Ice-T Reflects on Body Count’s Controversial “Cop Killer”: “I Never Really Questioned Myself”
If you weren’t alive in 1992, then bless your youthful little heart, but you probably don’t remember the heated controversy around Body Count’s song “Cop Killer”, which tells a story in first-person about a character who is frustrated with police brutality and wants to kill cops. Body Count rapper and frontman Ice-T has always held the position that the song is about a character and not a reflection of his own beliefs but a commentary on why so many people were fed up. Still, the album came out about a month before a jury acquitted the policemen who used excessive force on a black man named Rodney King, which led to six days of rioting throughout Los Angeles. With tension so high, the controversy around the song kind of exploded.
In a recent interview with The Guardian ahead of Body Count’s eighth studio album Merciless which is out next month, Ice-T was asked if, during the controversy over “Cop Killer” in the ‘90s, he was ever “feeling the heat” or questioning the decision to release it:
“I never really questioned myself, but the heat came when they started sending bomb threats to Warner Bros. I threw the rock, that’s my heat. But when other people could get hurt, that’s nerve-racking. But I got news for people: anybody that thinks controversy is a way to make money, it’s not. You get a lot of buzz, but now you need lawyers. So don’t just say something stupid and then back-pedal – if you’re going to say something, stand on it.”
The absolutely hilarious irony of the entire “Cop Killer” controversy is the fact that, as of just a few days ago, Ice-T—the man who caused this massive controversy and was accused of being this massive anti-cop radical in the 1990s—has now been playing a cop on television for 24 years. What’s more, it’s on a show that has been accused frequently, and rightfully, of being pro-cop propaganda. Arguably, he might have done more to create a positive image of the police than he ever did to tarnish policing’s image. So yeah, I guess the controversy was kind of silly in hindsight.
