. Tell an Indian if you leave the reservation you're selling out Why not? Why shouldn't the Indian want to live in Bel Air? The water is better. The food is better. Why not? So so that's bullshit and people see the thing of it is one thing people got to understand with me is I ain't Chuck D. Chuck D is younger than me, Ice Cube is 22. I was in penitentiary when Ice Cube was in a walker.

Michael Small:
You were in the penitentiary

Ice-T:
Yeah. So, I listen to these guys, but I know when I was out here stealing and grabbing, I know what I was trying to get, and that was getting me some money so I wouldn't have to live in the conditions in the ghetto. Anybody who says other than that is full of shit.

Michael Small:
With all the stuff I read, it never mentioned the penitentiary. How long were you in for?

S/
I've been in serious problems with the law and in and out of jail. I mean, most of the shit, anything I did, I never killed nobody. Statute of limitations is up.

Michael Small:
Now my question is, in talking to the press, have you built up some of your past differently than it was?

Ice-T:
I'll tell you the truth. If I were a liar, I wouldn't be able to walk the streets of LA. Know what saying? My past is what keeps me alive out here. When I first started rapping, a lot of kids was like, who is this Ice -T guy? I don't walk the streets with bodyguards. The brothers say, yo, that's them same dudes who used to shoot up the skating rink. That's them guys. And in LA, I'm, you know, I was a legend out here before the rap scene, because I was Ice -T before I was a rapper. So, ain't no puzzle. And if I'm gonna make records like Colors and still walk the streets of LA with no bodyguards. Lot of these other rappers out here got huge bodyguards because they're scared.

Michael Small:
That's another question that I had. You said you're going to the hood. You are a wealthy guy. People know that. God, somebody could kidnap you and hold you for ransom or something.

Ice-T:
I mean, if they step to me, they gotta come correct. You know what I'm saying? When I'm in the hood, I'm strapped. I'm with my guys.

Michael Small:
You're carrying a gun with you?

Ice-T:
All the time.

Michael Small:
Is it a registered gun?

Ice-T:
Yeah, but it's not legal to carry. But you know, it's like I'd rather get caught with it than caught without it. See, this is the thing motherfuckers, I mean, with me, I didn't grow up to be a rapper, you know? A lot of these rappers now grow up wanting to be a rapper. That's not what I am. See what I'm saying? I grew up to rob you, and that was it, and do what I had to do. And fortunately, I was sidetracked with this hip hop, and now I found out that I could get paid for this and not have to sell out. It's much better lifestyle because I got people who respect me. But this is not me. People say, well, why did you name your album Original Gangster? And I said, well, if Al Capone was writing books, would he be a writer or would he be a gangster? My question is, why don't they ask any of the other rappers? What about Ice -T? Ask them. Ask any of the kids. Ain't never gonna find no kids, especially in L .A. that say, Ice is lying. I got enough real shit that I don't have to add.

Michael Small:
I listened to your record and you're saying, look, I made all this money by rhyming, but it's clear that, number one, most people, even a lot of kids who want to be rappers don't have the skills, and number two, there's just not enough room, even for the number of rappers that exist now. Now these other kids who see you, what's their hope? They probably can't make it as rappers.

Ice-T:
One first thing I try to make sure that they know that it took me 11 years. I could have took them same 11 years and been a brain surgeon, any kind of doctor, anything. And it didn't happen quick. You know, I've spent a lot of these 11 years not having no money. I had money from the streets when I started, but I went broke in a year and a half. It's a long route. What I try to tell them is that you can do it, coming from adversity, not necessarily with rap, but just with a little confidence, a little, you know, perseverance. I make sure I let them know there's money, because I'm not gonna let the system trip me into believing that I don't want money. See, that's another game they play. You don't like this system that you should want money. If I don't have money, I can't get a lawyer. If I don't have money, I'm like a hippie, living in the corner and you can lock me up whenever you want to. Can't help my friends. All of James Bond's best enemies were billionaires. If I really want to go head up, I gotta have a cash flow.

Michael Small:
What are you doing with your money?

Ice-T:
Basically, trying to set up a situation where my family will be set, you know, buy my house. My kids, when I have kids, I want them to have a house. I want them to have a foundation to start from. I started from nothing. I want to give them something. They have a chance to go to college, things like that. I'm spending a lot of money on my homeboys, starting businesses with them, helping my friends.

Michael Small:
What kinds of businesses?

Ice-T:
We own a Porsche shop. We build Porsches. We own a limousine service. We own a club called United Nations. Own a merchandising company. What else we starting? I just started two of my guys off and starting syndicate real estate. They're going out buying real estate stuff. Two of my buddies, they just got their real estate license. So I gave them cash, a little bankroll to go out and buy shit all over the United States. Basically, my friends know if they come to me with a prospect, I'll help them. I'll put them down. And all of them are trying to get out of the business. They want I mean they don't want to be involved in that street and every time they see me come up They're like damn man, you know, but they know they can't they're not all gonna rap. A couple of them are trying to be rappers but most of them are just that they work more in the business, you know.

Michael Small:
It's nice to say get out of the ghetto but there are good people women who had babies and they can't get daycare and they're stuck in these places. Who's gonna help them. How are they gonna get out? It just seems to me like if you leave the ghetto, you're abandoning these people.

