Ice-T Talks Origins of Gangster Rap, Law & Order: SVU and Family Life

Grammy-winning music artist and Law & Order: SVU twenty- seven season mainstay, Ice-T, sits down with Allison Kugel for an in-depth discussion reflecting on five decades in entertainment, his controversial lyrics, this thoughts on (the other) ICE, his love of the late Jimi Hendrix, and how he has evolved, both, as a husband and father.

Ice-T also discusses his newest venture, a free streaming network, The O.G. Network, which he co-founded and curates along with his business partner, Courtney “Big Court” Richardson II.

On his early hit O.G. Original Gangster and the Birth of Gangster Rap:

“I didn’t think I was going to be big, because there was no one big yet. Now a kid can say, ‘I wanna be a rapper, because they can look at Drake and go ‘Look at that.’ But who was I to look at? Grandmaster Flash and Furious Five were still struggling. Hip hop wasn’t big enough. We’re talking about 1982. Original Gangster was way later. That was three albums in.

“O.G. is a term used by the L.A. gangs for the first generation of a particular set. But also in L.A., the term just means ‘The Original.’ I brought it to the forefront when the press decided to name what we did ‘Gangster Rap,’ and they named it Gangster Rap because of Ice Cube. They didn’t have a name for [the genre] when we first started. They were calling it ‘Reality Rap,’ but I was like, ‘Well, this is not everybody’s reality. This is just some particular kids’ reality.’ So, Ice Cube did Straight Outta Compton and he said ‘Straight Outta Compton; crazy mother*cker named Ice Cube; from the gang called n*ggas with attitude.’ And the press said, ‘Oh, he referred to his rap group as a gang. They’re gangster rappers.’ That’s where the media gave us that name and I said, ‘Okay, if this is gangster rap, I’m the Original Gangster. I tagged myself on the tag they gave us, so I was, like, claiming my terrain.”

On “O.G.” making its way into pop culture from his 1991 hit song O.G. Original Gangster:

“I shoulda trademarked it. But Rakim says, ‘I’ll take a phrase that’s rarely heard, flip it; now it’s a daily word.’ A lot of terms come from Hip Hop, but yeah, I put ‘O.G.’ into the game.”

On parting ways with Warner Brothers Music in the ‘90s after 1991’s Cop Killer:

“What happened was Cop Killer came out. I had done five or six albums with Warner Brothers. Everything was cool until we did Cop Killer. Sh*t hit the fan, Charlton Heston went after Warner Brothers. I got caught in the crossfire. Warner Brothers was concerned with the next album I was putting out, which was called Home Invasion, which was saying that Hip Hop was invading white families; we’ve invaded white kids’ minds with Black rage. They were nervous about putting the record out. I just went to Warner and said, ‘Look, you’re all taking a lot of heat from me. I’m the one that’s causing this problem. You guys loved the Cop Killer album. You didn’t block it, but now it’s hot. Let me go.’ I asked to go and they gave me a release, and I did my next record at Priority.”

“I don’t dislike cops. I dislike racism and I dislike bullies. If you wear a badge or not, it doesn’t matter. When I was a criminal I didn’t hate the cops. Any good criminal, the cop is the opponent. He’s not the enemy, he’s the opponent. If I’m a drug dealer, we need the cops because the cops create the margin. If the cocaine becomes legal, there’s no money for us. We need it to be illegal. Me, myself, I’m not a cop killer and I’m not a cop. I’m acting in both of them. I didn’t kill no cops, and I’m not a policeman. I cannot arrest you.”

On the controversy surrounding ICE (the other ICE):

“I’m on the right side of proper law enforcement, but what we’re seeing now in America with ICE, what is law enforcement? What is it, and who draws what line and where? They don’t need warrants. So if ICE decides they want to come in my house without a warrant, does the Second Amendment permit me to shoot them? If they’re out there behaving illegally, what makes them legal, cause they got a badge? Unfortunately, their name is ICE, so I’m taking the heat, regardless? But as far as doing Cop Killer (his 1992 heavy metal song with his group Body Count), Cop Killer was a protest record about brutal cops. The fact that he became a hero to some, that lets you know how some people feel about the police.”

On refusing to watch the Diddy docu-series on Netflix:

“I didn’t watch it. I’m not into gossip. That’s not my stuff. I purposely avoid all of it. I’m not a woman. Coco might have watched it, but I don’t do that. I don’t do gossip. I’m a man. I was not involved in that [stuff]. I wasn’t there and I don’t care.”

On doing Law & Order: SVU for 27 seasons:

“Everyone is wonderful on the show. The environment is so cool. Mariska is so dope, and so nice and easy to work with. I couldn’t do it if it was a hostile work environment. But it’s like a team. Everyone’s like, ‘Ice is here, we’re getting ready to go and do it!’ I love that energy. I also know there’s not many better jobs than acting. It’s grown up make believe. How could you find a better job. I’m still able to do music. I tour with Body Count (his heavy metal band) on every vacation. All my artistic itches are being scratched. And it doesn’t hurt to have a solid job.

