Releasing his first track, "The Coldest Rapper," in 1983, Ice-T became Los Angeles's first rap artist. He has since become one of America's most outspoken rappers, boasting a violent past in which he claims to have been shot twice. Indeed, his name was inspired by former pimp and best-selling author Iceberg Slim. Ice-T recalled in his book The Ice-T Opinion, "He would talk in rhyme—hustler-like stuff—and I would memorize lines. People in school would always ask me to recite them." Ice-T's experiences as a gang member provided the material for four albums in three years. Although the first rapper to have warning stickers placed on his album sleeves, Ice-T emerged as a voice for dispossessed black youth. He went on to become an institution on the West Coast, running his own record company, Rhythm Syndicate.

Ice-T

Ice-T was born Tracy Marrow in Newark, New Jersey...