Latest / DISGRACELAND / Ice-T: Crip Rhymes, a Cop Killer, Thieving Jewels and Inventing Gangsta Rap

Transcript

Ice-T: Crip Rhymes, a Cop Killer, Thieving Jewels and Inventing Gangsta Rap · DISGRACELAND

0:01
Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
0:10
Speaker 1: Ice Tea are insane. He was orphaned at a young age,
0:15
Speaker 1: became a Crip street gang affiliate in high school, then
0:18
Speaker 1: a soldier in the US Army, where he learned the
0:20
Speaker 1: skills necessary to lead an LA based crew of jewel thieves.
0:25
Speaker 1: As an MC, he literally invented gangster rap, and as
0:28
Speaker 1: a hardcore front man, he earned the scorn of the
0:31
Speaker 1: President of the United States, and for the past twenty
0:34
Speaker 1: years he's been known as Fintitola to most Americans, Okay,
0:38
Speaker 1: most Americans two parents age on television's longest running action series,
0:42
Speaker 1: Law and Order Special Victims Unit. But back in the day,
0:46
Speaker 1: Ice Tea made great music. Unlike that music I played
0:50
Speaker 1: for you at the top of the show. That wasn't
0:52
Speaker 1: great music. That was a preset loop from my melotron
0:56
Speaker 1: called Streetwalkinhita MK two played you that loop because I
1:01
Speaker 1: can't afford the rights to be with you by mister
1:04
Speaker 1: Big And why would I play you that specific slice
1:08
Speaker 1: of soft rock shedd Cheese? Could I afford it? Because
1:11
Speaker 1: that was the number one song in America on March tenth,
1:15
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, and That was the day that iced
1:18
Speaker 1: Tea's band body Count released their self titled debut featuring
1:22
Speaker 1: the song cop Killer, a song that would bring down
1:25
Speaker 1: the wrath of the United States government onto the rapper
1:28
Speaker 1: turned rocker and nearly derail his career. On this episode,
1:34
Speaker 1: Crip rhymes Jewel, heis cop Killers. In the OG original
1:38
Speaker 1: Gangster iced T I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland.
2:10
Speaker 1: George H. W. Bush, the forty first President of the
2:13
Speaker 1: United States, was sitting in the Oval office, distracted and confused.
2:18
Speaker 1: Distracted by his reelection bid, which was being challenged by
2:22
Speaker 1: a surprisingly formative opponent, a Pudge's Southern Democratic governor from
2:26
Speaker 1: a state few voters could even find on the map
2:29
Speaker 1: and who would seemingly say anything to win. The tactic
2:33
Speaker 1: proved an effective defense to his own campaign operatives, who
2:36
Speaker 1: were fast becoming notorious for their willingness to do anything
2:40
Speaker 1: to win, and the President was confused by the topic music.
2:45
Speaker 1: His chief of staff, Samuel Skinner, was trying to explain
2:48
Speaker 1: it to him. He's a rapper, but he's a criminal,
2:53
Speaker 1: the President asked, we think so. I don't understand why
2:56
Speaker 1: are we even talking about this? Because he wants to
2:58
Speaker 1: kill cops. Then the president's man read in the lyrics,
3:02
Speaker 1: lyrics about sought off, twelve gages and cop killers. The
3:07
Speaker 1: presidents seemed shocked by the lyrics and by what he
3:10
Speaker 1: learned about the band, and in particular the singer's popularity.
3:14
Speaker 1: We can't have this, the President said, especially in a
3:17
Speaker 1: re election year. His chief of staff thought, what are
3:20
Speaker 1: we doing about it? The President wanted to know the
3:23
Speaker 1: insincerity of his concern when ignored by everyone in the room,
3:26
Speaker 1: and they were too smart to see it as anything
3:28
Speaker 1: but opportunistic. But nonetheless they knew its value. Necessary red
3:33
Speaker 1: meat to throw to the base, Cook up some family
3:36
Speaker 1: values drama, throw a little scare into suburban voters, and
3:39
Speaker 1: motivate them to get to the polls and unrock the vote.
3:44
Speaker 1: The president's chief of staff explained what had been authorized
3:47
Speaker 1: thus far, a four bureau check, the FBI, Secret Service, IRS,
3:52
Speaker 1: and NSA had all begun independent probes into the musician.
3:56
Speaker 1: His real name was Tracy Marrow, his stage name was
4:00
Speaker 1: ice T. The name further confused the president. His chief
4:04
Speaker 1: of staff explained that no, this was a different rapper
4:07
Speaker 1: than the one they had previously told him about. The
4:09
Speaker 1: one who said fuck the police, and the chief of
4:11
Speaker 1: staff ignored the President's confusion and focused on the opportunity.
4:16
Speaker 1: A four bureau check was no joke. It meant a
4:19
Speaker 1: substantial amount of the federal government's weight had been deployed
4:22
Speaker 1: to dig into ice Tea's background, all because of some
4:25
Speaker 1: lyrics he wrote. From the perspective of a character he
4:28
Speaker 1: created who was fighting back against police brutality, ice Tea
4:32
Speaker 1: had witnessed it firsthand, coming up in the streets of
4:35
Speaker 1: drug and crimester in south central Los Angeles, where the
4:38
Speaker 1: racist at the time LAPD ruled through a hard mix
4:42
Speaker 1: of violence and intimidation. So what do we know about him,
4:45
Speaker 1: the President asked, His chief of staff had good news.
4:48
Speaker 1: He's a thuck. He's committed numerous crimes, larceny, grand theft,
4:52
Speaker 1: auto pandering, possibly distribution of controlled substances, probably worse worse.
4:57
Speaker 1: The President wanted to know. Was he an agitator revolutionary?
