*In the latest Allison Interviews podcast, host Allison Kugel sits down with the legendary Ice-T. The conversation spans his pivot from the streets to stardom, his role in shaping gangster rap, and the “Cop Killer” controversy. Ice T also opens up about 27 seasons on SVU, his family with wife Coco, and the artists who inspired him. The full episode is on major podcast platforms and YouTube, and the interview is available for print publication.
On his early hit O.G. Original Gangster and the Birth of Gangster Rap:
“I didn’t think I was going to be big, because there was no one big yet. Now, a kid can say, ‘I wanna be a rapper, because they can look at Drake and go, ‘Look at that.’ But who was I to look at? Grandmaster Flash and Furious Five were still struggling. Hip hop wasn’t big enough. We’re talking about 1982. Original Gangster was way later. That was three albums in.
“O.G. is a term used by the L.A. gangs for the first generation of a particular set. But also in L.A., the term just means ‘The Original.’ I brought it to the forefront when the press decided to name what we did ‘Gangster Rap,’ and they named it Gangster Rap because of Ice Cube. They didn’t have a name for [the genre] when we first started. They were calling it ‘Reality Rap,’ but I was like, ‘Well, this is not everybody’s reality. This is just some particular kids’ reality.’ So, Ice Cube did Straight Outta Compton, and he said ‘Straight Outta Compton; crazy mother*cker named Ice Cube; from the gang called n*ggas with attitude.’ And the press said, ‘Oh, he referred to his rap group as a gang. They’re gangster rappers.’ That’s where the media gave us that name, and I said, ‘Okay, if this is gangster rap, I’m the Original Gangster. I tagged myself on the tag they gave us, so I was, like, claiming my terrain.”
On the controversy surrounding ICE (the other ICE):
“I’m on the right side of proper law enforcement, but what we’re seeing now in America with ICE, what is law enforcement? What is it, and who draws what line and where? They don’t need warrants. So if ICE decides they want to come into my house without a warrant, does the Second Amendment permit me to shoot them? If they’re out there behaving illegally, what makes them legal, cause they got a badge? Unfortunately, their name is ICE, so I’m taking the heat, regardless. But as far as doing Cop Killer (his 1992 heavy metal song with his group Body Count), Cop Killer was a protest record about brutal cops. The fact that he became a hero to some lets you know how some people feel about the police.”
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On refusing to watch the Diddy docu-series on Netflix:
“I didn’t watch it. I’m not into gossip. That’s not my stuff. I purposely avoid all of it. I’m not a woman. Coco might have watched it, but I don’t do that. I don’t do gossip. I’m a man. I was not involved in that [stuff]. I wasn’t there and I don’t care.”
On doing Law & Order: SVU for 27 seasons:
“Everyone is wonderful on the show. The environment is so cool. Mariska is so dope, and so nice and easy to work with. I couldn’t do it if it was a hostile work environment. But it’s like a team. Everyone’s like, ‘Ice is here, we’re getting ready to go and do it!’ I love that energy. I also know there’s not many better jobs than acting. It’s grown up make believe. How could you find a better job? I’m still able to do music. I tour with Body Count (his heavy metal band) on every vacation. All my artistic itches are being scratched. And it doesn’t hurt to have a solid job.
