A good emcee will rhyme a lot of different ways. Don't limit yourself.
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.
I'm on the front line and I am a rapper.
I'm in a very good place to make records. Needing to make money off music is very dangerous.
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'll never sell 14 million like Hammer, I just wanna do a good Ice-T show.
I think men, growing up, you have to go through some form of hardship. You've got to harden the metal.
Most interviewers are looking for a headline. They're not skilled. They're looking for shock value.
Every once in a while, I hear somebody call me Tracy to try to let me know that they know me, you know, personally. But most of my real friends will call me Trey, or 'Ice' was basically short for Iceberg. So they would call me - some of my boys call me Berg.
So you don't have to take us too seriously; I mean, we're already intimidating enough on stage.
I think L.A. radio is learning from the Bay. The Bay is a very classic place. Mac Mall, C-Bo, all that stuff, they love their artists, they're old school up there. My first big concert was playing in the Bay; I played the Fillmore.
A lot of the younger kids now can rap, but they're scared of the crowd. Mastery of that stage is an MC. I don't know if you've seen any great MCs on stage but when you do it's like wow, this is more than the words to rhymes.
Los Angeles is a microcosm of the United States. If L.A. falls, the country falls.
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.
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.
Ice-T in the music has done some outrageous things.
You have the core hip-hop, which would just be beats and breaks, more something like what you hear with DJ Premier. Then you get into the more highly produced hip-hop, which is something like what DJ Khaled does. But at some point, it starts to get kind of pop.
I have no hatred for cops. I have hatred for racists and brutal people, but not necessarily the cops. The cops are just doing what they're told to do.
My name, my real name, is Tracy. I always thought I was like a boy named Sue. So I made my friends call me 'Tray.'
Some music comes from a real place; some music comes from your imagination. It's difficult to find out what's real and what's not, especially with the gangster stuff.