5:01
Speaker 1: Was this a potential black panther mess like the one
5:03
Speaker 1: Nixon had to deal with? Nothing like that. The President
5:06
Speaker 1: was reassured. He was caught up in the gangs of
5:08
Speaker 1: south central Los Angeles, one of those gang bangers, not
5:12
Speaker 1: exactly He's what they call an affiliate. The President was
5:16
Speaker 1: losing patience. An affiliate, it was explained, wasn't quite a member,
5:20
Speaker 1: but he wasn't just some geek off the street either.
5:23
Speaker 1: He was, as the Italian mafioso put it, connected but
5:27
Speaker 1: not a mad man. Iced Tea from his days in
5:30
Speaker 1: high school, lived among and hung around with the notorious
5:33
Speaker 1: Cripps Street gang as he grew older. He didn't rep
5:36
Speaker 1: collars or kill on site rival gang members, the Bloods,
5:40
Speaker 1: who might mistakenly show up in crypt territory, but he
5:43
Speaker 1: did socialize and live with the protection of the Cryps.
5:46
Speaker 1: It was a subtle distinction, but an important one because
5:49
Speaker 1: in the context he was now being discussed, it meant
5:52
Speaker 1: he was unlikely to be an actual killer, as the
5:55
Speaker 1: lyrics to cop Killer from his hardcore band body Count suggested.
6:00
Speaker 1: But he's a criminal, the President asked again, Yes, that
6:03
Speaker 1: I have him arrested and let's move on. By this point,
6:06
Speaker 1: the President had lost most of his patients, and what
6:08
Speaker 1: little he had left was about to be completely drained
6:11
Speaker 1: by what his chief of staff told him next, we can't,
6:15
Speaker 1: and the President just stared. His anger was brimming after
6:19
Speaker 1: a be why not I thought you said we had
6:22
Speaker 1: him on larceny maybe worse. Well, not exactly. We're aware
6:26
Speaker 1: of the crimes he committed, but we don't have any
6:28
Speaker 1: real evidence. How exactly are you aware? Because he's admitted
6:33
Speaker 1: to the crimes on his records. The President was now
6:37
Speaker 1: utterly confused. Just who the hell is this guy? His
6:41
Speaker 1: chief of staff leaned back in his chair and started
6:44
Speaker 1: to tell the forty first president of the United States
6:47
Speaker 1: a story, A story about an original gangster. Six in
7:14
Speaker 1: the Morning, a b side to one of Ice T's
7:17
Speaker 1: earliest singles, could be heard everywhere on South central Los
7:21
Speaker 1: Angeles during the summer of nineteen eighty six. Those lyrics
7:25
Speaker 1: they were familiar to locals and completely alien to the
7:28
Speaker 1: white kids who made their way on weekends to the
7:30
Speaker 1: club called the Radio to hear the DJ spin it.
7:34
Speaker 1: To locals, the melody, the cadence, and the subject matter
7:38
Speaker 1: utterly real words depicting life on the streets as lived
7:41
Speaker 1: by gangsters and hustlers. It was just another crip rhyme,
7:45
Speaker 1: a type of rhyme crip gang members and affiliates would
7:48
Speaker 1: make up to pass the time. The only difference was
7:51
Speaker 1: six in the Morning was accompanied by music and wasn't
7:54
Speaker 1: just being spit out a cappella on the street corner
7:56
Speaker 1: or at a party. Young Tracy fucked with krip rhymes
8:01
Speaker 1: like these, just like other kids his age did back
8:03
Speaker 1: a Crenshaw High. His secret weapon, though, was his inspiration,
8:08
Speaker 1: Iceberg Slim, the former pimp who had turned author, selling
8:12
Speaker 1: barely fictionalized accounts of his life in the pimping game
8:15
Speaker 1: to a largely black audience. Iceberg Slim was real. He
8:19
Speaker 1: didn't mince shit. He told it like it was. Slim
8:22
Speaker 1: spoke to what life was like out there, with no
8:25
Speaker 1: snitching but absolute rottness in street knowledge. Tracy Marrow took
8:30
Speaker 1: the same approach, choosing not to boast about to make believe,
8:33
Speaker 1: but to instead rap about what was real. His friends
8:38
Speaker 1: loved it. Tracy was notoriously anti drugs and alcohol from
8:42
Speaker 1: an early age, so at parties when everyone else was
8:45
Speaker 1: getting wasted, Tracy would entertain himself and others with his
8:48
Speaker 1: Iceberg Slim inspired krip rhymes. His friends couldn't get enough.
8:53
Speaker 1: Yo Ki ta ice for Iceberg Slim, Tea for Tracy,
8:58
Speaker 1: and ice tea was and so too was quote unquote
9:03
Speaker 1: gangster rap, a term that wouldn't come to prominence for
9:06
Speaker 1: a couple of years, but make no doubt about it,
9:08
Speaker 1: Ice Tea had originated the form when he launched his
9:11
Speaker 1: recording career. Inspired by the flow of Philly rappers school
9:15
Speaker 1: we d who hinted at his crew's crimes in PSK,
9:18
Speaker 1: iced T took it a step further and explicitly documented
9:22
Speaker 1: the antics and crimes he and his crip affiliates were
9:24
Speaker 1: getting up to as teenagers and young adults banging, dealing, rhyming, stealing.