Ice-T:
No, no, no, no, no. See, if you leave the ghetto, you're showing them a chance. It'd be different if I left, and which I haven't left, because I can't leave mentally. Every day my phone is ringing, saying, ice man, ice, ice, ice, man. They just shot such and such. Come, you know, come get me, you know, get, you know. So I know I'm too in touch. Leaving it is a mental leaving. You have to mentally say, don't give a fuck about it no more. That's when you leave it. Where you rest your head has nothing to do with it. When I was living in the hood, I used to sleep in hotels in Beverly Hills, and in downtown LA, and in night spots every night. I never slept there. Because we would use other people's credit cards and live all over the United States. Living has nothing to do with where you rest your head. These people that you say are nice, but then you also use the word stuck.

Michael Small:
Yeah, well I think so.

Ice-T:
But see, stuck is a negative term. It means that they can't get they self out.

Michael Small:
I don't think I could get myself out if I had these kids and I was there.

Ice-T:
Look at me, I come up out of my mother fucker, I don't have no parents, I don't have no family, I'm one guy, I'm stuck.I'm in trouble, I'm about to go to prison, I'm doing all kind of wrong shit. And I changed my life and I got my shit together. I stayed away from drugs. And you can do it. You can do it. You just have to believe and you have to get on the right track. First you have to want to. If you don't want to, in other words, I meet girls every day, "I'm on the welfare." "Do you want to be on the welfare?" "Well, shit, I can't get off." "Yes, you can. Yes, you can." You can get a babysitter. You can get your ass in school. If you're willing to limit yourself, I don't know what you feel you can do. But once you get your mindset that you can do anything, you can. These people in Bel Air are no different than you. They have the same genes. They have the same mental capacity. Donald Trump, you have the same capacity to understand and learn everything that man knows. As long as you don't think you can, you won't.

Michael Small:
Didn't you become a father when you were still in high school?

Ice-T:
Yeah.

Michael Small:
What about the woman who's with that child now? What happened to her?

Ice-T:
Married. She moved to Texas. They got a nice house. She's all right. My kid's okay. You know? See, what happened with that was me and the girl I was with was just fucking. And it was like, shit, a baby.

And then we said, we don't want to keep this together, because really, it's the first time you ever came over my house. We ain't really set up forever, but we would like to see this child. So when the baby came, I went in the army, and I tried to become responsible. But then it was like, you know, mother came in, the mother had seven people in her family, and I don't have anybody, and something happened to me. So it was a heavy decision, but it was like, OK. He'll go with mom. You know, we still get along real well. Never pushed it into anything nasty, you know? And the girl went off, met a guy, got married, had another kid, and they got a nice middle class home. They're straight.

Michael Small:
That's interesting, because what I saw was it was having children that pulled so many people where they couldn't, you can't go out and leave the children. You don't have the money for a babysitter. That's why I said stuck. I felt so badly for them. I didn't know what they could do.

Ice-T:
Well, they can. They can. Believe me, you can get in a position where you're stuck. Usually, hopefully, you got somebody that may be a little bit less stuck. And if that person will come in and help, you feel like my guy. But by me being successful, able to help them and give them that one -up, they couldn't get an apartment. Because the application is something but now I'm able to say, I'll get you, I'll cover you, I'll co -sign. But then I'd let them know, yo. Because motherfuckers, my guys still come to me and be like, "Yo, Ice, I need this." And I let them know, "Yo, partner, I used to sleep in the rain. I used to be sleeping in people's garages and be stuck. So don't look at me for too much help." I have low compassion for motherfuckers crying. I get up every day at seven in the morning and I work all day. I don't wanna hear that shit. And there's a lot of times they'll come to me, "Yo man, Ice, if I don't get a loan, man, I think I might go do something." I'd be like, "Okay, I got a gun, ski mask for you." They know I'll do it. See, they know that if it got down to it, I wouldn't ask them for shit. I'd just go get me some money. Therefore, they respect me in that level. They're like, we know Ice ain't no joke, so we can't come in here acting like punks. Most of them, since they're good enough, if I do loan them something, they've then managed to turn it into bigger and better things.

Michael Small:
Now one of the things you mentioned a minute ago is that you went into the Army. How long were you in the Army?

Ice-T:
Four years.

Michael Small:
And what was your position?

Ice-T:
I was a Ranger.

Michael Small:
A Ranger?

Ice-T:
Yeah.

Michael Small:
What does that mean?

Ice-T:
Well, you have infantry, you have airborne, you have a Ranger, and then you have special forces. It's a pretty elite organization, infantry, you know, jump out of planes, whole shit.

Michael Small:
So did you get along okay in the Army or was it a difficult thing for you?

Ice-T:
Let's put it like this. Did two years in and two years out. Meaning, two years I was just like with it. And the last two years I wanted out. That's how it usually is. You go in kind of gung -ho. I was happy to be doing something. It was like the first time I felt like, you know, getting a real check. But after that I kind of started not really digging it. I started learning that if you wasn't in the Pentagon calling the shots, wasn't the place to be. And I just kind of drifted out.

Michael Small:
What kind of work did you do for them?

Ice-T:
Run up and down hills.

Michael Small:
Wasn't there a specialty that you did?

Ice-T:
Yeah, killing. I was a ranger. All you do is go out on road marches, train, train for war.

Michael Small:
And you never went to war, though?

