Ice T - Ricochet
The extra day brings extra flavor to February, as we close out Black History Month with a bang.
I don't do nearly enough Hip-Hop so for today we will time machine back to the Golden Age, when LA rap was rising ramping up to the riots in 1992.
He may play the police on television now, but there was a time when the roles were very much reversed.
Probably the alpha/omega figure for the late 1980s Los Angeles rap scene when the genre was just beginning to dominate the world, it was when he went Punk Rock that the authorities really got in a twist.
When his rock band hit in the early 1990s and he added that ensemble to his arsenal of artistic weapons, he got into the crosshairs of the Culture War machine in a big way.
They were called Body Count, and their song Cop Killer really got the authoritarians way up in their feelings, even though it was just a song on a record.
The authoritarians really had it in for Hip-Hop back when it was unhomogenized.
Here's a wild set from the East Coast from during that time, really well captured too. Which is sadly not the norm for most ROIOs of this kind of music, all too rare as they are.
This set features Ice-T -- born Tracy Marrow 66 years and a couple of weeks ago -- at the height of his powers doing the rap thing and the rock thing.
Unfortunately, the security for the show gets out of hand during the second portion so he quits the stage midway through the Body Count segment, before they can play the controversial track.
Fortunately, before that happens he makes it through almost 74 minutes of prime aggression and mosh pit mayhem.
Ice-T
Capitol Theatre
Port Chester, New York USA
2.29.1992
01 intro
02 Ricochet
03 You Played Yourself
04 High Rollers
05 I'm Your Pusher
06 Ice talk
07 Girls L.G.B.N.A.F.
08 Ice talk
09 The Iceberg
10 Power
11 6 'N the Mornin'
12 Drama
13 Peel Their Caps Back
14 Ice talk
15 O.G. Original Gangsta
16 Ice talk
17 New Jack Hustler
18 Colors
19 Ice talk
20 Body Count intro
21 Body Count's In the House
22 Body Count Anthem/band introductions
23 Bowels of the Devil
24 KKK Bitch
Total time: 1:13:38
Ice-T (Tracy Marrow) – vocals
DJ Evil E (Eric Garcia) - turntables & vocals
Afrika Islam - vocals
Sean E. Sean – sampler & vocals
Sean E. Mac (Sean Thomas) – vocals
Body Count (Tracks 21-24):
Ernie C (Ernie Cunnigan) – guitars
D-Roc the Executioner (Dennis Miles) - guitars
Beatmaster V (Victor Ray Wilson) – drums
Lloyd "Mooseman" Roberts III – bass & vocals
1st gen DAT from the soundboard
recorded, edited and remastered by RB in 2020
slightly edited, volume adjusted and retracked -- with beginning of show somewhat repaired and reconstructed -- by EN, February 2024
423 MB FLAC/direct link
I'll be right back on Sunday, with a big anniversary tribute to a recently fallen icon.
But before I did that, I wanted to utilize Leap Year to jump on this Ice-T anniversary special from The Golden Age of Hip-Hop, one of only three of 13,000 concerts I have that was recorded on February 29th!--J.