9:31
Speaker 1: As familiar as these rhymes were to locals, they were
9:34
Speaker 1: completely alien to the white kids who populated the radio
9:37
Speaker 1: every Friday night. Rhymes like these, this can't be overstated,
9:41
Speaker 1: were completely new at the time. There was a level
9:45
Speaker 1: of realness, of hardness, a hard reality that had never
9:48
Speaker 1: been heard in music before. Tracy Merrill aka iced T,
9:53
Speaker 1: self central resident cripp Street gang affiliate, had invented gangster
9:58
Speaker 1: rap just by being himself, rapping about what he knew,
10:01
Speaker 1: who he knew, and what he saw around him, the
10:04
Speaker 1: reality he took from the environment he lived in, an
10:07
Speaker 1: environment consumed by the crack epidemic of the nineteen eighties
10:10
Speaker 1: and overrun by violent gangsters who would just as soon
10:13
Speaker 1: cut you down with an AK forty seven, or who's
10:16
Speaker 1: he's some machine gun for walking down the wrong street
10:19
Speaker 1: wearing the wrong colored seekers as they would smile at
10:22
Speaker 1: you menacingly from the back seats of their chopped lowriders.
10:25
Speaker 1: Streets that were controlled by vicious, racist, abusive cops who
10:29
Speaker 1: batterle rammed first and asked questions later. In the mid
10:33
Speaker 1: to late eighties, south central Los Angeles, where iced Tea
10:36
Speaker 1: had grown up and lived, was nothing short of a
10:39
Speaker 1: war zone. An iced Tea was prepared for war. He'd
10:45
Speaker 1: done his time in the US Army. After getting his
10:48
Speaker 1: girlfriend pregnant. With a new daughter and zero career opportunities
10:52
Speaker 1: that didn't involve robbing, dealing, or banging, iced Tea joined
10:56
Speaker 1: up and the army changed him. First and foremost, it
11:00
Speaker 1: taught him how to strategize and how to lead men. Second,
11:03
Speaker 1: it humiliated him. A particularly cruel superior officer had it
11:08
Speaker 1: out for him and told him to know uncertain terms
11:10
Speaker 1: that the only reason he was in the army was
11:12
Speaker 1: because he was too much of a failure to make
11:14
Speaker 1: it on the outside to provide for his family. He
11:18
Speaker 1: was a little bitch who ran into the arms of
11:20
Speaker 1: uncle because he was too weak a sister to cut
11:22
Speaker 1: it out on the outside. This, more than anything in
11:26
Speaker 1: his life to this point, motivated him to succeed, to
11:30
Speaker 1: win on his terms, to do it his way. So
11:33
Speaker 1: when he got out, he turned to the one thing
11:36
Speaker 1: he felt naturally suited for crime, robbing jewels, furs, high
11:43
Speaker 1: end wares, but mainly jewels. Jobs he could put crews
11:47
Speaker 1: together to pull that didn't involve guns, smash and grab
11:50
Speaker 1: stuff no murder. Ice could lead his crew, calculate the risks,
11:54
Speaker 1: make his scores without leaving a trail of bodies, fence
11:57
Speaker 1: his goods support, his daughter, stacked a cash, buy that
12:01
Speaker 1: Porsche Peacock, those Iceberg slim threads, fly as a motherfucker,
12:05
Speaker 1: fuck that bee boy, Cankle, Iced Tea, Rockneman, Marcus Fendy,
12:08
Speaker 1: and any other high end designer garb he could get
12:11
Speaker 1: his hands on. From his smashing grabs, he was being
12:14
Speaker 1: his true self. He was beyond street, He was upwardly mobile.
12:18
Speaker 1: His crimes made him so. Iced Teas boys Vic and Shawnee.
12:25
Speaker 1: Sean had a spot in Inglewood, a stash house, minx,
12:28
Speaker 1: other furs, shoe boxes, hat boxes, racks of expensive suits
12:32
Speaker 1: and dresses, bags of jewels, and literally pounds of marijuana,
12:35
Speaker 1: tightly packaged in duct taped plastic lining the walls of
12:39
Speaker 1: the back rooms from Florida's ceiling. The dope was Vic
12:43
Speaker 1: and Shawnee Shan's. Ice didn't truck with drugs. His game
12:47
Speaker 1: was contraband to wit in the driveway under the car port,
12:51
Speaker 1: covered in a canvas tarp and stuffed with expensive furs
12:54
Speaker 1: a stolen ghost rider. They'd fenced the threads and ditched
12:58
Speaker 1: the whip. After the next jobs, getaway, Easy Come, Easy go,
13:03
Speaker 1: Ice was leaning over the dining room table, his arms outstretched,
13:07
Speaker 1: palms down on the upper corners of a large map
13:09
Speaker 1: of greater Los Angeles. They were going far out, this time,
13:13
Speaker 1: north northeast, almost to sand Bernardino County. They' hit too
13:18
Speaker 1: many spots near La and Ice could feel the heat coming.
13:21
Speaker 1: After this job, they'd need to expand further north, or
13:25
Speaker 1: perhaps further east, maybe as far as Arizona, to put
13:28
Speaker 1: in work. The getaway was possibly more important than the
13:33
Speaker 1: robbery itself. Ice learned in the army that once the
13:37
Speaker 1: job was done, there needed to be a clear exit strategy.
13:41
Speaker 1: No man left behind on the street. The exit strategy
13:45
Speaker 1: all but guaranteed success, and this was the element that
13:48
Speaker 1: Ice knew most fly by night street criminals never thought of.
