Ice T
I'm just disillusioned with the hip-hop sound right now. It's too materialistic. You know, I'm the kind of guy ... I can't do that. If you track my movement, you'll never see a picture of me with any girl that wasn't mine, or my own car. My jewelry, my clothes. What kind of gangsta rapper has a stylist? A stylist?!Collection: Car
Being cool is when you win, you don't get too happy; and when you lose, you don't get too mad.Collection: Cool
Redemption just means you just make a change in your life and you try to do right, versus what you were doing, which was wrong.Collection: Change
When I was in the 12th grade, I got my girlfriend pregnant. I just got out of school, she was a 10th-grader. I'm a teen parent, and I'm at a point where I'm like, 'Man I've got to do something.'Collection: Teen
A good emcee will rhyme a lot of different ways. Don't limit yourself.
I was born in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in Summit, an upscale town in north Jersey. There was this tiny area of Summit where most of the black families lived. My parents and I lived in a duplex house on Williams Street.
If it sells, it sells. If it doesn't sell, I'll go make a movie.
Jay-Z is like a rap-savant, he doesn't have to write the rhymes down, he can create complex raps in his head. I mean he does memorize it, he just doesn't write it down on paper. He doesn't freestyle onto the track, it's all thought out.
Ice-T in the music has done some outrageous things.
Los Angeles is a microcosm of the United States. If L.A. falls, the country falls.
If I'm going to be a jazz player, I need to understand Miles Davis.
Military is a great place for a jock. That's the first thing they test you, they test you physically. If you can run, if you can do the pushups, it's not as hard a transition. If you can't do that, you're going to have a problem because they're going to really work it out of you or work it into you.
I started rapping before anybody had ever bought a car from it. It was truly about the art form and the culture, more so than now, where it's a successful way to make money. Back then you had to be doing it because you liked it.
I've never been competitive with anybody but myself.
I make an effort to keep it as real as I possibly can.
We have groups that do that, but I can't rap with the mentality of an 18 year old when I'm in my 30's.
If I do a song where I'm angry, when it's time to perform it live I'm not mad, I'm happy. I'm at a concert. But I have to somehow drum up that rage. That's acting.
An MC is somebody who can control the crowd. An MC is a master of ceremonies so not only can you say your rap, you can rock the party.
I think everybody wants to redeem themselves after they've done something that might be considered negative. I don't think anyone wants to go to the grave negative.
I'm on the front line and I am a rapper.
If you're really a rapper, you can't stop rapping.
AIDS is such a scary thing and it's also the kind of thing that you think won't happen to you. It can happen to you and it's deadly serious.
You can't come out on a record dissing the system and be on a label that's connected to the system.
You have to come in on a professional level to make it, otherwise you just can't get into rap.
I think that men need to have a little bit of manism. You have feminism. I don't have a problem with that.
My mother passed when I was in the third grade, my father when I was in the seventh, and that's when I was shipped to Los Angeles to live with an aunt.
The next day, I got a phone call from him and he told me to come and read for a movie called New Jack City. So I went over there and they told me I was gonna wear dreads and play a cop.
I've never read for a movie, I've always been given them.
So from an actor's perspective, you really have no idea how you're acting.
As an actor, you can do what you want with your role. That's why they hire you; to take the role and make it real.
I'm a big fan of all styles, even Biggie and Wu-Tang, but I gotta do my thing.
I want to be able to say that a rap career could be ten albums.
Everything we do helps the new artists in the long run.
I'm competitive in that I would like to outsell my last record.
I'll never sell 14 million like Hammer, I just wanna do a good Ice-T show.
Any New York group can come to L.A. and sell out every show, but an L.A. group who goes to New York might not do the same because the audience hasn't been introduced to the group.
I ain't got no beef with east coast, I think it's just being hyped up.
I don't have to put out another rap record. I can do it at my casual pace.
I'm at a point where I don't have to wait for the income from the record to survive, so I'm in a comfortable zone, but I'll make rap records as long as I feel I have something to rap about.
When I first got into the rap game, I had an early dream of unifying rappers.
I have to grow with my audience.
The best way to listen to the album is to put it on, get some Moet, lay back with your boys, and kick it.
Well, I am very happy that I was able to play a part in bringing music from the streets onto the radio and into modern culture, I worked very hard and always believed in the sounds I was creating.
Ultimately I am happy that everybody is embracing hip hop and the sounds from the streets.
Oh man, nobody is as tough as Mr T. Ice T is pretty tough though as well.
So you don't have to take us too seriously; I mean, we're already intimidating enough on stage.
I mean rappin' to me is easy, it's something you can do over a week.
As long as I'm around the cats in the hip hop scene, they'll throw me a track and I'll write a rap over it.
When you start a business, go for the lowest hanging fruit.
The right to bear arms is because it's the last form of defense against tyranny.