Ice-T Quotes & Sayings

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. — Ice-T

'New Jack City' was a perfect marriage of music and film. They used a lot of musicians: myself, Christopher Williams. People that were popular because of their music were given the chance to act. And the soundtrack was incredible. — Ice-T

Hollywood has its own way of telling stories. I was just telling stories that I was familiar with. And it's what I want to do in the future: I want to take my audio cinema and put it on the screen. — Ice-T

You've got the Wall Street situation, the sub-prime situation. You've got a black president. We've got wars. We've got unemployment. But the music doesn't reflect that. And I challenge anybody to show me a music that's on the radio that reflects that. — Ice-T

A lot of times people would offer me movies and, because I'm a car freak, I'd look in a magazine and say, 'How much is this car? If you give me this car I'll show up and do the movie' I call 'em 'sports car flicks'. — Ice-T

I just don't believe that there's any way that you're ever gonna get one peace, because everybody has different ways of seeing life. — Ice-T

I think that men need to have a little bit of manism. You have feminism. I don't have a problem with that. — Ice-T

I'm on the front line and I am a rapper. — Ice-T

Everyone who raps isn't hip-hop. To be hip-hop, you've got to know the culture. You got to know the history. — Ice-T

The right to bear arms is because it's the last form of defense against tyranny. — Ice-T

I think what's happenin' is that, with the overflow of music, it's been diluted. There was a time when people would go search out underground records. Now, underground means free, and people don't really care for it. So now artists tend to go more pop and look for the radio. — Ice-T

I'm a far cry from politically correct, because I don't really care what the political views are. I don't care what the people say. I'll say my opinion. That will always make you controversial. — Ice-T

If you believe that I'm a cop killer, you believe David Bowie is an astronaut. — Ice-T

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. — Ice-T

I think singing and acting go hand in hand. Take an R&B singer: one song says, 'I love you,' the next is, 'Baby, don't leave me', the next is, 'If you leave me I don't care.' You have to drop in and out of different perspectives. — Ice-T

There's people out there with nuclear bombs and yet we've got all these politicians trying to make a political platform based on a record. Isn't it ridiculous? — Ice-T

The rock'n'roll lifestyle really is available to anybody that's got money. Honestly. Once you get money, if you interview a hundred people with money, they'll all sound like rock stars. — Ice-T

What's bad for the culture is wack rappers that get held in high regard like they're some great thing because it's the flavor of the month, but everybody knows they can't rap. I don't think it's hard, even for somebody who's not hip-hop, to know that that's not good. When you put them up against somebody that can really rhyme, you go, "Okay, I get it. This is what it should sound like." — Ice-T

I write rhymes with addition and algebra, mental geometry. — Ice-T

Once I get something going well, I'll risk fucking it up just for the action. — Ice-T

Hip-hop is the fountain of youth. You just don't grow up if you were there. My son's 20. I'm on the same channel he's on. We wear the same clothes, we feel the same thing. It's a weird, weird generation we're in right now. — Ice-T

I like crime movies where the crime is so incredible that, attractive as it seems, you don't wanna do it because it's just too dangerous. — Ice-T

What I'm trying to tell people is that police brutality in the 'hood is nothing new. And the thing is that whether this guy, the cop killer in my song, is real or not, believe it, there are people at that point. — Ice-T

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. — Ice-T

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. — Ice-T

If I'm going to be a jazz player, I need to understand Miles Davis. — Ice-T

I was a full-blown street cat. I was trying to hustle my way. I thought I was going to hustle my way to a mansion or something. I was doing pretty good, but I didn't realize that there was no way to win that game. — Ice-T

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. — Ice-T

So you don't have to take us too seriously; I mean, we're already intimidating enough on stage. — Ice-T

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. — Ice-T

I think all music - not just rap - has fallen into this very diluted, delusional state, where everyone's singing about money and having cars, and having all this fun; when really, people are losing their homes. — Ice-T

With the invention of the blog and all this Internet stuff, everybody has an opinion; everybody has a voice. In fact, there was a time when the average person didn't have a voice so you had to pick an artist to speak for you. — Ice-T

