The rapper turned actor has stayed hustling since breaking on the scene in the early 80s. His real name is Tracy Marrow but his friends call him Ice! When we sat down with him on this week’s episode of Backstage he told us that when he recorded Cop Killer he felt like “people just looked at me as a rapper out of LA with palm trees and Hollywood limelight and thought police brutality didn’t exist”. But now he says the biggest difference is “accountability” Ice credit the cell phones on the streets capturing the wrong doing of police officers. 

In his new movie called “Equal Standard” Ice-T plays a gang member In his latest film highlighting tensions between police and the black community.

Nearly three decades ago, Ice and his heavy metal band Body Count recorded a song called “Cop Killer,” about a man fed up with police brutality, that threw gasoline on the already raging rap culture wars. In 2017, Body Count released the song “No Lives Matter,” about racism and classism in America. In between messages, Ice has spent 21 years playing NYPD Detective Fin Tutuola on “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.” And last month, the Grammy winner executive-produced and acted in “Equal Standard,” a movie available to rent online about a black cop shooting a white cop and the ensuing community fallout. “It costs nine dollars, but you spend that on Starbucks so stop playing,” Ice said.

Ice did the movie for free for the same reason he spends most of his social media energy lobbing f-bomb-laced truths at his over 2 million followers across platforms: “We’re at a very important part of history right now, world history.” We caught up with Ice to talk racism, hip-hop and how he does things differently at age 62.

Check out this week’s episode with Gentry Thomas and Ice T plus download even more content @ The Podcast Playground. 

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