13:52
Speaker 1: All they cared about was the smash and grab. But
13:55
Speaker 1: once they'd stolen what they'd come to steal, they were
13:58
Speaker 1: rendered vulnerable, without a real life escape plan, arrested and
14:02
Speaker 1: left pondering their laziness over a slow twenty five years
14:05
Speaker 1: in the pen Ice Tea was not lazy. He laid
14:09
Speaker 1: out the getaway plan first, then, working in reverse chronological order,
14:13
Speaker 1: explained the job, robbing all the diamonds, gold knots, and
14:17
Speaker 1: rolex as they could from the suburban Ball's high end
14:20
Speaker 1: jewelry store, delegating to his crew in the process, he
14:23
Speaker 1: laid it out for them. The clerk in these places
14:26
Speaker 1: was almost always a woman, and there was usually never
14:29
Speaker 1: anyone else in the store not working, not in the back,
14:32
Speaker 1: and did of course not enter the store if there
14:34
Speaker 1: were already customers milling about. This was before CCTV, before
14:39
Speaker 1: armed security guards. In high end merchandising shops. Usually the
14:43
Speaker 1: only security they had to deal with was mall security,
14:46
Speaker 1: and part of their plan was to hit their mark.
14:48
Speaker 1: When they knew the mall guard was in a totally
14:51
Speaker 1: separate part of the mall. Even if an alarmed trip,
14:54
Speaker 1: they would still have at least four minutes to grab
14:56
Speaker 1: as much merch as they could before any security would
14:59
Speaker 1: be anywhere remotely close to them. They entered as planned,
15:05
Speaker 1: with the security guard fucked off in search of a
15:08
Speaker 1: food court donut or something. ICE's accomplice, Tanya, got into
15:11
Speaker 1: a quick conversation with the woman behind the counter about
15:14
Speaker 1: one of the jewelry pieces. Nat the Cat, played a
15:17
Speaker 1: cool pretending to be Tanya's semi interested husband, not the
15:21
Speaker 1: cat's brother. Bebop. ICE's other accomplice was the second set
15:25
Speaker 1: of eyes. Ice was the first. Two sets of eyes
15:29
Speaker 1: were needed to kick off the plan, and there needed
15:31
Speaker 1: to be firm confirmation that there were indeed no cameras,
15:35
Speaker 1: no other store staff, no customers, and no donut eaters
15:38
Speaker 1: milling about outside. Ice was also the basher. The code
15:43
Speaker 1: was an affirmative answer from Bebop that it was quote
15:46
Speaker 1: unquote a bet. While Ice and Beebop browsed the jewelry
15:50
Speaker 1: in its cases and Tanya kept the shop worker behind
15:53
Speaker 1: the counter occupied, Ice would ask Bebop in code if
15:56
Speaker 1: the coast was clear, he would ask is it a bet?
16:00
Speaker 1: And if it was safe, Bebop would reply with okay, Holmes,
16:04
Speaker 1: it's a bed. And with that Ice he would whip
16:09
Speaker 1: the tiny sledgehammer from his pocket and smash the glass
16:12
Speaker 1: jewelry case open, and the two would begin looting as
16:14
Speaker 1: much hardware as they could. Usually the female shopkeeper, even
16:18
Speaker 1: without a gun trained on her, was scared in a paralysis,
16:21
Speaker 1: but as she split for the back room, or got
16:23
Speaker 1: cute and activated an alarm, or if the broken glass
16:26
Speaker 1: triggered an alarm, it didn't matter. They had time four
16:30
Speaker 1: minutes tops Ice would meticulously grab as many jewels and
16:34
Speaker 1: watches as he could while that the cat kept time
16:37
Speaker 1: on his watch, shouting out the amount of time left
16:40
Speaker 1: as the second sticked away, and usually with at least
16:43
Speaker 1: a minute despair, Ice and his crew were out of
16:46
Speaker 1: there on foot, through the back of the store, into
16:48
Speaker 1: the catacombs of the mall, out to the garage, into
16:51
Speaker 1: the jack ghost Rider with stolen plates, and off before
16:54
Speaker 1: security even made it to the scene of the crime.
16:57
Speaker 1: The cops weren't even part of the equation. Such was
16:59
Speaker 1: the beauty of the mall robbery. It worked because Iced
17:05
Speaker 1: tea put in the work planning strategy. It was who
17:09
Speaker 1: he was and when he wasn't robbing, he used planning
17:12
Speaker 1: rhymes in his head and stepping up to the mic
17:14
Speaker 1: to MC at the radio. And this post work ritual
17:18
Speaker 1: was a little different than his smash and grab post
17:21
Speaker 1: work ritual. There was no stash house and no stolen
17:24
Speaker 1: getaway car. Ice was in his Porsche nine fourteen, tiny car,
17:28
Speaker 1: butt tight and fast. Ice loved that car. He earned it,
17:33
Speaker 1: just as he earned the sleep he was looking forward
17:35
Speaker 1: to that night, but that morning rather, it was late.
17:38
Speaker 1: The gig that night was incredible and the radio was packed.
17:43
Speaker 1: Madonna showed up, Yes, that Madonna. She loved Ice as
17:47
Speaker 1: set as did the crowd. He was starting to really
17:50
Speaker 1: feel this rap game, but man running robberies and rhymes
17:54
Speaker 1: had him bone tired, especially on that night. He pulled
17:59
Speaker 1: up to the light at West Boulevard and Slawson let
18:02
Speaker 1: his eyes rest for a second. His foot slipped off
18:05
Speaker 1: of the brake, and before he even realized it. When
18:15
Speaker 1: he awoke, he didn't know where he was or who
18:18
Speaker 1: he was, and need did did anyone else. His wallet
18:21
Speaker 1: wasn't recovered from the crash, and the car was broadsided
18:25
Speaker 1: by a truck, flipped, rolled, its steering wheel broke off.
