Ice-T

Ice-T Says Los Angeles Rappers Don’t Wear A Lot Of Jewelry Due To The Area Being Dangerous

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In the wake of PnB Rock’s tragic death via shooting on Monday, legendary rapper Ice-T tweeted about how he’s unwilling to keep on explaining the dangers of Los Angeles and its gang culture, if only because people won’t listen to him. After allegedly being contacted by many people about his stance, the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit star offered additional details on his stance, related to jewelry and the danger it can bring to those wearing it.

In a tweet from early on Wednesday, Ice-T wrote, “People are still hitting me up about my comments about LA Gang culture.If you NOTICE, LA rappers don’t wear a lotta Jewelry… Me, Snoop, Cube, Dre, Game, Kendrick..The list goes on.. It’s not cause we’re broke. LA is just a Dangerous place,rapper or not. Why test the streets..”

Ice-T went on to defend his stance against a few people who offered opposition. One posted a picture of The Game wearing a large gold chain, to which Ice-T replied, “Thats on certain occasions when you’re ready for whatever… I have Big Jewelry too… But you don’t wake up EVERYDAY and put it on to go down the block.. As I said before… Challenge the hood, somebody’s gonna catch that Fade.”

Another mentioned the existence of Death Row Records chains, to which the rapper said, “Yep, And PAC’s death was connected to the snatching of one of those chains.. You can deny what I’m trying to tell you if you want. I’m done explaining.”

However, there are some exceptions to the rule. Ralfy the Plug, late rapper Drakeo the Ruler’s brother, was quick to contradict the OG. He quoted Ice-T’s jewelry explanation tweet with a photo of himself wearing multiple chains in front of a black backdrop and an accompanying caption saying, “My kneck be hurting on a daily.”

It wasn’t all negativity, though. One person shared a piece of artwork that he painted featuring Ice-T getting his hair done at a barbershop while sporting a large chain. The caption read, “We have a chain obsessed culture. Why I painted this. The irony was ICE doesn’t rock a piece worth a house in vulnerable places. Jewelry ain’t sh*t on a corpse. 3OG knowledge is a gift. You’d think they’d listen.”

Ice-T signaled his approval with multiple fire emojis. He later punctuated his stance with a tweet that read, “‘LA….. Home of the Bodybag…’ Somebody said that 30 yrs ago….,” a direct quote from his 1991 song “Home Of The Bodybag.

Check out Ice-T’s tweets about Los Angeles gang culture and jewelry above.

Ice-T Says He’ll No Longer Explain L.A.’s Gang Culture Following PnB Rock’s Murder, “It’s Not A Game… At All”

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Many fans and artists alike flooded social media yesterday after hearing of PnB Rock’s untimely murder at a Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles in Inglewood, CA. His murder also sparked a conversation amongst L.A. natives about gang culture in L.A. and how artists who aren’t from the city need to move differently when they come out here.

West Coast hip hop legend Ice-T has been vocal about gang culture in L.A., and following the news about PnB Rock, took to Twitter where he said he’s “done” talking about gang culture in L.A.

“I’m done explaining LA Gang culture… MFs will not listen. It’s not a game.. At all.”

Ice-T had spoke about gang culture and rapper’s in L.A. needing to be careful after Kodak Black was shot in front of Justin Beiber’s Superbowl party in West Hollywood in February.

“SuperBowlWeekend: Not a Threat, just a Warning,” Ice-T had tweeted. “Young Rappers coming to LA for the Super Bowl weekend. LA has over 50 Thousand ACTIVE Gang Members. Make sure you play it SAFE. It’s the Wild Wild West.”

As for PnB Rock, the suspects in his murder has not yet been identified. In a statement to the L.A. Times, Los Angeles Police Department Captain Kelly Muniz said that the gunmen entered the restaurant, immediately pulled out a firearm and demanded that the Philadelphia rapper give them his jewlery. They then shot PnB Rock and fled in a getaway car in the parking lot.

In the same statement, Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore said that an Instagram post made by PnB Rock’s girlfriend with their location might’ve been the ultimate cause of his death.

” [He] was with his family — with his girlfriend or some kind of friend of his — and as they’re there, enjoying a simple meal, [he] was brutally attacked by an individual who apparently [came] to the location after a social media posting,” Moore said.

The post Ice-T Says He’ll No Longer Explain L.A.’s Gang Culture Following PnB Rock’s Murder, “It’s Not A Game… At All” appeared first on The Source.

Megan Thee Stallion Is Ready To Take On Hollywood + Top 10 Rappers Who Took It By Storm

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Megan x Ice Cube x Common

Megan Thee Stallion recently interviewed with The Cut to promote some of her latest projects, and she’s dropped exclusive details on her desire to merge into acting. The transition from a successful rapper to the Hollywood film screen isn’t uncommon. Meg Thee Stallion’s latest interview discusses her growth under the spotlight, and the Houston Hottie […]

The post Megan Thee Stallion Is Ready To Take On Hollywood + Top 10 Rappers Who Took It By Storm appeared first on SOHH.com.

