Rapper, Writer, Pop-Cultural Player : Ice-T and the Politics of Black Cultural Production

This collection of essays critically engages with factors relating to black urban life and cultural representation in the post-civil rights era, using Ice-T and his myriad roles as musician, actor, writer, celebrity, and industrialist as a vehicle through which to interpret and understand the African American experience. Over the past three decades, African Americans have faced a number of new challenges brought about by changes in the political, economic and social structure of America. Furthermore, this vastly changed social landscape has produced a number of resonant pop-cultural trends that have proved to be both innovative and admired on the one hand, and contentious and divisive on the other. Ice-T's iconic and multifarious career maps these shifts. This is the first book that, taken as a whole, looks at a black cultural icon's manipulation of (or manipulation by?) so many different forms simultaneously. The result is a fascinating series of tensions arising from Ice-T's ability to inhabit conflicting pop-cultural roles including: 'hardcore' gangsta rapper and dedicated philanthropist; author of controversial song Cop Killer and network television cop; self-proclaimed 'pimp' and reality television house husband. As the essays in this collection detail, Ice-T's chameleonic public image consistently tests the accepted parameters of black cultural production, and in doing so illuminates the contradictions of a society erroneously dubbed 'post-racial' Cover 1 Contents 6 Notes on Contributors 8 Foreword 12 Acknowledgements 18 Introduction “It’s got to feel real but not be real” (Ice-T) 20 Part 1 Hip-Hop Contexts 36 1 Ice/Age: Experience, Achievement, and Transformations of an OG 38 2 Ice-T at the Movies: The Hip-Hop Film Cycle and the On-Screen Gangsta in Flux 62 3 Voices of the Gods: Definition, Diegesis, and Discourse in Ice-T’s The Art of Rap 84 Part 2 Genre Hustling 104 4 Crossing Police Lines: Body Count and the Politics of Intercultural Miscommunication 106 5 Member of an Elite Squad: Ice-T and the Imagining of “Fin” Tutuola 134 6 Ice Loves Coco: Reality TV, Hip-Hop, and the Articulation of Neo-Liberal Family Values 156 7 Writing “on the Rilla” with Ice-T: from Autobiography to Avatar in Kings of Vice 176 Part 3 Activist, Philanthropist, Entrepreneur 196 8 Gaming the System: Ice-T as Neoliberal Hustler and Entrepreneurial Philanthropist 198 9 The Peacemaking Producer of LA: Negotiating and Representing Gangs on Reality TV 220 10 Ice-T’s Sense of Redemption and the Gangbanger Autobiography 250 11 Getting “A Message Through to the Red, White, and Blue”: Ice-T in the Age of Obama 274 Part 4 Interview 296 12 Living by Your Word: An Interview with Ice-T 298 Afterword Ice-T’s “-ish” and The Power of Street Knowledge 326 Ice-ography 340 Index 348

This collection of essays critically engages with factors relating to black urban life and cultural representation in the post-civil rights era, using Ice-T and his myriad roles as musician, actor, writer, celebrity, and industrialist as a vehicle through which to interpret and understand the African American experience.

Over the past three decades, African Americans have faced a number of new challenges brought about by changes in the political, economic and social structure of America. Furthermore, this vastly changed social landscape has produced a number of resonant pop-cultural trends that have proved to be both innovative and admired on the one hand, and contentious and divisive on the other.

Ice-T Over the past three decades, African Americans have faced a number of new challenges brought about by changes in the political, economic and social structure of America. Furthermore, this vastly changed social landscape has produced a number of resonant pop-cultural trends that have proved to be both innovative and admired on the one hand, and contentious and divisive on the other. This collection of essays critically engages with factors relating to black urban life and cultural representation in the post-civil rights era, using Ice-T and his myriad roles as musician, actor, writer, celebrity This Collection Of Essays Critically Engages With Factors Relating To Black Urban Life And Cultural Representation In The Post-civil Rights Era, Using Ice-t And His Myriad Roles As Musician, Actor, Writer, Celebrity, Industrialist As A Vehicle Through Which To Interpret And Understand The African American Experience. Hip-hop Contexts -- Genre Hustling -- Activists, Philanthropist, Entrepreneur -- Interview. Edited By Josephine Metcalf, Will Turner. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Stemming from an international and multidisciplinary network of leading specialists, this best-selling text is fully updated with new chapter additions. With the first edition prepared at the end of the last century and the second edition adding inter-regional relations.