- Ice-T Bio - September 14, 2022
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Ice-T is one of my favorite rappers and has had a lot of influence on the gangster rap scene. Some people know him for his role in the “Law & Order” TV series. I used to watch the previously mentioned TV series, but that is not the reason why I love Ice-T so much.
The craziest rap song I have ever heard was from this artist. I still remember hearing Body Count’s Cop Killer for the first time.
That song turned him into one of the most notorious figures in America. I believe “Cop Killer” was one of that decade’s most talked about songs. The whole Body Count album was designed to scare you to death.
I remember opening the album for the first time and immediately saw guns pointing at me. There isn’t even a need to listen to the whole song.
But instead, just listen to the introduction where Ice-t has a message to send to the cops.
Ice-T Quick Facts
| Full Name | Tracy Lauren Marrow |
| Birth Date | February 16, 1958 |
| Birth Place | Newark, New Jersey, United States |
| Nick Name | Ice-T |
| Nationality | American |
| Zodiac Sign | Aquarius |
| Siblings | / |
| Children | Tracy Marrow Jr, Letesha Marrow, and Chanel Nicole Marrow |
| Partner/Spouse | Coco Austin |
| Most Successful Songs/Albums | “Cop Killer” |
| Earnings | $6 million per season of “Law & Order” |
| Net Worth | $65 million |
| Social Media | IG: @icet, TW: @FINALLEVEL |
| Awards | The Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group, NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in Drama Series |
| Last Updated | 8/1/2022 |
Ice-T Birthplace
Ice’s parents are Alice and Solomon Marrow. He was born on February 16, 1958, in Newark, New Jersey.
His father was an African-American, and his mother was originally from Louisiana. Ice and his family moved to upscale Summit, New Jersey as a child.
New Jersey had some terrible neighborhoods, and racism was still heavily present. When Ice was only seven, he became aware of the ongoing racism. In addition, he had some white friends who were racist, and that started to bother him heavily.
However, his white friends thought he was not black but white due to his lighter skin, which is why they were never racist toward him.
His mother always tried to explain to him how these sorts of people are stupid and that he needs to control his temper and not let others affect his mood.
Ice-T Parents
Ice’s parents are Solomon Morrow and Alice Marrow. Solomon Morrow is African-American, and Alice Morrow is originally from a Louisiana Creole background.
His father worked as a conveyor belt mechanic for decades. In addition, he worked at the Rapistan Conveyor Company. When Ice was in third grade, his mother died from a heart attack. After this tragedy, he was left to live with his father and a housekeeper for four years.
Unfortunately for Ice, his father died from a heart attack when he was only thirteen. Ice got introduced to the crime world when his father bought him a bicycle which got stolen.
After both his parents had died, he started living with his aunt.
Ice-T Early Life
Ice had a very rough time growing up because his parents died from an unfortunate heart attack.
After both of his parents died, he briefly lived with his aunt. He noticed the presence of racism during his childhood, and he couldn’t understand why his white friends didn’t like blacks.
Once, his mother tried to explain to him how people are stupid, have wrong ideals, and are possessed by evil ideas.
Ice was lucky that he didn’t receive the same racist treatment when he was little, but that was only because his friends thought he was white because of his lighter skin.
During the days in the aunt’s house, Ice spent most of the time with his cousin Earl who was preparing to leave for college.
His cousin was a rock music fan, and that was when Ice’s interest got sparked in heavy metal music.
Ice-T Professional Career
Ice-T’s professional career can be viewed through different lenses. The best way to explain his career path is to split it into two sections. The first section is about his rap career, and the second is about his acting career.
Rap Career
The story of Ice’s rap career began after he returned from the United States Army. That was around the 1980s, and he returned to Los Angeles. For a brief time, he was a self-styled hustler and participated in different criminal activities.
At the time, he was making a lot of money, but everything started to collapse when his friend told him that he should leave a crime path and pursue a rap career. Because he was very close to his friend, he decided to listen to his advice and begin his career in rapping.
The inspiration for his name was from Robert Maupin Beck III, whose pen name is “Iceberg Slim. He spent a few years crafting and creating music for different videos and even released various records. Ice officially signed with Sire Records in 1987.
He would release Rhyme Pays later that year which was very successful. Another success was his recording of the theme song for Dennis Hooper’s movie “Colors.” The movie was controversial, and the Black community decided to push back against it. Ice released two more albums in the late 1980s.
This confirmed his status as one of the West Coast rap’s upcoming stars. Initially, he was one of the people who developed gangster rap. His album O.G. Original gangster, released in 1991, was an inspiration for the gangster rap genre.
Also, he collaborated with a heavy metal band, Body Count, and worked to release a self-titled debut album. This was the birth of “Cop Killer,” my favorite and one of the most controversial rap songs ever. Ice was initially condemned for rapping about the violence done to the cops.
