Top 188 Quotes & Sayings by Ice T

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American musician Ice T.

Last updated on December 23, 2024.

Tracy Lauren Marrow, better known by his stage name Ice-T, is an American rapper, songwriter, actor, and producer. He began his career as an underground rapper in the 1980s and was signed to Sire Records in 1987, when he released his debut album Rhyme Pays—reportedly the first hip-hop album to carry an explicit content sticker. The following year, he founded the record label Rhyme $yndicate Records and released another album, Power, which would go platinum. He also released several other albums that went gold.

American - Musician | Born: February 16, 1958

Source: Wikipedia

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.

Ice T

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.

Ice T

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.

Ice T

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

Ice T

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.'

Ice T

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.

Ice T

You have to come in on a professional level to make it, otherwise you just can't get into rap.

Ice T

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

Ice T

I'm at a point where I don't have to wait for the income from the record to survive, so I'm in a comfortable zone, but I'll make rap records as long as I feel I have something to rap about.

Ice T

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

Ice T

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.

Ice T

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.

Ice T

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.

Ice T

The music led to the acting. But movies aren't something you can just will yourself into. Someone has to choose you, and you have to be quite fortunate to be chosen.

Ice T

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

Ice T

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.

Ice T

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

Ice T

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

Ice T

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

Ice T

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.

Ice T

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.

Ice T

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.

Ice T

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.

Ice T

If it sells, it sells. If it doesn't sell, I'll go make a movie.

Ice T

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.

Ice T

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

Ice T

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

Ice T

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

Ice T

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

Ice T

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.

Ice T

I've never been competitive with anybody but myself.

Ice T

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

Ice T

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

Ice T

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

Ice T

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

Ice T

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

Ice T

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.

Ice T

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.

Ice T

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.

Ice T

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

Ice T

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.

Ice T

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.

Ice T

No, I'll stay Ice-T. This is what got me here, I'm always going to stay true to that. If it weren't for hip-hop I wouldn't be doing all these other things.

Ice T

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

Ice T

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.

Ice T

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

Ice T

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

Ice T

I'm competitive in that I would like to outsell my last record.

Ice T

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.

Ice T

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.

Ice T

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

Ice T

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

Ice T

I have to grow with my audience.

Ice T

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

Ice T

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.

Ice T

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

Ice T

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

Ice T

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.

Ice T

If I'm going to be a jazz player, I need to understand Miles Davis.

Ice T

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

Ice T