18:28
Speaker 1: The driver's side of the car was totally demolished, and
18:31
Speaker 1: the small Porsche was folded completely in half. A two
18:35
Speaker 1: door roadster turned accordion rag with the ambulance came the
18:39
Speaker 1: trailing LA newspaper reporter. He took one look at the wreck,
18:43
Speaker 1: and his experience told them he needn't check with cops
18:46
Speaker 1: on the scene. He knew the fate of the driver
18:48
Speaker 1: sitting lifeless, blood burbling from his mouth, crammed into the
18:52
Speaker 1: passenger side door from impact, and so he reported the
18:56
Speaker 1: wreck as he saw it with his own two eyes,
18:59
Speaker 1: as a fatal We'll be right back after this word
19:06
Speaker 1: word were. The only way to describe the voices is
19:17
Speaker 1: to say they sounded like ghosts, distant but with unmistakable
19:22
Speaker 1: presence cutting through the fog, accompanying the sounds of the
19:26
Speaker 1: gurney being wheeled over the linoleum floors, and the sound
19:29
Speaker 1: of the PA system summoning this doctor and that nurse
19:32
Speaker 1: to pick up this or that phone to report to
19:35
Speaker 1: this room or that one, and of course the sound
19:37
Speaker 1: of the bleeping vital signs monitor slowly but steadily chirping
19:42
Speaker 1: in the background, accenting the sound of Ice Tea's heartbeat,
19:47
Speaker 1: but the voices were ghostly, pained, damned, and angry about it.
19:54
Speaker 1: Iced Tea drifted in and out of semi consciousness in
19:56
Speaker 1: his La Countie hospital bed, and the more awake he became,
20:00
Speaker 1: the more scary things got. He didn't know where he
20:03
Speaker 1: was or what was happening. All he knew were the
20:06
Speaker 1: sounds flooding his consciousness. Together they orchestrated a mini horror
20:10
Speaker 1: show in his head, all the aforementioned hospital sounds mixed
20:14
Speaker 1: with random conversation from the spirits conducting this waking nightmare,
20:19
Speaker 1: talk of next of kin, colostomy bags DNR, and the
20:22
Speaker 1: unmistakable chill engulfing his chest, cold hard fear. Ice team
20:29
Speaker 1: worked to shut it all out because his injuries were
20:32
Speaker 1: so bad his limbs wouldn't heal correctly if they put
20:35
Speaker 1: casts on his body, so he lay in traction for
20:38
Speaker 1: ten weeks, and through the haze of two and a
20:41
Speaker 1: half months of pain meds, he dwelled upon the last
20:44
Speaker 1: big job he had pulled and why two of his
20:46
Speaker 1: homies were now doing time for something he did. Truck
20:52
Speaker 1: hijackings were dangerous. Unlike the docile women behind the counters
20:56
Speaker 1: at jewelry stores, dudes who drove trucks fancied themselves part
21:00
Speaker 1: time cowboys with their skull bandits and Clint Eastwood correspondence courses.
21:05
Speaker 1: You never knew what level of redneck or working class
21:07
Speaker 1: hero you were potentially running up against. Plus when you
21:11
Speaker 1: ran up on a truck driver, they had options depending
21:14
Speaker 1: on how you executed your jacking. They could run you down,
21:17
Speaker 1: back over you, draw down on you at their piece,
21:19
Speaker 1: which a good percentage of them carried, or they could
21:22
Speaker 1: just keep driving Later For you, lou, what were you
21:25
Speaker 1: gonna do? Give chase in your stolen car and blast
21:27
Speaker 1: off shots at the truck from your driver's side window,
21:30
Speaker 1: right there on the streets of Inglewood. But the risk
21:33
Speaker 1: was worth the reward. The sheer amount of merchandise on
21:36
Speaker 1: those trucks was worth far more than anything they could
21:39
Speaker 1: boost in a store, and trucks were moving so much
21:42
Speaker 1: swag from Lax through Inglewood into la that on a
21:45
Speaker 1: yearly basis, it was estimated that upwards of half a
21:48
Speaker 1: billion dollars was being jacked by street bandits like Ice
21:52
Speaker 1: and his boys. With the stash house Shawnee Sean and Vic.
21:57
Speaker 1: The truck approached the stop sign, Ice and someone from
22:00
Speaker 1: his crew were curved waiting opposite the truck on the
22:03
Speaker 1: other side of the intersection, knowing its route and timing
22:07
Speaker 1: out by the airport in the dead of night. As
22:09
Speaker 1: soon as the truck braked, they floored it straight across
22:12
Speaker 1: the intersection, head on toward the truck, slamming on their brakes.
22:16
Speaker 1: Nose to nose with the truck, they sprung from their car,
22:19
Speaker 1: guns drawn on the driver the entire time while jumping
22:22
Speaker 1: up to Meat and his cab, opening both the drivers
22:24
Speaker 1: and passenger side doors, pulling the driver out of the
22:27
Speaker 1: cab and dragging him back to the trailer to have
22:29
Speaker 1: him open the rear doors and gain entry to the
22:31
Speaker 1: merge at the back of the truck. Their accomplice that
22:35
Speaker 1: the cat was waiting in a second stolen car. They
22:38
Speaker 1: cleaned the truck out, filling every square inch of NAT's car,
22:41
Speaker 1: before tearing off into the night back to Vic and
22:43
Speaker 1: Shawnee Sean's stash house. The job was clean, guns but
22:50
Speaker 1: no shots, Just like Iced Tea liked it, Leaving bodies
22:55
Speaker 1: was nothing but trouble. Real heat in real time. An
22:58
Speaker 1: Ice couldn't afford that kind of charge. It was a
23:01
Speaker 1: good thing he was so disciplined, because shortly after the
23:04
Speaker 1: truck job, someone tipped off the LAPD who raided Vic
23:08
Speaker 1: in Shawnye Sean's stash house. Ice Tea wasn't there at
23:12
Speaker 1: the time, but all the contraband was, and so was
23:15
Speaker 1: the stolen car and Sean's pounds of weed. LAPD wanted
23:20
Speaker 1: to know who Sean did the hijacking with no one.