Ice-T:
No, but that's all you do. See, lot of people go to Army to be clerks. But I went in and all I go into the firing range, hand grenade range, 203, jump, go out on things called, R caps where you simulate war.

Michael Small:
But it was four years of simulating war.

Ice-T:
Yeah.

Michael Small:
Wasn't the idea that that would then pay for a college education for you?

Ice-T:
I didn't go in for the college.

Michael Small:
It was really after you got out of the Army that your life of crime started, right?

Ice-T:
The heavier life. See, the reason I went in is because when the baby came, we were out doing petty crime, you know, like breaking in cars and shit. And I said, this ain't no way to be with no kids, you know? So I kind of tried to get responsible.

Michael Small:
They kind of sell it that the Army is supposed to be what cleans you up.

Ice-T:
It teaches you discipline. It teaches you how to adapt, improvise, overcome obstacles. It taught me that I didn't want to work for nobody. After taking four years of orders, I bought a whole bunch of stereo equipment. That's why I first started rapping, because know, like rap came in Sugarhill Gang. I started learning how to rhyme. When I came home, I wanted to be a DJ, just like all my friends, they were doing all kinds of, you know, crazy shit. And they were like, yo, this is what's happening, man. It was this.

Michael Small:
Did you ever get into selling drugs heavily? Because that seems to be what the base of it all is.

Ice-T:
No, because drugs weren't in, you know. 'Caine wasn't in. Plus, to me, drugs were all... You know, I would rather just find somebody selling drugs and lay them down, you know? So I didn't really get off into that. I was more strong -arm type, you know, go take money, you know? And I wasn't really into armed robbery, that didn't come until later. We used to just be slick, you know, more burglaries. Thanks to that nature, we dealt with lots of jewelry. And then my guys were operating off of lots of, faulty credits and, insurance fraud, where you can, like, you know, car accident shit. See, like, if you hustle, it's like you're dealing with lots of different crimes. Like, whatever crime fits the need, you commit the crime. If you're do a burglary, you might do two GTAs to get the cars for the burglary.

Michael Small:
But was there an organization like that was central or was it just everybody doing their own thing?

Ice-T:
Yeah, neighborhood.

Michael Small:
If you're taking money away from drug dealers, aren't you a dead man the next day?

Ice-T:
Not if they don't know who you are.

Michael Small:
Huh. Wow.

Ice-T:
That's why, like, I listen to a lot of these motherfuckers talking shit, but I'm like, well, you know, these niggas is busters. I mean, I don't want to hear this shit because, you know, I mean, you're good, you live. If you're weak, you die, you know what I'm saying? I was very fortunate. A lot of my guys are dead, you know? It can happen.

Michael Small:
Did you graduate from high school before you went to the Army?

Ice-T:
I graduated from high school and went to trade tech for two years. I was taking auto body care.

Michael Small:
Did one or both of your parents die in a car accident?

Ice-T:
My mother died from natural causes. She caught a heart attack when I was in third grade. And my father got killed when I was in the seventh grade.

Michael Small:
You never said how he got killed. Was it some kind of a battle or...?

Ice-T:
Well, some kind of an accident that happened and stuff like that.

Michael Small:
What kind of work did your father do?

Ice-T:
My father worked on conveyor belts. He fixed it. He worked for this company called Rapid Stan or something. And he would go out and fix them. But then basically, see, since my mother was gone, he was pretty much out in the streets. You know what saying? He was out, you know, trying to get a girl all the time. That kind of father. Cause you know, mean I don't really remember having too much of a mother. So he would have girls around and stuff and you know, he'd go to the pool hall and...

Michael Small:
You've mentioned education a couple times. The kind of thing I hear all the time is that the education system stinks. The answer that I'm hearing from the rap community is basically drop out and don't get an education and teach yourself.

Ice-T:
First off, I talk to a lot of rappers and stuff and there are a lot of kids who got into rap to avoid education, you know? They listen to other rap records or they read a piece of a book and then they start writing and then they, you know, they coming off. I mean, you have to listen to these rap records and you really gotta analyze them and if you take it point blank, you're gonna hear a lot of shit just because the guy's voice is amplified and got a beat behind it. You'll say, hey, it's true. You just wanna challenge shit I say too. You gotta have education, that's the only chance to get out of there. Closer you can put yourself education -wise to the business, the more money you're going to make.

Michael Small:
They say, look, they're teaching me lies, therefore school is bogus and I'm not going to go.

Ice-T:
What about math? What about geometry and trig? What about chemistry and biology? What about things you're going to need in order to survive out here if you want to get a job? What about just basic knowledge? We're not getting education, I mean, as far as who you are. But still, the basics of that school you gotta get. So therefore you get that other shit on your own. I'll tell you what the problem with school is. Schools teach racism. That has to do with the history books. The problem with the rappers, they don't understand that when the school teaches, all right, say I'm 18, I graduated from school. I learned that I was nothing. I was a slave. But what else did I learn? Indians were savages. Mexicans are bums. I don't know what a Jamaican is, Italian guy's a mafia. What is somebody from Switzerland? I don't know. What happens is, you believe that the white Anglo -Saxon is God. He's top and everything, the father of our country and everything. Jesus Christ was white, making God white, thanks to Michelangelo's brother, who the picture Jesus Christ is. And you start feeling this inferiority. The schools should have a class called humanities.Now in humanities you'd learn that Orientals were kings and they had dynasties. The Indians are very honorable people. You'd learn that Mexicans would be very rich country if it wasn't for the Alamo. You'd learn that Elizabeth Taylor was not Cleopatra. That the basis of money in the world comes from black people, gold and diamonds. In other words, you learn respect for every nationality. If they leave out any nationality, they're still cheating people. So when the black kids get off saying, well, they're not teaching us about us, we're losing because we don't understand about Indians.

