LIFEDEATHGUNSMONEYICE
90
Y.
ou're
not going to win
trying to beat the
system, you have to
learn how to pimp
the system.
What is the Syndicate?
The Syndicate isn't a record label, it's a
group of friends. It's a way of us all pulling
together. We may be on different labels, but
we're all friends and we're all trying to get
to the same place, so there's no sense in us
competing. If I can get on a record and say
"Boom blam, yo, my man Alladin, that's
cool. A year ago I was the only person mak
ing records. This year we'll drop nine albums:
Low Profile, Breeze, King T, Ice T. Donald D.
Divine Styler, HiJack, Trouble and Everlast
Nine groups who at one point are directly
connected to us. It'll work. And if any of us
get some hit albums then we can tour inde-
pendently without having to use New York
acts. All you need is a couple gold records
and you can take groups that aren't going
gold and get them the exposure they need.
Caz here is on Tough City. He's one of the
original rappers of all time-Grand Master
Caz and the Cold Crush Brothers. Damn
near invented the art of rap. That was four-
teen years ago. Then you got a lot of other
groups that are down. I'm not really a leader.
I just thought of it, so I'm like the founder.
But everyone has their own group and their
own posse. Alladin's got the Compton Posse
and they're doing their own thing, but they're
down with us. Just like you can have skate-
board posses, different cliques, but they're
all united. That way we have the ability to
pounce on anybody who tries to cross us.
If somebody disses me, we can release thirty
records on them. It's gang shit, but with
records. It's a similar philosophy, only it's a
positive thing. If we show enough people roll-
ing with us doing this, then you'll see.
brothers in gangs going 'Yeah. I wanna be
with that instead
Tell me about your beginnings, as a rap
per and as a person.
I was born a twenty-five-year-old ex-
convict. No. Actually, I was born in Newark,
New Jersey, moved to Los Angeles, Califor-
nia, got bussed to a middle-class all-white
high school in Culver City, decided I wanted
to forget the bus and just walk across the
street to Crenshaw High. I started rolling in
the gangs that were running Crenshaw High,
gang banged for four years, got out of high
school and transferred from being a gang
banger to being a player, a hustler-down
on the bus shooting dice, stealing car
stereos. Then I had a kid, jumped out of that,
went into the Army for four years, came back
on the scene and my buddies who I had been
stealing car stereos with were now driving
sports cars. I jumped in the fast lane and was
falling out of control..
I picked up rapping from rapping on the
street. Then I started going to this club called
the Radio. I'd steal during the week and hit
the Radio on the weekends. They were fly-
ing in real rappers from New York, true art
ists like the Cold Crush Brothers, Africa
Islam, Afrika Bambaataa, Soulsonic Force
I was like, 'Well, I'm a rapper from L.A. In-
stead of discouraging me, they told me, 'Stay
with this, Ice, because rap is going to be big.
I dropped a record in 1982 called The Col-
dest Rap, the first rap record out of the West
Coast. Well, there was one other record out
called Disco Daddy and Captain Rap, but we
won't even call that a rap. Then one night the
people making that movie Breakin walked in.
They said. 'Yo, we're going to make a movie
and we want you to be the rapper' I'm like,
"Man, I don't want to be in no movie. You're
buggin.' I wasn't too excited, but my posse
was like, "Yo, you better go for this Ice. You
got a chance. After the movie I hooked up
with Evil E and the Spinmasters. It was five
years between then and when I made Rhyme
Pays for Profile. I just wanted to sell fifty thou-
sand records and it sold about four hundred
thou. So, boom bam, here we are.
People ask how I got out of the crime thing.
It started when I went into the movie thing.
As I stayed on the other side of the line, my
boys were going to jail. In those five years,
all of them went to prison. Two of them died,
two of them got life without the possibility of
parole. That's motivation. As I thought about
it, I realized that maybe they wanted me to
make it. Your homeboys will tell you to do the
right thing because if you can get in good,
maybe you can give them a chance to get
in too. They don't think they can get in alone,
the way the establishment is.
How is the establishment?
The establishment is fucked up, the world
is fucked up, but you have to live in it. There's
nothing else you can do. You have to under-
stand the way the system is set up and deal
with it. You're not going to win trying to beat
the system, you have to learn how to pimp
the system. Those people who stand too
sturdy and do not flex will break.
Do you have to act within the system?
To an extent. You can try to change it, but
you're not going to beat it. Take a guy who's
racist...I don't like anybody white. I won't
work for anyone who's white. I won't eat with
white people. Pretty soon he's stuck in a lit-
tle corner. You can't be like that. You have
to mold. When I started making records I
went through a thing called musical prostitu-
tion. I had to make records that I didn't like
to get to the position I'm at now, where I can
make any kind of record I want. You have to
be willing to do that. I don't mean sell out-
as long as you have your eyes on the prize
and you know what you want. it's cool. I
mean, you might want to own your own
magazine, but now you do this. That's part
of it. Some people don't know about that.
Living within the establishment, you have
to realize that they'll kill you. We can come
in here and shoot guns all day, but we don't
want to go head-up with them. We're not
ready for that. But you got these kids on the
streets saying. "Yeah, we tough, we can take
'em out. In reality you can't. You can be gang
bangers, go out and shoot in the street and
kill each other, but in the end you lose. If one
kid shoots another kid, it's like Christmas to
some cops out there. 'Ooh, there's one kid
dead and another one we get to shoot at.
Yeah! They don't care why it happened. Like
I say in "Hunted Child," "I fell into the trap.
I'm a sucker because I fell into their plan.
What does the future hold in store for the
world?
'Armageddon's been in effect, go get a late
pass. I mean, it's coming, man. Right now,
for all we know. Gorbachev and them are at
each other's throats. They might have just
pushed the button. We don't really have
Since Rhyme Pays, his
first Lp, exploded nation-
ally in 1987, Ice-T has
been steamrolling straight
to the top of the rap heap.
His poems of power, poli-
tics and pure pimpness rest
on a simple, rock-solid
groove and the hardcore
cuts of DJ Evil-E. After
three years of success, Ice
can now be considered a
bona fide celebrity (his
latest album, The Iceberg
continues to ascend the
rap charts as he tours the
world supporting it), but
he displays none of the
plastic attitude and thinly
veiled self-importance so
among the
"'famous." He is a sincere,
charismatic man who will
look you in the eye, respect
you as an equal and tell
you exactly how he feels,
whether you like it or not.
I hooked up with Ice and
his homeys one foggy L.A.
evening and we caravan-
ed out to the Beverly Hills
Gun Club to shoot pistols
and kick knowledge. Read
it and think about it.
-MCM
common