Hi, Ice, how are you?
Oh, man, I can't complain. Real busy right now, which is a good thing.
Where are you?
I'm at home in New Jersey.
It seems wrong somehow to be calling you Ice. Shouldn't it at least be Mr T?
No, Mr T has a mohawk. Ice is perfect.
You have a new Body Count album out (1). If push comes to shove, are you more metal than rap?
I feel more free with metal, it's more fun. It's much more of a workout on stage. Really, though, one cleans my palate before the next, you know? Certain songs are better set to metal and others are better set to something funky and cool. I'm lucky to be in a position to do both.
What's the lyrical agenda on Manslaughter? You declare that "manhood's dead" …
I think right now you're dealing with the pussyfication of the male sex. Men are just being so passive, not standing for something; they're very politically correct. This has nothing to do with the gay male. The gay male is gay and I have no problem with that. Men are just soft. It's OK to say you want to be a woman, but try to be a man and there's something wrong with that.
Are women toughening up as a result?
Well, women want the position. One of my buddies told me, "For you to be a man, a bitch has definitely taken a position." If you're with your girl and you're like, "Where should we park? I don't know …", she'll be like, "Park here!"
So the weakness of men has allowed women to grow stronger?
Not necessarily. They were going to grow stronger anyway because women want power. But at the same time they've made men feel very uncomfortable about speaking about their feelings.
There's an updated version of your song 99 Problems, famously recorded by Jay-Z, on the new album. What did you think of the Jay-Z/Solange elevator incident?
If a guy had hit her, he'd be done. The scariest thing is that there's cameras on elevators now, so it's become a national dispute.
How come Jeremy Clarkson, the Top Gear presenter, nearly lost his job over the children's nursery rhyme Eeny Meeny Miny Moe, but Lisa Lampanelli, during the Comedy Central roast of Flavor Flav, was able to turn to you and say, "Ice-T's so old the 'N' word on his first album stood for 'negro'"?
Comedy is a very interesting thing. If it's a black person telling the joke, it's OK. Lisa Lampanelli can get away with shit. You've got to be careful, though. Certain jokes are very toxic and you've got to know who you're around. I made a record called Freedom of Speech … Just Watch What You Say! You have the right to say anything, but you have to be prepared for the ramifications. And certain things can be blown out of proportion. When I say Cop Killer, I can't get mad because the cops get mad. You've got to be careful, that's all. And yeah, one person tells a joke and they get into trouble; another person tells it and the whole world falls apart.
Have you ever been at a roast and thought they went too far?
Oh my God, the Flavor Flav roast was brutal. And it gave all the white comedians a chance to do their black jokes. They said some heavy shit. One guy said something about Flavor "looking like a Make-A-Wish child wrapped in electrical tape". Like, goddamn!
Did you censor yourself when your kids (2) were younger?
Not really. My son grew up in a recording studio with people smoking weed and drinking; all that was right in his face. So all I could do was say, "Look, there's an adult world and a kid world. You live in a kid world. Adults can say these words, you can't. You can say other shit once you can drive."
At what age did you let him play Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas? (3)
He started playing fucking Mortal Kombat when he was five years old. He was watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre before he could talk!
Did it affect him?
Nah. He used to sleep in the bed with a Nerf gun in case the boogie man came. But it didn't affect him. What affects them is when you don't explain shit early enough, when they think that shit's real. I told him that shit was fake.
Who most impressed you in the making of the documentary Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap? (4)
Immortal Technique. Most people didn't know who he was and he caught motherfuckers out there.
Was there anybody you tried to get but couldn't?
We tried to get everybody. But I had to triangulate my camera crew, which was from London, with myself and the artist. We got 45 people, and we had a rough time trying to get it down to two hours.
Were there any diva tantrums from Kanye?
No, everybody was cool because no one wanted to look like an asshole. By the time I got Eminem and Dre, everybody was like, "OK." Even Kanye came in and rapped his ass off.
Who is the greatest rapper ever?
Wow. That's a difficult question to answer. See, the one who inspired me most was Melle Mel. Mel was the one who let me know you could put a message in the rap. Then you've got to mention Rakim; he taught all the rappers that you could rhyme so smooth. And then there's Chuck D who pretty much turned rap into a pulpit and created a movement that ch,anged the world.
Was the rap character Krazee-Eyez Killa in Curb Your Enthusiasm based on you?
I've never watched it, but probably.
Is there an element of parody to what you do, or are you deadly serious?
Absolutely. Body Count is 100% grindhouse over-the-top. It's what you wish you could do but can't. You wish you could reach through a phone and smash that fuckin' blogger, that hater. You wish you could roll up behind the Mothers Against Hard Rock (5) and shoot 'em. It's the fantasies we have. Body Count does it. Like, Pray for Death is about catching a bully and torturing him.
So there is a place for violence?
Violence is a release. I don't know if you have to act it out. But it's part of the way the human psyche processes things. When somebody crosses you, you imagine killing them. You don't want to do it, but that's just where our brain goes. We're animals. And a lot of things we do help that. When you come to see Body Count, you look at that moshpit – I mean, what the fuck is going on down there, really?
Sublimated homicidal rage?
I don't know what it is. It's just something that especially men need to get off their chest. I'm playing videogames and I'm whacking shit; I'm not going to really go hurt somebody, no, but it's like a release valve. It's like if you really get mad, sometimes it helps if you go outside and scream.
Institutionalized 2014 (6) is funny. In the last bit of the track, you fantasise about shooting an annoying vegetarian with pellets of pulled pork.
Yeah, well I'm trying to eat a fuckin' ham sandwich and he's telling me the pork is going to kill me and I'm like, the only way the pork is going to kill me is if you figure a way to shoot it out of a gun.
I notice your wife has developed her own line of "pleasure products" …
I love the fact that she's doing the pleasure products. It's a multi-billion dollar industry. Who doesn't want a couple of toys in the bedroom? They used to call those things marital aids. People need to go into a sex shop every now and then to jazz up things. Coco is very sexy, but she's not "pornography". A lot of women, they want those toys but they don't want them from a porn star. She's right on the edge: it's clean enough that a lot of square chicks will go and get her products. At the end of the day it's business, so why would I be mad about it?
Do you still like Jethro Tull? (7)
Yeah. Aqualung is probably one of the best records ever. Just the whole shit with Ian Anderson playing a flute, looking like a damn wild man; that shit was dope.
Because of your upbringing – going to live with a wealthy middle-class aunt after your parents died (8) – were you the original Fresh Prince of Bel Air?
No. It wasn't that flashy. My aunt was a social worker. It wasn't really Fresh Prince of Bel Air-type shit. I was stuck in a room with my cousin. He thought he was Jimi Hendrix. He couldn't play guitar, just air guitar, but he kept the radio on the rock station and thank God, because that's how come I know a lot about rock'n'roll, especially about classic rock like Edgar Winter, Mott the Hoople, Neil Young, Sabbath and Blue Öyster Cult.
Footnotes
(1) Manslaughter, out now.
(2) Ice has three children from previous relationships: Letesha Marrow, 36; Tracy Marrow Jr AKA Little Ice, 22; and Kevin Marrow, 12.
(3) Ice provides the voice of Madd Dogg in the computer game.
(6) A track from the new album on which Ice takes revenge on various social irritants.
(7) Ice is also a big fan of Traffic's Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys.
(8) Both parents died of heart attacks - his mother when he was in third grade and his father when he was 12.
