Quotes By Ice T

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.

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.

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.

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.

I'm on the front line and I am a rapper.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

A lot of the younger kids now can rap, but they're scared of the crowd. Mastery of that stage is an MC. I don't know if you've seen any great MCs on stage but when you do it's like wow, this is more than the words to rhymes.

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.

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.

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

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

I have to grow with my audience.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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