Another entertaining and enlightening season of the award-winning TV One docu-series, “Unsung” concludes with an intriguing episode on hip-hop pioneer, Ice-T, at 10 p.m. Sunday.
Born Tracy Marrow in Newark, N.J., Ice-T moved to Los Angeles to live with an aunt after the death of his parents. He got hooked on music genre while in the U.S. Army and became what many considered one of the original gangster rappers.
Ice-T’s music would inspire a new generation of artists such as Snoop Dogg, Kurupt, N.W.A., and The Game, and songs like “Cop Killer,” “6 In the Mornin’” and “Colors” are rap classics in portraying a life of gangs, girls and guns. The music had a layered moral message for listeners to not repeat behavior as jail or a casket may be in the cards.
According to TV One, the 59-year-old entertainer’s tunes had a no-nonsense style in projecting a larger-than-life persona. Ice-T has lived nine lives: pimp, bank robber, DJ, army officer, con-man and even award-winning actor and producer.
Now, “one of the greatest rappers ever” finally gets his props.
“I’ve always tried to rhyme from an honest, truthful point, and you have the right to say anything, but be prepared for what that might bring back to you,” Ice-T says in the earthy exposé.
“You can’t yell ‘Cop Killer,’ then get mad if the cops get mad at you, but I did what I had to do when I thought that’s what I had to do.”’
Ice Cube, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with N.W.A. in 2016, counts Ice-T among his top five rappers.
Insights from family and friends are also provided by Busy Bee, Marcus Chapman, Ife Kiara and Perry Farrell, as well as Ice-T’s daughter, Letesha Marrow.
An accomplished actor and two-time NAACP Image Award winner, Ice-T appeared as Scotty Appleton in the 1991 cult classic “New Jack City,” and since 1999, has played Detective Odafin Tutuola in the NBC crime drama “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” On the lighter side, he is currently a pitchman for Geico Insurance.
The life and times of this influential artist was deemed too expansive for a single episode, and a TV One representative recently announced that an episode of “Unsung Hollywood” featuring Ice-T will air in September. (Kimberly C. Roberts)
