Ice-T (or Ice T), is an American rapper and actor. He is active in both hip hop and heavy metal. Ice-T 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. The following year, he founded the record label Rhyme $yndicate Records (named after his collective of fellow hip-hop artists called the “Rhyme $yndicate”) and released another album, Power (1988), which would go platinum. He also released several other albums that went gold, including The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech… Just Watch What You Say! (1989), O.G. Original Gangster (1991) and Home Invasion (1993).
Ice-T co-founded the heavy metal band Body Count in 1990, which he introduced on O.G. Original Gangster, on the track titled “Body Count”. The band released its self-titled debut album in 1992. Ice-T encountered controversy over his track “Cop Killer”, the lyrics of which discussed killing police officers. He asked to be released from his contract with Warner Bros. Records, and his follow-up solo album, Home Invasion, was released through Priority Records. Ice-T released two more albums in the late 1990s and one in the 2000s before focusing on both his acting career and Body Count, who have released eight studio albums to date, the latest being 2024’s Merciless.
Credited by none other than original gangster Ice-T as “the forefather of gangsta rap,” Schoolly D is a hip-hop pioneer also for having produced, released, and distributed his early recordings, such as “P.S.K. ‘What Does It Mean?'” (1985). The West Philadelphia native’s confrontational nature and willingness to shock — using terms and themes that became common in hip-hop years after he made a name for himself — might be most frequently associated with his mid-’80s breakthrough, but he has cultivated a formidable discography crossing four decades, far beyond foundational LPs such as Schoolly-D (1985), Saturday Night! The Album (1986), and Smoke Some Kill (1988). In addition to the enduring relevance of his early work through samples and lyrical references by younger generations of producers and MCs, Schoolly D is known for having performed the original theme for the animated television series Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