Michael Small:
One of the things that Brand Nubians really came to me with, they were saying, we don't even want to learn Greek history because the Greeks stole everything from the Egyptians. Everything comes from the Egyptians. All we care about is Egyptians. The Egyptians were black people and we don't want to know anything else.

Ice-T:
That hurts. We need to know about the Egyptians, but we also need to know about the Indians. We have to teach everybody to respect everybody. With this, the white kid won't grow up thinking he's superior, the black kid won't feel he's inferior, but neither will the Mexican, or the Chinese, or Japanese person. As long as books are still written one -sided, you're have this one -sided way of thinking.

Michael Small:
I was at a press conference with Ice Cube and somebody asked him about white people, and he said, well, there are poisonous snakes and there are just plain snakes, meaning that all white people are snakes. Do you have a reaction to that?

Ice-T:
Well, that's Ice Cube. I don't really think that, you know. I believe that if you put a black person, white person, Mexican person, and them in a sandbox and you leave them alone, they'll all grow up as a family. They'll grow up loving each other and that's it. I just do not believe that evil is innate. I believe that it's taught. And once it's taught, it's hard to un -teach.

Michael Small:
You say that people shouldn't use Ice -T on the album as a role model. Better to model themselves after Ice -T the person. But I still get the feeling that you got a lot of people out there who are going, yeah man, kill, kill, kill. If you don't want them to follow that role model, why do you present that? Why don't you present the real Ice -T instead?

Ice-T:
Well, the thing of it is, the real Ice -T is so close to that guy. Only thing he just doesn't, you know, he does it in a different way. I mean, I still dress that way. I still wear the gold. Still talk crazy. I just don't, I just know not to hurt people. It's a very thin, line that I have to keep in order to keep the kids' attention. In order to listen to me, if I got up there in a Brooks Brothers suit, I wouldn't hold the audience one kid. And it's very, very, very hard to do. I mean, right now you're talking about something that I think the most complex thing of this whole thing is how do you stay hardcore without pushing the kid into the wrong zone, but then at the same time keeping the right message? I'm gonna tell you the truth, man. I just have to come the way I come and just hope motherfuckers know an unstable kid is gonna watch the news and go out and do something. I say the question is, does your kid model himself after Arnold Schwarzenegger or the Terminator? The Terminator is much flyer but he can't be the Terminator, you know? Arnold is a businessman. You know what I'm trying to do? I'm trying to show these kids that you can be Ice -T the person or be a businessman but you don't have to give up the hats and the chain. I mean, my biggest role model is Don King. He proved to me that with your hair combed straight up, you could make it. He's been to prison for murder. He's extremely educated and he's showing it. But he's like saying, you motherfuckers, watch this. And every time they can, they try to put him in jail. And his hair symbolizes it ain't how you look.

Michael Small:
But there are people who would say, yeah, he says he's concerned about the kids, but he's more concerned about making money. And that's why he's willing to sell this potentially harmful music in order to make money. He cares about that more than he cares about the kids.

Ice-T:
It's not that. It's music I like. What is considered potentially harmful just happens to be what I like. I love Jason. I love Freddy Krueger. I just can't help that. And I care about the kids. If you really wanted to see me not care about the kids, I would make pop music. That doesn't do shit for nobody. 

Michael Small:
You did kind of let MTV censor your new Jack Hustler video. There's a bleep in the middle of that video.

Ice-T:
Yeah, well MTV makes you bleep it. When I first came out I wouldn't censor nothing. I was like, nah, nah, nah. I'm not censoring singles. I'm not censoring nothing. Fuck that. Then you got people that are pleading with you. People like rap DJs and people who really love you. Saying "Ice, man. We want to play you, but we can't. Please give us a version of the record for the radio. Cause we want to bump you." You gotta kinda have some kind of compassion for that. So it's kinda like, I know you wanna see the video. If I don't do it, you won't see it. I'm gonna tell you something. They bleeped that three different ways. They made us just pull the words. Then they said that you could see my mouth. Then we put censored over it and they said MTV won't allow you to do that cause we don't want people to know that we censor. They almost wanted us to take that shot out. It was a trip.

Michael Small:
My friend Cindy and I were listening to some other rappers last night and we were talking about it she was saying, you talk about being abusive to women, that is harmful to women and as a woman, it's really hard to hear that.

Ice-T:
I never talk about abuse to women. Only abusive line I ever had about a woman was in "6 in the Morning" where I said we beat the bitch down in the goddamn street. That was a kind of a reason I said that was to allow girls to know that if you ever deal with guys and they're talking shit, don't keep talking shit to them, they will whoop your ass. But I've never, in any of my lyrics, ever said anything about abuse. They said fuck the girl with a flashlight, but we had seen a video of a girl doing herself, and that's why we used it. We were like, whoa! You know, and she was having a great time. She also used a hair brush and a ketchup bottle. And I ain't making up no shit. It was just something that was supposed to be bugged out. Abuse to women is, Evil E raped the girl with a flashlight. Evil E beat the girl down. We don't say that. We just talk about wild sexual escapades. I'll give you an honest thing. We got at least 8 ,000 letters from all girls asking why there's no sex records. "Ice, why aren't there no sex records on this album? What are you doing?" So the new album got three.