Ice T Makes His Pick For The Greatest Rap Album Of All Time

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Everybody has opinions about who the best rappers, albums, songs, etc. in the history of hip-hop are. Rappers weigh in on the subject not infrequently and last night, Ice T made his contribution to the conversation on The Tonight Show.

During a segment called “Ice T Settles It,” Jimmy Fallon asked Ice a series of rapid-fire questions and eventually, he tasked Ice with making his pick for the greatest rap album of all time. He seemed intrigued by the question, giving an “ooh” after he asked. Ice didn’t take long to give his answer, though, replying after only a short delay, “I’ll say Paid In Full by Eric B. & Rakim.” Fallon asked Ice to elaborate and he continued, “‘Cause that was the most influential album to me when I was making my album.”

He also offered his No. 2 and 3 albums, and like Paid In Full, they’re also from the late ’80s and early ’90s, when his own music career was at its peak. He continued, “I’ll say Fear Of A Black Planet [by] Public Enemy would be a close second, and then Straight Out Of Compton, NWA, would be top-3. But each one of those albums had a lot to do with influencing me as an MC. But when I heard Rakim, I had never heard nobody rap like that. And it was so many hits on that album. Get Paid In Full and you’ll bang it all the way to the house.”

Watch the full interview above.

Ice-T Says He Got Robbed At A Gas Station — By The Pump (And He’s Got People Rolling)

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Ice-T had people rolling on the floor after the rapper/actor dropped a humorous tweet lamenting gas prices. In the anecdote, which initially starts out with a somber admission that Ice-T was “robbed at a gas station last night,” the Law and Order star proceeds to break down the aftermath of the “robbery.” Of course, the first red flag that something was amiss is Ice-T said his hands were “trembling,” which seems out of character for the badass rapper, and that’s because it never happened. The whole thing was a setup for his gas price punchline.

“I was robbed at a gas station in NJ last night,” Ice-T tweeted. “After my hands stopped trembling.. I managed to call the cops and they were quick to respond and calmed me down….. My money is gone.. the police asked me if I knew who did it.. I said yes.. it was pump number 9…”

Within hours, Ice-T’s tweet went viral as it racked up almost 100,000 likes at the time of this writing and instantly made the rapper trend on Twitter as the reactions started pouring in. People were either dying with laughter at the joke or feeling Ice-T’s pain at the cost of gas.

You can see some of the reactions below:

Of course, the gas prices are market forces reacting to the Russia invasion of Ukraine, but if you think Ice-T is pushing for a quick end to that problem, think again. The rapper/actor is fully aware of the gravity of the situation and is all for avoiding a global conflict.

“Here’s the Situation: As soon as the US fires ONE bullet at a Russian solider. From the Ground or Air…. WE are at War with Russia,” Ice-T tweeted at the beginning of March. “Not good.”

(Via Ice-T on Twitter)

Today In Hip Hop History: Cult Classic Film ‘New Jack City’ Premiered in Theaters 31 Years Ago

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On this day, 31 years ago, the cult-classic crime thriller New Jack City arrived in theaters across America. The story of the rise and fall of Nino Brown and the Cash Money Brothers has continued inspired Hip Hop culture for a quarter-century and continues to permeate the culture that made it a success.

New Jack City came about at a pivotal time. In 1991, Hip Hop was still a fledging music genre and culture, looking to legitimize itself in the eyes of mainstream America officially. In addition, the blaxploitation film genre had been defunct for over a decade, leaving a gaping hole in “Black Hollywood.” New Jack City was a harbinger of the resurgence of Black actors, writers, and filmmakers in Hollywood, as well as the crystallization of Hip Hop’s synergistic capabilities.

New Jack Ice Chris

The film also catapulted actors like Wesley Snipes, who played the lead role as the morally barren kingpin Nino Brown and Chris Rock stick-up-kid-turned-crackhead-informant “Pookie,” into stardom. The film’s director Mario Van Peebles also made his directorial debut with the film, which he also starred in. Ice T, who also played a major role in New Jack City as NYPD detective “Scotty Appleton,” spoke with Rock on his “Final Level” podcast about some of the behind-the-scenes of the cult classic.

Chris Rock: At the time, you and I were the most popular people in the cast, really, just ’cause we’d done s**t.

Ice-T: We’d done things.

Chris Rock: Nobody knew Mario [Van Peebles]. Nobody knew Wesley [Snipes].

Ice-T: Wesley had done Major League.

Chris Rock: No one knew “G-Money,” you know, Allen Payne.

Ice-T: That was what got me confident enough to act.

