Ice-T

"The Hunted Child" is a high-energetic first-person account of a frightened baby gang-banger on the run. The track gives Ice-T's point of view on life in the South Central ghettos. The staccato drum beats and scratched sirens make this a multi-layered composition it resembles sounds of Public Enemy as they sampled P.E.'s 'Bring the Noise (Death Row/What a Brother Know)' in this song. Here he displays some of the most spine-chilling, fierce lyrics ever written in Gangsta Rap.
"I killed a brother cos this system had me geared to kill
Cos what I call home you call hell
My ghetto quarters ain't no better than a jail cell
But there's a message in this story that I'm tryna tell...
My life on Earth was hell, you understand?
But when I die I'm goin' to hell again."

Rhyme Syndicate worked together on a complete all-in 2 round MC onslaught on "What Ya Wanna Do" for nine minutes. This became the ultimate Rhyme Syndicate party song. Prominent members threw down verses viciously on the mic as the track opened and closed with Ice-T. This is a beautiful example of the early west coast legends putting down their dopest rhymes. The album was again produced by Afrika Islam for Rhyme Syndicate Productions. 'Freedom of Speech' was one of the pioneer tracks to stand against the attack on rap's right to put the Fifth Amendment into practice, in particular one contributory source is P.M.R.C.'s Tipper Gore, the First Lady of Vice-President Al Gore for introducing the 'Parental Advisory' sticker seen on almost every Gangsta Rap album released in stores. Ice spat premeditated assaults to Gore with:
"Hey PMRC, you stupid fuckin' assholes
The sticker on the record is what makes 'em sell gold.
Can't you see, you alcoholic idiots
The more you try to suppress us, the larger we get."

Rhyme Syndicate close the album with exaggerated fishing-tales of their exploits, ironically called "My Word is Bond". The backing track of Slick Rick's, "La Di Da Di" used the repeating loop of "Stop Lying." The album sold for an overestimated 300,000 copies in the US.

Cop to Cop Killer

1991 Ice-T had made two successful crossovers simultaneously all the while releasing another hardcore record of Ice-T branded realty-rap. Such is the talent of this man, with ease of a seasoned veteran branched out his eclectic passion for music and released a hardcore rock album, stepped offstage and walked right onto set in New York to play Scotty Appleton, NYPD officer in a co-starring role for his first movie and yet had time to drop 'O.G. Original Gangster' his fourth rap album which arguably is his greatest accomplishment to date. 1991 saw Ice-T play a New York police officer and write 'Cop Killer' the most controversial song America has ever heard. His career was threatened by the higher powers who sought to end his professional career. Inevitably this became a very well-calculated season for Ice-T who managed to handle all his affairs in excellent fashion and cash in on his controversy.

In 1991 Ice-T re-moulded himself into a Hollywood actor. Rather than playing a hip-hop figure on a low-budget music documentary, Ice gave way to the start of a highly-successful career on film. He landed a starring role on Mario Van Peeble's revisited Blaxploitation film 'New Jack City' in which he ironically played a New York police officer. All be it a very unruly, trigger-happy street-cred detective. Here he worked alongside Chris Rock, Wesley Snipes, Judd Nelson and Mario Van Peebles himself. This movie based a platform for launching Ice-T's career as both an actor and recording artist. He pulled off the character superbly acting as police officer, Scott Appleton. The film was the highest-grossing independent film of 1991 and Ice-T was nominated for MTV Awards' 'Best Breakthrough Performance' award in 1992. This was soon followed with the film's main soundtrack single 'New Jack Hustler' which bridged over to his fourth recording 'O.G. Original Gangster' released May 14th, 1991 by Sire/Warner Records.

The album delivered conscious thought and chilling lyrics conveying psychological mind-state of a street soldier and the tolls the system takes out. Disturbing storytelling of a hustler's life and solutions the manifestation of the ghetto cycle pack the album with a sense of a serious moral compass as told through the opinion of Ice-T. This album displays a higher level of explicit sex-rhymes when compared to its predecessors, indicating to a new freedom of speech by the new Iceberg Slim. All tracks are produced by Afrika Islam and DJ Aladdin and cut up by DJ Evil-E. 'O.G.' was a well-orchestrated, classic west coast Gangsta Rap record, and became easily Ice-T's highest-selling record.

The opening to the album, 'Home Of The Bodybag' is evocative of Public Enemy's opening to 'Apocalypse '91: The Enemy Strikes Black' and set the mood-lighting for the album's purpose in his typical blatant, cold-steel realism. The track and albums starts up with a winding prison alarm sounding off and slamming of cell doors over a minimal drum beat and Ice-T's hardcore slogans being thrown down. What follows is 'First Impression' on is a higher-educated and snobbish speech delivered by what would sound like Princess Diana or Queen Elizabeth eloquently describing her first impression of Ice-T with the confiding admittance, "To be honest I am totally and irrevocably on his dick!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Ice-T cuts in with his next hard-edged egocentric boasting track called 'Ziplock' in which he shows his confident, gangster-swagger in a lyrical throw down of his generated success so far. On 'New Jack Hustler' the high-tempo, blood-racing score written to head up the soundtrack for Ice-T's new film, New Jack City. The movie played the track over a foot chase between crackhead Pookie played by Chris Rock and NYPD's own Ice-T as officer Scotty Appleton. The weight of the album's intention falls hard when he starts with the cold rhyme:
"Hustler, word I pull the trigger long
Grit my teeth, spray till every brother's gone.
Got my black sewn, armoured dope spots,
Last thing I sweat's a sucka punk cop."

The next following few tracks state Ice's opinions on two of the most exploited terms in the hip-hop dictionary, 'Bitches 2' explained the word has a non-gender specific derogatory meaning as "Some of you niggas are bitches too" sampling George Clinton and Bootsy Collins' Parliament funk track 'Dr. Funkenstein'. On a track co-written by the G.O.A.T. Melle Mel, 'Straight Up Nigga' Ice expresses his personal opinion of the term nigga convincingly. This with his verse on 'Fly By' is quite possibly the greatest lyrical threats Ice-T has ever issued on record. The latter cut is another MC throw down similar to Rhyme Syndicate's 'What Ya Wanna Do' with Nat the Cat and Donald D. 'Midnight' became part two to his early '6 'n The Morning' a gritty, nightmarish tale from South Central.