Michael Small:
The music you're making now is different from the music you made before. In Lifestyles of the Rich and Infamous, you appear in a tuxedo and people have said that that's a different kind of image for you. I don't see anything wrong with changing, but do you see anything wrong with changing?

Ice-T:
Well, I didn't mean it when I said don't change. I don't mean blatant change, which is an attempt to catch trends. I definitely changed because I never really try to lock myself in. Like, you'll see pictures of me with sunglasses. No sunglasses. I'm not LL. I don't wear my hat all the time. I changed a little bit here and there. The sex record is missing, not because I was trying to change, it was because we just didn't write a sex record. We had wrote 22 songs and somehow I didn't write a nasty one. And then I didn't want to put one on there just for the hell of it because that would've been contrived. I make my albums just very spontaneously and when I get to the end then I'm like, shit, I don't a message on here.

Michael Small:
When you look back, is there anything you regretted doing in terms of your career?

Ice-T:
Nah, nothing to regret, but I mean, I think you hear me mature. A lot of things which I would speak on earlier, like I used to be hard on gay people, you know, which I left alone because when you come from the ghetto, you're not around gay people, you don't understand them. You know, I've been around, see, yo, what am I getting out of saying something like that? It's just not making me look any tougher. So I leave that alone. You grow. So I mean, one thing about me is I'm not a rapper afraid to correct myself. I make a mistake or say something wrong, that's just how you grow up. So if there's any change, you'll see that. But as far as the same guy, the same shit ain't changed. I mean, I've never reached for a pop audience. We did Body Count this year, which is not a change. It's just an evolution. It's something I wanted to do. So I said, yo, motherfucker, I want to do a metal album. We just finished their album. I'ma do it.

Michael Small:
When people have asked you about that, you said, look at anybody who limits himself to just rap as a fool. What kind of music are you listening to now?

Ice-T:
What I really said was, feel sorry for anybody who only listens to one kind of music. Yeah. Because really they're cheating themselves. You gotta learn to listen to everything. Now we listen to lots of metal, because we like the anger and aggressiveness in it, you know?

Michael Small:
Like, who do you listen to?

Ice-T:
Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth. I'm like into more fast and harder shit. Was a big Black Flag fan back in the day. Circle Jerks and shit. Used to even like Wendy O. Williams. But now we listen to that, then I listen to Lisa Stansfield, then I listen to fucking Tina Marie, then I turn around and listen to Phil Collins.

Michael Small:
Really?

Ice-T:
Yeah, man. What you talking about, man? Against All Odds, man. It's looping in my CD at all times. As a musician, right, I look at a musician different than a buyer. A buyer, say if we're dealing with cars, a car buyer, all they need to do, like, I like Toyota. But if we made cars, we need to be reading up on Mercedes and everything because we're in the business. So it's the same way. I have to listen to everything to be able to deal with the business where the listener doesn't have to. You can just be down with Suicidal, everybody else in the whole world sucks.

Michael Small:
Now there are a few sort of political things coming up right before the election. We've got Bush, we've got maybe Cuomo coming in. Do you have a favorite yet in the race or do think the whole thing's some bullshit?

Ice-T:
I'm like what you would be called, how do I say it? I'm like, I call myself, I'm outside of politics. I'm like over politics. No matter what happens, I'm still gonna say what I got to say. I'm in office whether you like me or not. In fact, I have my political office called a record album. I'm just gonna yell my shit and I'm cursing out anybody who I think sucks.

Michael Small:
I haven't found one rap person who feels strongly about George Bush.

Ice-T:
I already made statements on Bush. Bush is the head of the CIA. Alright. So, I mean, to be the head of the CIA, you take the cop that gave you that ticket the other night that wouldn't let you by, amplify him ten times, you got to police chief, amplify him 20 times. You got a CIA agent and amplify him 100 times and you got the chief of the CIA. Bush possibly is the biggest asshole, probably the best liar on earth. There's probably nothing in the whole world that you could sit in a room with and agree with on Bush without 10 polygrams set up to him and even though he probably knows how to blow one of them motherfuckers out. Who the hell is this CIA? I mean, how you could elect this fool, I never understand. Let me tell you about politics. Have you ever heard of my wrestling scenario?

Michael Small:
No.

Ice-T:
Have you ever watched wrestling?

Michael Small:
Yeah.

Ice-T:
Watch Hulk Hogan? Yeah. You see the arenas are always packed to the rafters. "Don't let the Macho Man! The guy is bleeding. Look at the scar." All these people, every time, pay per view. $25 million a night. Screaming for the Macho Man, right? Those same people vote.

Michael Small:
You don't need to say any more than that. There are a couple of issues that have been pretty big lately. Clarence Thomas came out against affirmative action. Do you have a feeling one way or another on it?

Ice-T:
See, I don't know. mean, my attitude is I judge people, then I go against them or with them. Now Clarence Thomas, anything he says, I'm against. So if he went against it, then I got to be for it.