I think the most successful are the most paranoid. The first thing people do when they buy a mansion is they build the biggest wall you could possibly build around it. What happens is, now you become a target. If I go into the hood, I'm at a disadvantage. They could carry guns. I can't. They can hit me in the face. I can't. — Ice-T

Being cool is when you win, you don't get too happy; and when you lose, you don't get too mad. — Ice-T

I have to grow with my audience. — Ice-T

There is no such thing as a normal family so don't trip off it, just deal with it. — Ice-T

I've got a phone,
answer machine, TV set,
computer, hand grenade
- everything you need
to run a business in
Los Angeles. — Ice-T

I always knew that I had to direct. That was something I'd wanted to do. Finally, I was just looking at the situation and I said, "I wanna document hip-hop, as an art form, seeing how a lot of people don't take it seriously." — Ice-T

I'm not going to allow anybody to hold a badge up over me or a cross or any other power symbol and say I'm going to kill you and you're just going to kneel down to me because I'm the law. — Ice-T

Passion makes the world go round. Love just makes it a safer place. — Ice-T

Oh man, nobody is as tough as Mr T. Ice T is pretty tough though as well. — Ice-T

It's just that when you heard hip-hop, no matter where you were, it was a culture that kind of made you want to try to be part of it. Whether you thought you were an artist, whether you thought you could be a DJ, whether you thought you could breakdance, or whether you thought you could rap. It was the kind of culture that had a lot of open doors. — Ice-T

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. — Ice-T

My father's family came from Virginia and Philadelphia. He wasn't a brother who talked a lot. He was a workingman, a quiet, blue-collar dude. — Ice-T

You know, the radio never wanted you to speak about anything, so the music is kinda influenced by the hands of the radio which wants to homogenize it and dilute it and sanitize it. And for the most part, nobody's takin' the time to seek out the cats that are still tryin' to talk, so they have a difficult time being heard. — Ice-T

If one person comes in and says, this is the way life should be, I think you're asking for chaos. I think you gotta let different people live different ways. It's a big world. — Ice-T

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. — Ice-T

There's a point where a cop pulls you out of that car and starts abusing you or beating on you and at that moment he is no longer within the law. — Ice-T

Rapping is a vocal delivery, so you can do it without being part of hip-hop and not knowing what hip-hop is about. — Ice-T

I'm normal. I just had a different occupation for a while, and when you're in a different occupation, you have to carry yourself a different way. Most of my art is me bringing you stories from that era of my life. My life now is kind of boring. — Ice-T

That became the signature Ice-T style - rhymes that were "topical" and "vividly optical." To me it was street-level journalism, real-life observations told in poetry. That's the vision I tried to bring to all my recordings. — Ice-T

Ultimately I am happy that everybody is embracing hip hop and the sounds from the streets. — Ice-T

There's a lot of films I've done I don't ever wanna see again. — Ice-T

I'm pretty open book, I'm also the kind of person that will say, 'That's none of your business,' too. — Ice-T

As an artist, you need the naysayers and the nonbelievers to add fuel to your creative fire. — Ice-T

I've been in crime for a long time and I know that the actual move isn't the actual crime: the crime continues [afterwards]. — Ice-T

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. — Ice-T

No, I'll stay Ice-T. This is what got me here, I'm always going to stay true to that. If it weren't for hip-hop I wouldn't be doing all these other things. — Ice-T

Anybody who has anybody in the armed forces, I don't care how well-trained they are, there's nothing safe about it. — Ice-T

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. — Ice-T

I was a pretty bad person early in my life. — Ice-T

Before rap came along, I was, actually, actively in the streets; getting in trouble, doing the wrong thing. — Ice-T

I'll never sell 14 million like Hammer, I just wanna do a good Ice-T show. — Ice-T

The truth is, everybody I've ever met who's successful is a workaholic. — Ice-T

It's like they want to shut rappers down. They want to silence us. The Supreme Court says it's OK for a white man to burn a cross in public. But nobody wants a black man to write a record about a cop killer. — Ice-T

Dealing with the old school rappers, you see a lot of humility. When you're new, nothing is wrong. Everything is tight. Because you're trying to hype the world into believing in you. — Ice-T

