Tracy Lauren Marrow, better known as Ice-T, turned 65 today.
He began his career as an underground rapper in the 1980s and released his debut album Rhyme Pays in 1987. The following year, he founded the record label Rhyme $yndicate Records and released another album, Power, which would go platinum. He also released several other albums that went gold.
Ice-T co-founded the heavy metal band Body Count, which he introduced on his 1991 album, O.G. Original Gangster, on the track titled “Body Count”. the band released its self-titled debut album in 1992. Due to one of the tracks in the album, “Cop Killer”, Ice-T encountered controversy, the lyrics of which discussed killing police officers.
As an actor, Ice-T played small parts in the films 𝘉𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯’ and its sequels, during the 1980s, before his major role debut in New Jack City (1991). In 2018, he began hosting the true crime documentary In Ice Cold Blood on the Oxygen cable channel.
Ice-T hip hop albums helped shape gangsta rap, with music journalists tracing works of artists such as Tupac Shakur, Notorious B.I.G., Eminem, and N.W.A. to “6 in the Mornin'”.
Body Count—whose 1992 debut album Ice-T described as a “rock album with a rap mentality—is described as paving the way for the success of rap rock fusions by acts like Kid Rock and Limp Bizkit.
In July 2022 Ice-T was featured in one of Megadeth songs, “Night Stalkers”.
Happy birthday, Ice! U ain’t new ta this, act hard, OG!
• Read also ICE-T REMOVES “COP KILLER” FROM BODY COUNT.
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Featured image via Red Bull.