Chris Rock: And you were actually making money. [Laughs] I was broke.

…

Ice-T: … You know, it was an interesting experience. New Jack City was a new-jack movie. The director was a new-jack.

Chris Rock: The producers were new-jacks, new-jack actors, new-jack soundtrack. Remember we kept runnin’ out of money? There was a couple of times, while we were filming, we were like, “This s**t is getting shut down.” Like, the chase on the bikes was [suppose to be] a car-chase. But it turned into a bike-chase; we had no money! [Laughs] Somebody had to think fast.

The film was shot on an $8 million budget and premiered at the 1991 Sundance Film Festival on January 17, 1991. The film would later release nationally on March 8, 1991, raking in $7,039,622 in opening weekend sales — and later became the highest-grossing indie film of 1991 with $47,624,253 domestically.

The film also had a longstanding effect on the music industry. Perhaps the most notable example is brother Bryan “Birdman” and Ronald “Slim” Williams‘ Cash Money Records label, a blatant reworking of Nino Brown’s “Cash Money Brothers” gang in the film. In addition, Lil Wayne‘s solo album series Tha Carter is not only his last name but an homage to “The Carter,” Nino’s crack house fortress in the film, as well as name drops Nino in his 2010 single “I’m Single.”

For decades, Nino Brown has become a regularly referenced movie character in rap lyrics. A simple search of “Nino Brown” on RapGenius shows over 4000 references to the surface by artists from all over the world. It’s safe to say Nino and New Jack City will continue to inspire generations to come, and if you disagree…

The post Today In Hip Hop History: Cult Classic Film ‘New Jack City’ Premiered in Theaters 31 Years Ago appeared first on The Source.

Ice-T’s Take On ‘The Situation’ With Russia Is Being Held Out As More Sensible Than Any Policy ‘Expert’

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Whenever global catastrophe unfolds, almost everyone’s bound to have an opinion (while also watching on in horror), and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is no exception. Some current takes (Chris Evans directing people to stories of Russia’s history of atrocities towards rivals) are more productive than others (John Cena deciding to promote Peacemaker or AnnaLynne McCord performing spoken-word poetry), and Ice-T’s taking the commonsensical approach.

That’s what the interpretation has been as Ice-T — he of the no-BS Twitter threads — delivered his observation, in which he definitely does not pull an incomprehensible Steven Seagal move. Rather, Ice is dropping his truth as he sees fit.

“Here’s the Situation,” the SVU mainstay and Body Count frontman tweeted. “As soon as the US fires ONE bullet at a Russian solider. From the Ground or Air…. WE are at War with Russia. Not good.”

People are here for this analysis, and they’re praising the man who portrays Fin Tutuola, not only for speaking out without bashing anyone else, but for having a much more levelheaded take on foreign policy than the talking heads (with credentials, even including former ambassadors and professors) on cable news.

Ice-T for public office? No way, man. He’s got more productive things to do in between telling the world, “Russia is definitely on that BullSh*t.”

A Clip Of David Bowie Criticizing MTV For Not Playing Black Artists Resurfaced On Twitter And Ice-T Approves

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Every so often, David Bowie‘s 1983 interview with Mark Goodman resurfaces on social media — particularly, the clip in which Bowie notes the dearth of Black artists being played on the station at the time. It’s pretty well-known music history by now; early in MTV’s history, the station chose not to play videos by Black artists like Michael Jackson, Prince, or Run-DMC, despite their popularity and obvious influence on the sorts of artists MTV did play. It’s also a complaint that resurfaces every so often, such as in the aftermath of this year’s VMAs.

Only under widespread public pressure did MTV finally relent, playing the sort of artists that obviously came to define its pop-culture dominance throughout the ’90s and early 2000s. In this particular clip, Bowie points out to Goodman, “I’m just floored by the fact that there are so few Black artists featured [on MTV]. Why is that?” Throughout the discussion, Goodman waffles a bit, trying to argue that different viewers glean different perceptions of the coverage, but Bowie remains steadfast in bringing his point back. Noting that he has been observing a “Black station” (likely BET), he notes that “there seems to be a lot of Black artists making very good videos that I’m surprised aren’t used on MTV.”

The clip in question has popped up again courtesy of NBA player turned Twitter star, Rex Chapman, who tweeted the clip with his own observation tying it to current events. “Watching the Nikole Hannah-Jones/Chuck Todd interview it’s impossible to not think about the 1993 David Bowie/Mark Goodman MTV interview [on Meet The Press regarding ‘critical race theory’ bans in schools],” he wrote. “Same thing almost 30-years later. Why is it always ‘what’s acceptable to white people’??

The tweet won the approval of Ice-T, who retweeted it, garnering nearly 4,000 shares and well over 33,000 likes.

You can check out the clip above and the full interview here.