Body Count, Ice-T. Photo by Andreas Lawen, Fotandi

On his SVU character, Fin Tutuola, being the longest running male TV character in history:

“Somebody said Homer Simpson, and I’m like, ‘He ain’t real. Homer doesn’t have to get up in the morning and do a call time (laughs). After Season 21 we beat Gun Smoke; that was James Arness. Mariska has me by a few episodes, because I came on in the beginning of the second season, so she has twenty episodes on me. But in order to get that, you have to be on the longest running show. It’s a Catch 22. When I went on that show, I went on to only do four episodes, and now it’s twenty-seven years later. In this business, the only way you know if you’re good is if you get called back. I’ve been getting called back, so I must be doing the job. And when this thing is over, which all good things will come to an end, there’s still a lot of acting left for me. I see Liam Neeson out here doing action movies. I see Denzel, and he’s seventy. Like I always say, I’m Black. I don’t jump off a boat while it’s floating (laughs). This boat is still floating, so why would you jump off (laughs). I’d like to take it for the full ride. ”

On being more present for daughter Chanel than he was for his two older children:

“My first daughter, I was in the streets, still. So it was more presents over presence. She had all the new sneakers and cool stuff that I could give her, but I wasn’t there. I was in the streets hustling. I didn’t really reconnect with my daughter until she was 16, when she came to live with me. Little Ice, he was born right when I was becoming Ice-T, like right when this star sh*t was starting to happen. I, once again, was not home. I was on the road. I was doing what it takes, you know. You’re trying to become whoever the f*ck you’re supposed to be. The grind that it takes to hit a certain cruising altitude where now you’re known and you got options and people offering you things, it’s difficult to do in a relationship, or with kids. By the time I had Chanel I was at that altitude. Me and Coco had been married at that point fifteen years. At thirty she didn’t want to have kids. At thirty-five she got the bug. She said, ‘I want to have a baby.’ We decided to have Chanel. I was with Coco every day of the pregnancy, I took her to the hospital, I saw Chanel being born and Chanel still sleeps in the bed with us. I’m extremely present. I’m taking Chanel to school and to kung fu. I’m here and present for this child, totally, and it’s the most wonderful thing in the world.”

On how his marriage to wife Coco has evolved over 25 years:

“When you’re twenty-five years into marriage you go through hard times; you go through all kinds of different things, but you love the person more every day because when you’re married, you’re married to somebody who can deal with your flaws. The first thing you have to realize is you’re not perfect, and the person who can accept your imperfections is usually the person you connect to. The problem why people can’t connect is because they don’t believe they have anything wrong with them, and that it’s everyone else. Coco puts up with me. She puts up with my hours, she puts up with my behavior. And I love her. I love her idiosyncrasies.”

“Coco is an extrovert. She’s just out there, she’s fun. I needed that. I need someone exciting. I’m very low key. So we work off each other, but I think when you first get together you’re excited but you don’t know why. You’re just basing it off of lust and the excitement of a new person. I think when you’ve been with somebody a long time, you know why now. Maybe you made a mistake and she stayed down with you or vice versa, and that locks you in. When I got with Coco, I’m twenty years older than Coco, and when I got with her, I was like, ‘This is for the rest of the way out,’ in my mind. When you’re in a relationship, you only know what you think. You don’t know what the other person is thinking, so you hope they feel the same way.”

On the career advice he gave his wife, Coco:

“I think she was the first influencer. I told her, ‘I can’t be your manager; I can’t be your agent. I can be your consultant if you want to ask me a question, but you need your own accolades. You need to win on your own. That’s gonna build character; your wins and your victories. I got a lot of accolades. Get your [own] accolades. But, if you come to a point where you want to ask my opinion, do it. You see people sitting around waiting hours to talk to me, to ask for my opinion. Why wouldn’t you take advantage of it?’”

On the one famous historical event he wishes he’d been there to witness:

“Oh, Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock. I am a big Jimi Hendrix fan. That’s what got me into [rock] music. My cousin thought he was Jimi Hendrix and would walk around playing the air guitar. And to never have been able to see Jimi Hendrix live… I would have loved to see him. I’ve studied and watched his interviews, and I just think he’s the coolest mother*cker.”

On Co-Founding The O.G. Network with Courtney “Big Court” Richardson II:

“Court is a brotha that I became aware of because he was, like, Master P’s righthand man. He had a podcast called Holding Court, and I noticed he had an Ice-T poster in the background. When I met him he told me, ‘Ice, I’ve studied you. Every record you’ve put out; I know what you’re talking about. I did his podcast a couple times and we became friends. He called me and said, ‘Ice, I’ve got an idea, I want to start a network.

Once I understood it, I said the only way I want to get involved is if we can’t be taken down. You could have a YouTube channel with 500,000 subscribers, wake up tomorrow and you’re red flagged. I knew we had to have control over it, and we need to build it straight up to where it’s our network. So that’s what we did. It’s called The O.G. Network. You can get to it at theognetwork.net. We filled it full of O.G. stuff, classic stuff. We’ve got Blaxploitation movies, we’ve got Ice-T movies on there, Master P movies on there, karate movies. The end result is, really, we’re mimicking Tubi.”

Ice-T along with co-founder Courtney “Big Court” Richardson II launched The O.G. Network, a FAST Channel Streaming Network available through Roku, Apple, Google Play and Fire TV. The free streamer focuses on urban storytelling. Learn more at theognetwork.net.

By Allison Kugel