On his SVU character, Fin Tutuola, being the longest-running male TV character in history:
“Somebody said Homer Simpson, and I’m like, ‘He ain’t real. Homer doesn’t have to get up in the morning and do a call time (laughs). After Season 21, we beat Gun Smoke; that was James Arness. Mariska has me by a few episodes, because I came on in the beginning of the second season, so she has twenty episodes on me. But in order to get that, you have to be on the longest-running show. It’s a Catch-22. When I went on that show, I went on to only do four episodes, and now it’s twenty-seven years later. In this business, the only way you know if you’re good is if you get called back. I’ve been getting called back, so I must be doing the job. And when this thing is over, which all good things will come to an end, there’s still a lot of acting left for me. I see Liam Neeson out here doing action movies. I see Denzel, and he’s seventy. Like I always say, I’m Black. I don’t jump off a boat while it’s floating (laughs). This boat is still floating, so why would you jump off (laughs)? I’d like to take it for the full ride. ”
On how his marriage to wife Coco has evolved over 25 years:
“When you’re twenty-five years into marriage, you go through hard times; you go through all kinds of different things, but you love the person more every day because when you’re married, you’re married to somebody who can deal with your flaws. The first thing you have to realize is you’re not perfect, and the person who can accept your imperfections is usually the person you connect to. The problem why people can’t connect because they don’t believe they have anything wrong with them, and that it’s everyone else. Coco puts up with me. She puts up with my hours, she puts up with my behavior. And I love her. I love her idiosyncrasies.”
“Coco is an extrovert. She’s just out there; she’s fun. I needed that. I need someone exciting. I’m very low-key. So we work off each other, but I think when you first get together, you’re excited, but you don’t know why. You’re just basing it on lust and the excitement of a new person. I think when you’ve been with somebody a long time, you know why now. Maybe you made a mistake, and she stayed down with you or vice versa, and that locks you in. When I got with Coco, I’m twenty years older than Coco, and when I got with her, I was like, ‘This is for the rest of the way out,’ in my mind. When you’re in a relationship, you only know what you think. You don’t know what the other person is thinking, so you hope they feel the same way.”
On being more present for daughter Chanel than he was for his two older children:
“My first daughter, I was in the streets, still. So it was more presents over presence. She had all the new sneakers and cool stuff that I could give her, but I wasn’t there. I was in the streets hustling. I didn’t really reconnect with my daughter until she was 16, when she came to live with me. Little Ice, he was born right when I was becoming Ice-T, like right when this star sh*t was starting to happen. I, once again, was not home. I was on the road. I was doing what it takes, you know. You’re trying to become whoever the f*ck you’re supposed to be. The grind that it takes to hit a certain cruising altitude where now you’re known and you got options and people offering you things, it’s difficult to do in a relationship, or with kids. By the time I had Chanel, I was at that altitude. Me and Coco had been married at that point fifteen years. At thirty, she didn’t want to have kids. At thirty-five, she got the bug. She said, ‘I want to have a baby.’ We decided to have Chanel. I was with Coco every day of the pregnancy. I took her to the hospital, I saw Chanel being born, and Chanel still sleeps in the bed with us. I’m extremely present. I’m taking Chanel to school and to kung fu. I’m here and present for this child, totally, and it’s the most wonderful thing in the world.”
On Co-Founding The O.G. Network with Courtney “Big Court” Richardson II:
“Court is a brotha that I became aware of because he was, like, Master P’s right-hand man. He had a podcast called Holding Court, and I noticed he had an Ice-T poster in the background. When I met him, he told me, ‘Ice, I’ve studied you. Every record you’ve put out, I know what you’re talking about. I did his podcast a couple of times, and we became friends. He called me and said, ‘Ice, I’ve got an idea, I want to start a network. Once I understood it, I said the only way I want to get involved is if we can’t be taken down. You could have a YouTube channel with 500,000 subscribers, wake up tomorrow, and you’re red-flagged. I knew we had to have control over it, and we needed to build it straight up to where it’s our network. So that’s what we did. It’s called The O.G. Network. You can get to it at theognetwork.net. We filled it full of O.G. stuff, classic stuff. We’ve got Blaxploitation movies, we’ve got Ice-T movies on there, Master P movies on there, karate movies. The result is, really, we’re mimicking Tubi.” Learn more at www.theognetwork.net
About Journalist and Podcast Host Allison Kugel
Allison Kugel is a veteran entertainment journalist and host of the Allison Interviews Podcast. Watch and embed the entire interview video with Ice-T @YouTube. Listen to the audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify. Follow Allison Kugel on Instagram @theallisonkugel and AllisonInterviews.com.
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