He defended his song by saying that all was about commentary on police brutality and racism. However, the drama went even further when Time Warner decided to block his upcoming release, Home Invasion. Ice eventually broke with Sire/Warner Bros.
Records and released his work of the 1990s as a reminder. In the following years, he would rise further in fame and collaborate with heavy metal bands like Slayer and Black Sabbath.
Acting Career
Ice was already creating the path for his acting career parallel to his music career. He found a couple of roles in movies such as Ricochet(1991), New Jack City(1991), Johny Mnemonic(1995), and Trespass(1992).
He even began his own reality show on VH1 called Ince-T’s Rap School. However, his most enormous acting sucess was the role he played, and is still playing on the long-lasting televison show called “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.”
His most recent work was in a reality show called The Peacemaker: L.A. Gang Wars. The show is about the life of Mal Spellman, a gang mediator.
His character and himself are committed to solving the problem of never-ending violence in the place he grew up. Ice even said he would be dead or in jail if he hadn’t pursued his music career.
Ice-T Video
Ice-T Family
Ice-T is a family man, or at least he describes himself like that. He married his wife Coco Austin in 2005, but it was more than a decade before they welcomed their first child. Ice has three children, Chanel Nicole Marrow, Tracy Marrow Jr, and Letesha Marrow.
His youngest girl Chanel was born in 2015, and she looks the same as him. he even says in one of his interviews that they act the same. All his kids are used to his fame, and when Ice got a role in “Pour Your Heart Into It,” a Cheerios workout series, his daughter Chanel was mildly unimpressed.
Even though she eats that same cereal daily, she is unaware of how incredible her father is in that same box. Now, it is a different story with his son, Tracy Marrow Jr. Tracy is a professional and as versatile as they come.
He is a musician, record producer, and actor. He decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and is just doing fine. Tracy began his career by joining his father’s Body Count band in 2017. back then, he was a backup vocalist and released singles from Bloodlust(album). He is also known to work closely with his father on different projects such as songs All Love Is Lost, Bum-Rush, and The Ski Mask Way. Tracy published an album named Carnivore in 2020, and the album had decent success.
On the other hand, Letisha is a TV personality and is mainly known as Ice-T’s daughter, unlike Tracy, who built the name for himself and has independent success. Latesha is the oldest child, and she began taking singing lessons when she was only five.
She started her own reality TV show, mainly about her father’s life. Her favorite artists are Eminem and Snoop Dogg since she grew up listening to them.
Latesha also enjoys reading in their free time, and some of her favorite books are “The Notebook” and “A Walk to Remember.” Now a little about Coco and Ice. They got married in 2005 even though there are more than 20 years of difference between them. Ice claims the first thing he noticed about his wife when he met her for the first time was her teeth.
They are a perfect couple, totally different from the rest of the famous couples since their life contains very little drama. They starred together in two TV shows, Ice Loves Coco and Ice & Coco. The name of the show says pretty much everything about their relationship.
Ice-T Dating and Relationship History
Ice-T had three significant relationships in total. From 1984-1999 he was with Darlene Ortiz, and from 1999-2000 with Karrine Steffans. However, he decided to settle in 2001 when he married his present wife, Coco Austin.
Ice-T and Darlene Ortiz(1984-1999)
Let’s face it. Everybody knows how much Ice-T loves Coco. But, who knows that he had an intimate relationship before and kids too. Ice was already a father of two before he met Coco. He shares two kids grown-ups with Darlene, “The Syndicate Queen” Ortiz. Darlene initially got famous only because she was with Ice.
Also, they met when she was only 17 years old. He was still not that famous at the time or didn’t achieve the success that would come later in his life. The moment she began to get recognized was when she posed for the controversial cover of her beau’s Power Album from 1988. In addition, it made her the first Hip Hop vixen.
They met in 1985 for the first time when Ice was budding at the Los Angeles club Radiotron. He was the MC of the house and immediately got attracted to Darlene when he saw her at the same time. Initially, he told her he wanted her to be on his album. So yes, that was his pick-up lane.
Two years later, he featured her on the cover of his album, Rhyme Pays. Darlene even wrote a book about her life with Ice. It wasn’t easy to live with the gangster rapper as Ice was. The book’s name is “Definition of Down: My life with Ice T and the Birth of Hip Hop.”
She released the book without Ice’s blessing. In addition, the book was released a decade after Ice’s second marriage. Ortiz claims that the delay in book release was due to her kids being small, and she was afraid that the release would affect their lives negatively and leave childhood trauma.
Ice-T and Karrine Steffans(1999-2000)
Karine Steffans is an American Author, and currently, she is 43 years old. She is mainly known for Confessions of a Video Vixen. For you who are curious to know her zodiac sign, she is Virgo.