23:22
Speaker 1: He told them, bullshit. They knew he couldn't have done
23:26
Speaker 1: the work all by himself. They reminded him of the
23:28
Speaker 1: stiff sentence he'd received twenty five years for the truck job,
23:32
Speaker 1: and the car was grand theft auto, not to mention
23:35
Speaker 1: the weed distribution. Fuck it, Shawnee. Sean told them, yeah, man,
23:40
Speaker 1: whatever the shit's in my house, give me whatever you got, Shawnny.
23:44
Speaker 1: Sean took the weight himself. Vic took the weight too.
23:48
Speaker 1: Ice Tea would never forget it. They would never forget
23:51
Speaker 1: how lucky he was to not only survive the bus
23:54
Speaker 1: and a potential long prison sentence, but to also survive
23:57
Speaker 1: the car crash. His body was ravaged, broken pelvis, broken ribs,
24:02
Speaker 1: broken fever, the rest of his body smashed, bashed, cashed.
24:06
Speaker 1: The recuperation was long and arduous, and gave him time
24:09
Speaker 1: to think. He was too smart to ignore the fact
24:12
Speaker 1: that his luck would eventually run out, so he gave
24:16
Speaker 1: up the hustle. Crime pays, but at what costs, So
24:21
Speaker 1: no more crime. From now on, the rhymes would have
24:24
Speaker 1: to pay. His years slinging crip rhymes in the underground
24:30
Speaker 1: scene already had him well connected. Hot off the success
24:33
Speaker 1: of the sixth in the Morning single, I signed his
24:36
Speaker 1: first major label deal with Sire Records, a Warner Brothers subsidiary.
24:40
Speaker 1: His debut album from nineteen eighty seven, Rhyme Pays, went gold.
24:45
Speaker 1: His second album, Power went platinum. At the time, Iced
24:49
Speaker 1: Tea was the only gangster rapper in the game, and
24:52
Speaker 1: it made his rhymes fresh. While other rappers were still
24:55
Speaker 1: hiding their street roots to appeal to the mainstream. Iced
24:58
Speaker 1: Tea continued to take his cues from Iceberg Slim and
25:01
Speaker 1: rapped only the real shit, and it worked. By the
25:05
Speaker 1: early nineteen nineties, Iced Tea was recording the theme song
25:07
Speaker 1: to Dennis Hopper's film Colors about dangs in La and
25:11
Speaker 1: he was touring Lollapalooza, doing a half hip hop set
25:14
Speaker 1: and then bringing out body Count for the second half,
25:17
Speaker 1: exposing himself to a whole new audience. I'm listening to
25:21
Speaker 1: exactly what you wouldn't think Ice Tea would be listening
25:24
Speaker 1: to now, he told MTV News and a teaser before
25:26
Speaker 1: his set, and rattled off West Coast hardcore bands like
25:29
Speaker 1: Black Flag and Suicidal Tendencies. In other interviews, he would
25:34
Speaker 1: name check Slayer in Black Sabbath, and The new band
25:37
Speaker 1: also featured Shawnnie Seawan and Vick now known as beat
25:39
Speaker 1: Master V, both fresh from doing two years taking the
25:43
Speaker 1: rap for Ice. But the realist shit of all was
25:46
Speaker 1: cop Killer, which closed the four song body Count set
25:50
Speaker 1: every afternoon and whipped suburban teens into an anarchic frenzy
25:54
Speaker 1: that nobody else on the first Lollapalooza bill could match
25:57
Speaker 1: Rollin's band No. Nine in not even close, butthole Surfers maybe,
26:03
Speaker 1: but they went on too early Living Color. Okay, they
26:06
Speaker 1: came close. The controversy over the song exploded into the
26:09
Speaker 1: mainstream the next year, when cop Killer was featured as
26:12
Speaker 1: the final song on body Count's self titled debut it
26:16
Speaker 1: caught the attention of the highest office in the land,
26:19
Speaker 1: the President of the United States, who unleashed the National
26:22
Speaker 1: Security State on Iced Tea to dig up dirt on
26:25
Speaker 1: him and send him to jail. The surveillance had its effect.
26:29
Speaker 1: Ice was on edge. He always had the feeling of
26:32
Speaker 1: seeing an ice cream truck parked outside his house in
26:35
Speaker 1: the dead of winter, of something being off. G men
26:38
Speaker 1: had even questioned his daughter at her school to find
26:41
Speaker 1: out if her dad, Iced Tea was in any extremist groups.
26:44
Speaker 1: On top of all the heat from the government, the
26:47
Speaker 1: fire storm over cop Killer was impacting Warner Brothers bottom line,
26:51
Speaker 1: and the future of his record deal was in doubt.
26:54
Speaker 1: His next record was in the can, but its release
26:57
Speaker 1: had already been delayed. All the pressure, all the attention
27:01
Speaker 1: that had Iced Tea wound up. His history on the
27:04
Speaker 1: streets had informed his music and launched him into the stratosphere,
27:08
Speaker 1: but now it dogged him. No matter how successful his artistry.
27:12
Speaker 1: The street was calling out his name, welcoming him home,
27:15
Speaker 1: and with the slightest push, Iced Tea was ready to snap.
27:39
Speaker 1: Ice Tea was pissed at the edge of the stage,
27:42
Speaker 1: looking out at the massive Italian crowd that had assembled
27:45
Speaker 1: the Sea body count. They were showing their appreciation for
27:48
Speaker 1: the band with the long standing European punk rock tradition
27:51
Speaker 1: of spitting on them. Ice Tea was not having it.