Michael Small:
Now you mentioned the police. Have you ever... I know you're going to laugh, but have you ever been a victim of police brutality?

Ice-T:
Not Rodney King -ish, but I've been in like question rooms where they throw you over in the chair with the handcuffs on you. And just basic, you know, but not, ain't gonna lie, I've never been in those situations where they bust me in my head like that. I've seen them bust people in the head. Just the other week, we were in East St. Louis at a party with Naughty By Nature and a cop came in there and was trying to kill this dude. And I grabbed the cop. I probably got an arrest warrant for me in East St. Louis right now for that, an assault on police officers because I got away. But, no, I mean, they get busy if they can.

Michael Small:
One thing that I thought interesting is in the song about the abused child, you said somebody call a cop. Do you still believe that the cops can be useful in cases like that?

Ice-T:
It's in a way I'm saying somebody do something, call a cop. It's almost like last resort. If anything, if you're scared, call a cop. It's almost like if I would say call a cop, then I mean, damn, ICE is really serious.

Michael Small:
Now what about racism? Have you ever experienced it in a big way? Has there ever been an incident?

Ice-T:
Come on man, I mean, if anybody's black you experience racism every day, every hour you're alive and you're out there. It's something that you don't know, you can't feel it unless you... I mean, one example is we were out, George, my manager, right? He's like Hispanic but his mother's white so he can pass as white or Mexican, right? He looks more white so... We were in Chicago. And we just went around during the day, me, Evil, and I guess Henry. And, you know, we didn't notice anything. We just lived normally, out to eat and shit. And when we came home, he was like, man, I'ma tell you, man, I hear you guys talk about being black, but today I was black, man. I've never seen so many people look at us so crazy. I've never seen people put their purses on the other side. I've never felt that vibe. And I'm like, damn, I didn't feel none of it, because I'm used to it. It's kind of like Living Color, that record Funny Vibe. If it's not a blatant racial thing, it's just the vibe, man. For me now, it's just so, it's the biggest kick, because we ride around in a Ferrari. We got the pretty girls. You know, white urban professionals are looking, "Who the fuck are they?" I'm like, eat your heart out. It's kind of fun. The only way to deal with racism is to be rich and then you clearly have fun. That's one of the reasons why I refuse to change the way I dress. It makes it more fun.

Michael Small:
A quick interruption. I asked Ice -T a question about his writing process for song lyrics, but my question got lost when I turned over the recording tape. So here's how he answered.

Ice-T:
I get an idea. I write. I like to be driving in the car. if like, Darlene, somebody's there, I'm like, "Yo, get a pad out. Write this down." I'll say like a couple of verses and then I hold it down. Then I write, you know, in the office or I wake up in the middle of the night, go to the bathroom and come up with some, shit. I write at night sometimes. Like I say in one record, I say I write at night and then I fall asleep, wake up with new techniques, and that's real. You know, I write and I be like, I'm going to sleep. And when I wake up, my mind will still be locked in on that song, but it'll be like, I could say it this way.

Michael Small:
So you do some rewriting.

Ice-T:
Yeah, I rewrite it. I write titles and choruses first, and I don't write too much of the song till I get the music. So I write a little bit of it, get it going. Then I know the attitude. I'm a firm believer in matching the song's music with the attitude. So I say, damn, well, this is a serious song. So give me a serious sinister type track.

Michael Small:
Do you have one notebook?

Ice-T:
I use blue loose leaf folders. When it's time to like consolidate all of them into one then I have to transfer them onto a Macintosh computer.

Michael Small:
Really?

Ice-T:
We have to turn in lyrics now. All rap albums have to be accompanied by lyrics.

Michael Small:
What?

Ice-T:
Yeah, you didn't know that? You have to even if it's not gonna be on the album cover you have to accompany an album with the lyrics sheet. You know, I didn't know that till the last album. They made me turn them in.

Michael Small:
There's so many songs. It took me like 45 minutes just to read the lyrics even when I had already listened to the record but I was just sitting there reading. You know does that have something to do with rap or your mind or what?

Ice-T:
It's like a novel. Quincy Jones said, he said, man you guys are so incredible. He said, you could write the lyrics to a Whitney Houston album on a match book. You guys in one hour could write me five albums because of the abundance of lyrics and magnetism. And he's like, it's incredible, you know, how quick you write.

Michael Small:
How has Hollywood treated you, with respect? Or have they treated you, you know, has there been any racism there?

Ice-T:
To tell you the truth, man, Hollywood has treated me real good. Probably because my first movie I did made a lot of money. This is basically a commodity game. They say, "Well, I see the movie makes 60 million, next movie makes some money. He's our guy."

Michael Small:
You want to go in the action direction, or do you want to go more towards the political?

Ice-T:
No, hell no. Fuck political shit. I want to go action. I want to go make the movies I like. You know, and I like Terminator 2. like, I go, I, I mean, I didn't like Boys in the Hood. Ice Cube, I thought, is dope. Cube's like my best friend in world. The movie is the wackest shit. Why? It's just boring. Because I'm a boy from the hood. And that shit is boring. mean, it was just boring. "Daddy, hit me now and..." Burglar in the house. Somebody white it's great to come sit in my house, but I live in that house. No, you know I'm saying it's like "Get off the furniture." You know, one drive-by. I wanted motherfuckers to shoot the whole movie. I'm just violence orientated. Love this shit. I mean Ricochet didn't have enough action. There's a new movie with me and Cube called the looters.