I don't rhyme about guns I ain't shot
Hoes I ain't caught
Or shit I ain't bought. — Ice-T

In the mornin' po-lice at my door
Fresh adidas squeak across the bathroom floor
Out the back window.. I make a escape
Don't even get a chance to grab my old school tape — Ice-T

Most interviewers are looking for a headline. They're not skilled. They're looking for shock value. — Ice-T

Dog's just want to sniff an ass and eat some food. — Ice-T

You can't come out on a record dissing the system and be on a label that's connected to the system. — Ice-T

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.' — Ice-T

Yeah, it's legal in the United States. It's part of our Constitution. You know, the right to bear arms is because that's the last form of defense against tyranny. Not to hunt. It's to protect yourself from the police. — Ice-T

I've been pulled out of my nice new car and laid out in the street by the police, interrogated and then have them get in the car and roll off leaving me lying in the street without even saying 'Get up.' The humiliation that they can put on a black man because they determine that you ain't got the money. — Ice-T

I make an effort to keep it as real as I possibly can. — Ice-T

My father was a dark-skinned brother, but my mother was a very fair-skinned lady. From what I understand, she was Creole; we think her people originally came from New Orleans. She looked almost like a white woman, which meant she could pass - as folks used to say back then. Her hair was jet-black. She was slim and very attractive. — Ice-T

Never mumble some sarcastic shit to somebody who can obviously fuck you up. — Ice-T

If it sells, it sells. If it doesn't sell, I'll go make a movie. — Ice-T

I'm very much against the anonymity of bloggers and social media. I just hate it and I think it's really cowardly. — Ice-T

If you get into crime you gotta know that everybody's a criminal and everybody's a liar, and everybody has the potential to backstab you, because it's not an honest profession. So don't go into crime and look for honesty. — Ice-T

I think men, growing up, you have to go through some form of hardship. You've got to harden the metal. — Ice-T

I mean rappin' to me is easy, it's something you can do over a week. — 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?! — Ice-T

I want to be able to say that a rap career could be ten albums. — Ice-T

That's basically the gangster code. Just be yourself. Just be you, dog. The easiest way to get your card plucked around a gangster is to be a fake. If we feel like you're trying too hard, if you're trying to act like you're from the street, you're in trouble. — Ice-T

I don't watch daytime television, I have a job, I work and, you know, I think daytime television is really for women. — Ice-T

I don't feel that rap has been respected as an art form. Because people have seen rappers rap off the top of their heads, they don't think it is difficult. — Ice-T

I look at my career and I feel I have the potential to maybe mature into a Samuel Jackson-type older cat, and people will still respect me and say 'Yo, Ice-T was wild', into my old age. And why not? I don't necessarily think I'll be rapping in 10 years. — Ice-T

Half the rhymes you write, you're saying that you're better than the other MC. That's how we keep the craft sharp. — Ice-T

When I first got into the rap game, I had an early dream of unifying rappers. — Ice-T

I couldn't possibly have lived all the things that Ice-T on the records lived. — Ice-T

If you're really a rapper, you can't stop rapping. — Ice-T

Everything we do helps the new artists in the long run. — Ice-T

Diet food is for lazy people. — Ice-T

A good emcee will rhyme a lot of different ways. Don't limit yourself. — Ice-T

Redemption means you just make a change in your life and you try to do right, versus what you were doing, which was wrong. So I think a lot of people get hooked on drugs and when they get over that addiction they go out and they try to talk to kids and they try to work in rehab centers. — Ice-T

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. — Ice-T

Anybody who speeds thinks they can outsmart the cops. — Ice-T

My father died early. My mother died early. I started hanging with the gangs. I'm on the streets; I'm committing crimes. And the music came along, and this music just took me on a different road. — Ice-T

This next record is dedicated to some personal friends of mine, the LAPD. For every cop that has ever taken advantage of somebody, beat 'em down or hurt 'em, because they got long hair, listen to the wrong kinda music, wrong color, whatever they thought was the reason to do it. For every one of those fuckin' police, I'd like to take a pig out here in this parkin' lot and shoot 'em in their mothafuckin' face. — Ice-T