27:56
Speaker 1: This wasn't the late seventies, this was the nineties. Shit
27:58
Speaker 1: had changed. Man, who knew what kinds of disease these
28:01
Speaker 1: Italian kids were sending body counts away. Ice clocked the
28:06
Speaker 1: main culprit front row, black T shirt, long, greasy black hair.
28:11
Speaker 1: He looked more like an aimless Italian street kid than
28:13
Speaker 1: an actual fan. Ice told the crowd the chill with
28:16
Speaker 1: the spitting. They didn't mainly this kid didn't. Ice positioned
28:21
Speaker 1: himself right at the front of the stage, right in
28:23
Speaker 1: front of the kid, the main offender. Ice gave the
28:25
Speaker 1: crowd the kid basically one more chance to stop spitting,
28:29
Speaker 1: telling them that that ship wasn't cool and they could
28:31
Speaker 1: do whatever the fuck they wanted, but the spitting had
28:33
Speaker 1: to stop. Most did, but again the kid did not.
28:37
Speaker 1: As the frontman, Iced Tea told the crowd to put
28:40
Speaker 1: their hands in the air, and when they did, the
28:42
Speaker 1: kid included Iced Tea hauled off and cocked him with
28:45
Speaker 1: his fist right in the grill immediately Iced Tea screamed
28:50
Speaker 1: cop killer right into the mic, and the band kicked
28:53
Speaker 1: into the song behind him. The crowd erupted, and the
28:58
Speaker 1: kid who Ice punched his friends warmed iced Tea and
29:01
Speaker 1: began hurling off punches of their own. Ice grabbed his
29:04
Speaker 1: mic stand a straight stand. This was no boom. This
29:07
Speaker 1: was a weapon with its dome shaped metal base. Ice
29:10
Speaker 1: swung it without mercy, flailing around and clearing away back
29:13
Speaker 1: onto the stage, away from what was now turning from
29:16
Speaker 1: an audience into a mob, while the band raged behind him.
29:20
Speaker 1: The crowd started chanting in English, We're going to kill you,
29:23
Speaker 1: We're going to kill you, and the chance grew louder
29:26
Speaker 1: Hooligan soccer stadium loud. The band instinctively dropped their instruments
29:30
Speaker 1: and sprinted off of the stage, and the chance only increased.
29:33
Speaker 1: From backstage, it sounded like the roar the gladiator's colosseum.
29:39
Speaker 1: Iced Tea's instincts quickly kicked in and exit strategy was
29:43
Speaker 1: imminently needed. It was all the matter. If they didn't
29:45
Speaker 1: break out soon, they'd be consumed by the mob and
29:48
Speaker 1: torn limb from limb for turning on their fans. And
29:50
Speaker 1: their tour bus wasn't an option. Outside the Colisseum, the
29:54
Speaker 1: mob already had it surrounded. Iced Tea had the promoter
29:58
Speaker 1: quickly summoned six calves. He then made it to the
30:01
Speaker 1: exit door through the cavernous venue's catacombs. He peeked out
30:04
Speaker 1: the door and the mob was waiting. They'd struck up
30:07
Speaker 1: a massive bonfire in the parking lot ship up beyond
30:10
Speaker 1: Thunderdome real fast. Ice could see the cabs entering through
30:15
Speaker 1: the gate approaching. He pulled his hoodie up over his head,
30:18
Speaker 1: lowered his gaze, and fast walked out the door ahead
30:21
Speaker 1: of his bandmates and crew toward the cabs, and for
30:24
Speaker 1: a minute they went unnoticed. Then, as he was walking,
30:27
Speaker 1: he could see members of the mob noticing his entourage,
30:30
Speaker 1: and they slowly started closing in, approaching him and his
30:33
Speaker 1: band and crew, putting themselves between them and the cabs.
30:36
Speaker 1: Ice lowered his shoulders and did his best Emmitt smith
30:39
Speaker 1: sprinting straight into the crowd, pummeling members of the mob
30:42
Speaker 1: unexpectedly with the force of his rushing body. He his guitarist,
30:46
Speaker 1: urdye See, and the promoter made it through to one
30:48
Speaker 1: of the cabs and dove into the back seat. The
30:50
Speaker 1: driver was shell shocked, paralyzed by fear, and the mobs
30:54
Speaker 1: surrounded the cab and began pounding on the windows, rocking
30:57
Speaker 1: it back and forth. Iced Tea cuffed the dry in
31:00
Speaker 1: the back of the head to snap him out of it.
31:02
Speaker 1: Drive motherfucker, and the driver did no such thing. He
31:06
Speaker 1: popped open his door, rammed his shoulder into it, and
31:08
Speaker 1: pushed his way out of the car to escape.
31:11
Speaker 2: Ice hopped over the seat under the front, took the
31:13
Speaker 2: wheel and began pushing the car into and through the crowd,
31:16
Speaker 2: bodies banging onto the cab, bouncing off of its body. Finally,
31:20
Speaker 2: they made it through and out of the area of
31:22
Speaker 2: the venue, into the streets of Milan, and back toward
31:24
Speaker 2: their hotel.
31:27
Speaker 1: They'd escaped. They were now on the hook for not
31:29
Speaker 1: only assault, but also a grand theft auto. Smartly, Ice
31:34
Speaker 1: had the promoter drive the cab straight back to the
31:37
Speaker 1: venue to return it to its driver. Ice Tea cooled
31:41
Speaker 1: as jets at his hotel. Before we knew it, morning
31:44
Speaker 1: had come and he was being ushered to the train
31:47
Speaker 1: station en route to a radio station in Rome for
31:49
Speaker 1: a previously scheduled interview with the country's number one rock DJ.
31:54
Speaker 1: The news of the melee last night's body Count concert
31:57
Speaker 1: in Milan was everywhere that morning, especially on the airways.