Michael Small:
What's the basic plot?

Ice-T:
Bad guys all fighting over some money.

Michael Small:
You and Cube are I guess within rap, the ones who've crossed over with the most strength to film. With you both on the set, was there any sort of clash of the egos at all?

Ice-T:
Nah, because Cube is like my boy. Me and him are friends and Cube got a lot of respect for me, you know? Like, Cube was basically like, if I gotta play and somebody's gotta be telling me what to do, the only person that's gonna do it is Ice, you know, where he might not have took it from nobody else.

Michael Small:
Now, in terms of any sort of role model for you, I noticed that Melle Mel actually helped write some of the lyrics, is that right?

Ice-T:
Well yeah, now Mel was the first person I ever heard put a message on a record. Made records like Beat Street, started talking to, you know, "the nation's in terror, now they can't even look in the mirror." I was like, whoa, that was like the first record I ever heard that was like, heavy. Cause rap was very thin, you know, taught me that you can say something on a record. To me, he's the best rapper ever.

Michael Small:
It's so weird if he's such a good rapper, why do people fall off? Why don't they continue to get respect?

Ice-T:
Because it's not just the rapping, you know. It's how you handle your interview. It's how you handle your friends. It's how you handle your fans, your business. The rapping is only like one, less than one -tenth of the whole game. It's like we saying why, how can Ice-T not ever have a big platinum album but still be in their five albums? Whereas some of these guys who had the mega albums fall off the next year. Would you think of how many hundred rappers there are out there for only four groups with four gold albums? That's ridiculous. See, once you lose connection with your base, it's just real, real hard. LL did it. LL kinda got soft in the third quarter, and then he came back with Jinglin' Baby. But then they did that record, The Big Bad Wolf. LL just punts with death. He don't give a fuck, you know, he comes back over and over again.

Michael Small:
Your record is dedicated to Nelsey, Tony Jake and John?

Ice-T:
Well, Nelsey got killed. That was one of my guys, you know, that I was down with out in the streets. He had just came back from prison. He was home like two days and he got killed. He was trying to hook up with me as a matter of fact. I was out on the road. He was gonna try to get with us. And he ran into some people and... They owed him some money, or he owed them some money, and the guy was like, give me the money, and he's like, yeah, here's my pager, and the guy's like, fuck that. And he started whooping on him, and the guy shot him six times. Shot the other guy that was in the truck. Tony Jake is one of my guys I grew up with. He's in Lewisburg federal pen. At the time we dropped the album, he had a date in the 90s. He might have came home. Now he just got all day. Another murder just happened up in there. You know, they give you all day, that means it's over. And then John was one of, the guys who sung Pusha Man, was a guy, one of my boys called Pimpin' Rex. And his road dog, his boy got killed in South Central one night. His car had a flat and some guys pulled up and asked him. He thought they were gonna help him. He's like, nah, you know,"You guys got any money?" and he didn't have no money. And they were about to leave and then one of the young kids just snatched the gun and just shot him. Killed him right there, you know, some kid trying to get his. So those are just guys this year. I'm gonna tell you, man, in the course of last year, I think about seven of us went, you know, my boys, they're going under every day. And since I graduated high school, I've got like out of maybe 40 friends, man, like, maybe 12 left. You know, I mean, these kids are going, bam, bam, under, under fire. You know, one of my guys that worked with me, he just got a gun charge the other day.

Michael Small:
How can you stand this? How can you stand up and keep going to know that many people who died? How do you still keep upbeat and sense of humor too?

Ice-T:
I mean, you know, it's like you just get used to it. I mean, you get used to it. People call it hard, but you just get used to it. I mean, my mother's dead. I didn't go to the funeral. People die, you get used to it. And like I said earlier, the luxury of dying of old age deserves for, I mean, maybe not us.

Michael Small:
But do you think there's anything that can be done to change things so it doesn't have to be this way?

Ice-T:
I wish it was, man. All I could do is try to get my guys away from the war zone, down in the hood every day. I mean, at any minute, you know, something could happen, you know? 387 kids caught it last year, South Central. And you know, I mean, I'm willing to bet 187 were solved homicides. That means you got 200 stone killers out there. They're doing it up this year. They're gonna beat that record. Every night it goes down.

Michael Small:
Was there a moment, just like a moment of triumph that you can remember, a moment where you're like, this is it. My life's turned around.

Ice-T:
I don't know. I mean, in the rap game, I think my real moment of triumph going out on that Dope Jam tour went out with Eric B and Rakim. And it was interesting because up to then I had semi -respect, but being able to tour and really see my power out in the marketplaces up against KRS -1, Boogie Down, Biz Markie, Eric B, Doug E. Fresh. We ripped that year. And it was like all the New York rappers were looking at us like, damn. We were the first West Coast group to be on a major tour and just to be like down in Georgia and see it happen. Yeah, till you go out and feel it, you don't know really how strong it is. That was the moment, I think the second moment was going into New Jack City and making the movie was great, but that wasn't it. It was going in the audience and just watching the audience say, yeah, wow, again, this is a whole other thing. Then the third one, I really was going out this year with Lollapalooza and watching Body Count work. You know, going out, starting the record, really just ripping and watching the crowd.