Karrine and Ice-t dated for more than a year, from 1999-2000. But unfortunately, we don’t know much about their relationship since Steffans felt compelled to share the story behind their breakup.
Ice-T and Coco Austin(2001-present)
Coco and Ice have been married for 21 years and are one of the most beloved couples on the famous people dating scene. They almost seem like a perfect couple and even say they met each other at the right place and time.
They go on a date every weekend, and Coco loves to make her come in a club-like atmosphere when they come back from the date to enjoy even more. She even claims that she sometimes makes her home like a strip club so that she can please her beloved husband even more.
Coco and Ice starred together on Ice Loves Coco from 2011 to 2013. The show gave an inside look at the dynamics of their relationship. The key to their healthy relationship is low drama. In his forties, he realized he wanted to settle down, and that is when he decided to marry Coco.
Also, one more key to their relationship is they rarely spend time apart. Coco even turned down several movies to spend more time with Ice-T. They even claim that they were never apart more than a day. Ice and Coco have one daughter together, Chanel.
Ice-T Controversies or Scandals
Even though Ice-T prefers to keep his life without any drama, he was still involved in some, especially in the early developments of his professional career. However, my favorite controversy is tied to his most controversial song, Cop Killer, and Warner Bros. Records.
Warner Bros. Records collaborated with Ice-T for more than seven years, and the company claims it was hard to end their relationship because of the release of his controversial song. The company didn’t have an interest in supporting the song, which was about killing cops.
Even though they ended their long-lasting professional relationship, Warner Bros. Records still claim that they wish Ice-T all the best in furthering his career development. C. Dennis, the music editor at the Source, even went further to say that no one is safe in rap now.
He said that primarily because Warner Bros. decided to end their relationship with Ice even though he had such bug audience at that time.
About a year later, after the release of Cop Killer, current president Bush called Time Warner and condemned them for releasing Cop Killer. He even accused them publicly of being irresponsible.
Ice-T Net Worth and Career Earnings
Ice-T currently earns $6 million per season of “Law & Order,” and his net worth is an estimated $65 million.
Ice-T Real Estate & Residence History
Ice-T and Coco have a 4,200-square feet mansion with five bedrooms and five bathrooms. The mansion is located in Edgewater, NJ, and its initial price was $2,199,000. Ice even said that maybe the house is overkill since it has four floors.
He even joked that his biggest fear was to realize that he had left his sunglass on the first floor when he arrived on the fourth. Coco and Chanel like to play video games together when they have free time, and they usually like to play on Ice’s giant screen TV.
However, the essential part of their house is Coco’s “Cave,” or in other words, her closet. Coco’s closet contains everything from stretchy pants, racks of colorful clothes, a fantastic stash of sunglasses, and designer duds.
However, she has a unique closet just for her shoes. She claims that her shoe closet is her heaven.
Ice-T Famous Quotes
These are some of my favorite Ice T quotes:
- “Many people don’t realize that I am an open book. However, I am also a kind of a person that is likely to say. It’s none of your business.” – Ice-T.
- “If you actually think and believe with all of your heart that I am a cop killer, then you may as well believe that David Bowie is an astronaut.” – Ice-T.
- “I never watch news and daytime television. That is mainly because I work, and I firmly believe that daytime televison is built only for women.” – Ice-T.
Ice-T Discography & Full Credits
- Rhyme Pays – 1987
- Power – 1988
- The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech… Just Watch What You Say! – 1989
- O.G. Original Gangster – 1991
- Home Invasion – 1993
- Check This Out – 1993
- Ice-T VI: Return of the Real – 1996
- The Seventh Deadly Sin – 1999
- Gang Culture – 2004
- Gangsta Rap – 2006
- Live in Montreaux – 2006
FAQs
Answer: It is not hard to guess that Ice’s Cop Killer was the most famous and controversial song of his career. The song received many critics but was by far the most successful song of his entire career. He even stopped collaborating with Warner Bros. Records because they couldn’t sacrifice their public image.
Answer: Ice-T appeared on one of Rick and Morty’s most famous episodes. Ice is featured heavily in the episode. However, his voice is just an impression by the series’ co-creator, Dan Harmon.
Answer: Ice-T made most of his money in the music industry. However, he also earned a decent amount of money by acting and public speaking.
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice-T_discography
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice-T
- https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/ice-t-5448.php
- https://www.whosdatedwho.com/dating/ice-t
- https://www.thelist.com/317817/the-truth-about-coco-austin-and-ice-ts-marriage/
- https://www.eonline.com/news/1323292/why-the-ingredients-of-ice-t-and-coco-austins-love-story-make-for-the-perfect-blend
- https://news.amomama.com/276274-inside-ice-ts-relationship-1st-wife-darl.html
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