Ice T quotes:

Los Angeles is a microcosm of the United States. If L.A. falls, the country falls.

Because I first made my name as a rapper claiming South Central L.A., people often assume I'm strictly a West Coast cat. But my family was actually from back East. I was born in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in Summit, an upscale town in north Jersey.

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.

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.

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.'

I don't have to put out another rap record. I can do it at my casual pace.

Redemption just means you just make a change in your life and you try to do right, versus what you were doing, which was wrong.

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.

When I was in the 12th grade, I got my girlfriend pregnant. I just got out of school, she was a 10th-grader. I'm a teen parent, and I'm at a point where I'm like, 'Man I've got to do something.'

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.

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

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

I think when people say 'real hip-hop,' they want it more buried in the streets. They want it more connected to the streets and the grime and the roughness of the streets. They don't want the fluff.

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 mean rappin' to me is easy, it's something you can do over a week.

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

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

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.

When you start a business, go for the lowest hanging fruit.

I make an effort to keep it as real as I possibly can.

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.

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

So from an actor's perspective, you really have no idea how you're acting.

When I first started out in music, I was so negative. I was knee-deep in the streets. Then my friends started going to jail. They said, 'Boy, you better start taking this seriously; you got a chance to do something with your life.' That's when I realised I had to focus. The music led to the acting.

We have groups that do that, but I can't rap with the mentality of an 18 year old when I'm in my 30's.

The right to bear arms is because it's the last form of defense against tyranny.

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.

I started writing rhymes first and then put it to the music. I figured out I could lock it to the beat better if I heard the music first. I like to get a lot of tracks, put the track up and let the music talk to me about what it's about.

The best way to listen to the album is to put it on, get some Moet, lay back with your boys, and kick it.

Any New York group can come to L.A. and sell out every show, but an L.A. group who goes to New York might not do the same because the audience hasn't been introduced to the group.

I've always been a person that, if I'm with a woman, she's in the picture. Even my son's mom, she was on my early (album) covers.

I'm a big fan of all styles, even Biggie and Wu-Tang, but I gotta do my thing.

If you believe that I'm a cop killer, you believe David Bowie is an astronaut.

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.

With acting, you have to take it seriously because the other actors are putting in a lot of effort - and if you say, 'I'm just bullshitting here', it's like dissing 'em.

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

The best way to compliment an emcee is to say his lyrics. That's how you say, "Hello."

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?!

Hip-hop is a competition culture. It's based around, "My DJ is better than you. My graffiti artist is better than you."

You could be a Green Beret and a kid could jump out from behind a building and hit you with a rock. No matter how tough you become in the military, there's a way to die: there's nothing safe about it.

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

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.

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

I ain't got no beef with east coast, I think it's just being hyped up.

Diet food is for lazy people.

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.

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

I'm pretty open book, I'm also the kind of person that will say, 'That's none of your business,' too.

When I got a chance to rap, I just busted my ass. When I got a chance to act, I busted my ass. Anytime I get a chance. I'm not wasting time. I won't do it if I'm not doing it 110 percent. You've got to work hard if you want to play hard. I like to play, but I know I gotta bust my ass.

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?

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.

I'm a big Brad Pitt fan. He's really talented. I think a lot of men are intimidated by him, saying he's just a pretty boy or whatever, but he is a bad man. I think he can act.

Rap music came along and saved my life. I started to tell the stories of the streets and that was my way out.

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.

My mother passed when I was in the third grade, my father when I was in the seventh, and that's when I was shipped to Los Angeles to live with an aunt.

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.

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.

Arnold Schwarzenegger blew away dozens of cops as the Terminator. But I don't hear anybody complaining about that.

I never know if the person I'm shaking hands with is coming to kill me. That's something you have to live with when you cross the lines.

I think everybody wants to redeem themselves after they've done something that might be considered negative. I don't think anyone wants to go to the grave negative.

If you're really a rapper, you can't stop rapping.

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.

I'm afraid because some police are way out of control. My true feeling with police is this: If they do their job, there's no problem.

I'd say people are victims of circumstances and they're limited to the opportunities that they see. Even though there might be more opportunities, you might not see them. You might just think, "I don't have any options." You usually go to the dark side, in that situation.

I think, people look at me, and they say, 'You were very aggressive,' I say, 'Yeah,' you know, and I've made a better life for myself, for my son, so I should reflect that with my music now. I shouldn't still be rhyming like that; that would be me lying.

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.

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.

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.

I think men, growing up, you have to go through some form of hardship. You've got to harden the metal.

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.

If I do a song where I'm angry, when it's time to perform it live I'm not mad, I'm happy. I'm at a concert. But I have to somehow drum up that rage. That's acting.

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.

Most interviewers are looking for a headline. They're not skilled. They're looking for shock value.

I'm in a very good place to make records. Needing to make money off music is very dangerous.

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

Passion makes the world go round. Love just makes it a safer place.

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.

When you hit the wall, it's how fast you come back.

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.

The truth is, everybody I've ever met who's successful is a workaholic.

You can't get what you want all the time in life.

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.

I've always been a person that, if I'm with a woman, she's in the picture.

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.

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.

I'm like a monkey. You don't let go of one branch until you get a hold of the other.

Everybody is doing you a favor when you're doing a documentary. You can't pressure them into it.

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.

If somebody wants to kill people, they don't need a gun to do it.

Another thing about me 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.

Real men hold themselves accountable for stuff.

It's not about being mad at everything. It's about being really mad at the right things.

Who can protect themselves from betrayal? The day your brother wakes up and plans to do you dirty, there's no defense against that.

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

Dog's just want to sniff an ass and eat some food.

You can't do an impersonation of somebody nobody knows.

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.

I'm very much against the anonymity of bloggers and social media. I just hate it and I think it's really cowardly.

The more you try to suppress us, the larger we get.

I've never been competitive with anybody but myself.

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

When we say a rapper, a rapper can say a rhyme. But an MC can rock a party.

I've never read for a movie, I've always been given them.

Ice-T in the music has done some outrageous things.

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.

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.

A lot of people play single to work some angle. I'm always about keeping it real. If that's how I'm living, that's how I'm living.

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.

One of the things about powerful people is they have the ability to make it look easy.

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

I write rhymes with addition and algebra, mental geometry.

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

I have to take what I say and make it heavy, so every single bar means something. And there's no riddles in my rhymes. Every single word means something.

The trick with hip-hop-hip-hop is a sport. The only music that's really, really close to a sport. It starts off, "My DJ's better than yours. I can out-rap you, I can out-dance you, my graffiti piece is better than you." It's very competitive.

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.

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.

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.

Everything we do helps the new artists in the long run.

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.

I want to be able to say that a rap career could be ten albums.