Michael Small:
Do you have any feeling about being a dad now? Do you feel a new sense of responsibility? 

Ice-T:
It's like the first time I ever had a kid that I was waiting on, that I was ready for. I got a house. It's much better. It's like all that anxiety and knowing the sweat, the fear, it's not there, you know? I know anything that possibly could happen I can handle. Also, like, I know that he's got something to grow up to. I know everybody wants the same thing. You don't want your kid to run into the problems you had. It was just cool, you know? See, one thing about Ice-T is we had got to a point where when we first started, I put my girl out there, because I'm not married, but I mean, I put her out there. I'm like, your wife. I'm like, yeah, you know? But it got to a point where it started to get little corny, and people were going too far. "Let's turn Ice-T into a family man. Indirectly, they were trying to mainstream me and then everybody was like "Yo Ice watch it man." 

Does it feel different to have a son than daughters?

Ice-T:
Every man wants a son? A male with my name. He has to carry it on. We named him ICE. So, you know, with three capital letters, so he has a title.

Michael Small:
How come you and Darlene didn't get married?

Ice-T:
I don't know. I don't really agree with the law, but I don't necessarily think that that's necessary. I think if you dig somebody in the future, if there is a god, I look up to them and say, yo, this is my girl, and that's it. I don't know why you have to sign papers. I don't know why I got to stand in front of a Christian church that I don't go to. And I just ain't with it. Plus, I don't know. I mean, I might end up with another girl. Right now, me and her are together. We love each other.

Michael Small:
It's been like eight years, right? Or nine?

Ice-T:
We're together a while.

Michael Small:
So I guess the last thing is, if there's any misconception about rap music, about you, anything you want to clear up, here's a chance to do it.

Ice-T:
The misconception about me is that something I'm doing is after some kind of money. I believe that I found out that I can do what I want to do. And I'm just fortunate that people like what I choose to do. But right now I'm trying to paint, I'm trying to write a couple books, I'm getting into photography, like I got my metal band and stuff. One time this guy came and he told me, said, Ice, you should try to do a lot of shit, because anything you do is gonna be different. And once he gave me that inspiration, I started doing things and I hate it when somebody comes and says, "Why start Body Count, trying to get more money?" And it's not. It's really something I want to do. When I want to get some money, which I'm, I'm gonna start me a pop group and I'm gonna do it. It's gonna be a blatant sellout. Show the world how easy it is. And I'm doing it just for the fucking money. But I'm gonna do it and then you'll know it. But the shit I do, I'm doing it because I want it. But, as long as you know what you're doing. A sellout goes on in your heart. And up to now, I haven't done anything I didn't want to do to get paid. I'm really lucky I haven't been prostituted to that point. That's the only misconception. And I hope everybody else can get their shit together and stay in there for the long run, because hip -hop's gonna be around forever. They ask us, when's rap gonna play out? And I'm like, well, ask Michael Jackson when singing's gonna play out. As long as there are beats and music, there'll be people rapping on records. Because right now you have a rap generation. You have kids that are born who have heard nothing but rap since day one. They don't know nothing about music unless it's rap. I figure I got two, three hundred thousand people. They're gonna buy my record tomorrow if it comes out in a brown paper bag.

Michael Small:
That's great. God, you even answered questions I forgot to ask. So I appreciate it.

Ice-T:
All right.

Michael Small:
Thanks very much for your time. I really had a great time talking with you.

Ice-T:
All right, boss.

Michael Small:
Bye. Thanks.

Michael Small:
So that’s it!  If you want to learn more about Ice-T, we’ve got links about his kids, his wife Coco, his bulldogs, his stance on vaccinations and more on our website at throwitoutpodcast.com

Sally Libby:
And if you want to hear about upcoming episodes, go to our website and sign up for our newsletter, also at throwitoutpodcast.com.

Michael Small:
Or you can follow us on Instagram at throwitoutpod. By the way, you know I'm not throwing out that tape. Actually, I just read that Ice-T made a trip to Harvard where there was a gallery show of his personal collection of hip hop treasures. So maybe they want my tape for their archive. It could happen. And Ice, if you ever hear this, please let us know. It's been 33 years. I haven't talked to you. And it'd be so great to talk to you again.

Sally Libby:
Good luck with that. Until then, you can talk with me.

Michael Small:
OK. I'll settle for that. Thank you. And I'll talk with you later. Thanks, Sal. Bye.

Sally Libby:
Bye, Mike.

[Theme song begins]

I Couldn't Throw It Out theme song
Performed by Don Rauf, Boots Kamp and Jen Ayers
Written by Don Rauf and Michael Small
Produced and arranged by Boots Kamp

Look up that stairway
To my big attic
Am I a hoarder
Or am I a fanatic?

Decades of stories
Memories stacked
There is a redolence
Of some irrelevant facts

Well, I couldn't throw it out
I had to scream and shout
It all seems so unjust
But still I know I must
Before I turn to dust
I've got to throw it out
Before I turn to dust
I've got to throw it out

Well I couldn't throw it out
Oh, I couldn't throw it out

I'll sort through my possessions
In these painful sessions
I guess this is what it's about
The poems, cards and papers
The moldy musty vapors
I just gotta sort it out

Well I couldn't throw it out
Well I couldn't throw it out
Oh, I couldn't throw it out
I couldn't throw it out

[Theme song ends]

END TRANSCRIPT