32:01
Speaker 1: The Italians were pissed, and while walking into the studio
32:04
Speaker 1: to do the interview, ice T felt like he was
32:07
Speaker 1: walking in front of a firing squad.
32:11
Speaker 3: He Laura in so you can Know Charlie for Americano
32:14
Speaker 3: iced tea Cantata. The group ROCs called body can Undo
32:22
Speaker 3: a quanto mare Matsarah last and in Territo as soon
32:31
Speaker 3: as a.
32:33
Speaker 1: God Killer before Maxa Polizio.
32:38
Speaker 3: Regi and Bastard Maziano an invaso mazzar I see a
32:44
Speaker 3: sb so miraculos Aveny require Room introduced the exclusiva Presentaday
32:51
Speaker 3: five Sienora signor Ladies and gentlemen on the level Americano
32:57
Speaker 3: nong ki cantata de body count I.
33:01
Speaker 1: Despite the anger in the DJ's voice, iced Ta took
33:04
Speaker 1: to him straight on, looked him in the eye, shook
33:07
Speaker 1: his hand, sat down at the mic, and he immediately
33:10
Speaker 1: on air began recounting his side of the story that
33:13
Speaker 1: he had given the audience a chance to stop spitting,
33:16
Speaker 1: that it was one dude who wouldn't stop that he
33:18
Speaker 1: and his van couldn't stand there and take it. But
33:21
Speaker 1: the dude didn't listen, and what did they expect him
33:23
Speaker 1: to do? Stand there and continue to get spit on?
33:26
Speaker 1: The DJ got it it immediately directed his ire and
33:29
Speaker 1: his countryman loop Na, what did you expect Icey to do?
33:34
Speaker 1: This is why we love him.
33:35
Speaker 3: He's a gangster and if you disrespect him, yeah, he
33:38
Speaker 3: will punch you in your stupid face.
33:41
Speaker 1: The DJ's interpretation of what had gone down turned public
33:44
Speaker 1: sentiment almost immediately, and body Count were permitted to continue
33:48
Speaker 1: their tour of Italy. Iced Ta had stayed true to himself,
33:56
Speaker 1: to who he was, to his origins as a gangster.
33:59
Speaker 1: It served him well in the past. It kept them
34:01
Speaker 1: alive at Crenshaw High with the crips, got them through
34:04
Speaker 1: the Army, allowed him to maneuver his way through early
34:06
Speaker 1: adulthood as a hustler who knew exactly when to give
34:09
Speaker 1: up the game before the game gave him a twenty
34:12
Speaker 1: five year sentence, and those gangster origins gave him the
34:15
Speaker 1: inspiration necessary to launch not only his rap career, but
34:19
Speaker 1: an entire new genre that he invented, gangster rapp. But
34:23
Speaker 1: when the time came for iced T to deal with
34:26
Speaker 1: the mess Cop Killer had made for him. Again, he
34:29
Speaker 1: relied on his gangster instincts. The controversy over a song
34:33
Speaker 1: depicting the murder of police officers by a fictional character,
34:37
Speaker 1: something that had been done over and over again in
34:39
Speaker 1: television and film for years, by the way, was deemed
34:42
Speaker 1: so offensive coming from the mouth of a black musician
34:45
Speaker 1: that the President of the United States of America had
34:48
Speaker 1: weighed in. Multiple federal agencies were investigating him, and Warner
34:52
Speaker 1: Brothers Records, the label that released body Count's music cop
34:56
Speaker 1: Killer included, was under so much scrutiny that their company
35:00
Speaker 1: stock was literally dropping. Iced T knew what to do
35:05
Speaker 1: when the heat got too hot for the OG. The
35:07
Speaker 1: OG didn't stick around to get burned. And if the
35:10
Speaker 1: OG didn't have a clear exit strategy and wound up
35:13
Speaker 1: getting popped, then the OG made like Shawni Shan when
35:17
Speaker 1: he caught the charge at his stash house. What the
35:19
Speaker 1: OG didn't do was bring down his partners with him.
35:23
Speaker 1: So when it came to cop Killer, that's what iced
35:26
Speaker 1: T did. He took the weight himself. He wasn't going
35:29
Speaker 1: to dig in on some sensored artist's crusade and sink
35:32
Speaker 1: the whole ship and the process destroying his future earning
35:35
Speaker 1: potential because without rhymes, iced T's only real skill to
35:40
Speaker 1: that point anyway, was crime, and he wasn't going back
35:43
Speaker 1: to that. So he did the smart thing. He bore
35:46
Speaker 1: the brunt of cop killer and let his partners at
35:48
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers off the hook by agreeing to take the
35:51
Speaker 1: song off body Count's album and issuing it as a
35:54
Speaker 1: free single to his fans instead. Some in the media
35:58
Speaker 1: charged ice with being a cellout to giving into censorship,
36:01
Speaker 1: but real OG's knew the score. Public enemies Chuck d
36:05
Speaker 1: came to iced T's defense and said, if you ain't
36:07
Speaker 1: in the battles, you shouldn't comment on the war. Iced
36:13
Speaker 1: Tea knew about war, a certain type of war anyway.
36:16
Speaker 1: He was a soldier and then a criminal, the original
36:19
Speaker 1: gangster who stayed Og to the end, using those gangster
36:23
Speaker 1: instincts to navigate through what could otherwise have been certain disgrace.
36:31
Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created
36:54
Speaker 1: by Yours Truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis.
36:57
Speaker 1: Credits for this episode can be found on the show
37:00
Speaker 1: notes page at disgracelampod dot com. If you're listening as
37:03
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37:07
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37:15
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37:43
Speaker 1: Rock a Roller, He's the man.