When you start a business, go for the lowest hanging fruit.

You have the core hip-hop, which would just be beats and breaks, more something like what you hear with DJ Premier. Then you get into the more highly produced hip-hop, which is something like what...

Being cool is when you win, you don’t get too happy; and when you lose, you don’t get too mad.

Ice-T in the music has done some outrageous things.

AIDS is such a scary thing and it’s also the kind of thing that you think won’t happen to you. It can happen to you and it’s deadly serious.

Jay-Z is like a rap-savant, he doesn’t have to write the rhymes down, he can create complex raps in his head. I mean he does memorize it, he just doesn’t write it down on paper....

No, I’ll stay Ice-T. This is what got me here, I’m always going to stay true to that. If it weren’t for hip-hop I wouldn’t be doing all these other things.

Every once in a while, I hear somebody call me Tracy to try to let me know that they know me, you know, personally. But most of my real friends will call me Trey, or...

I’ve never read for a movie, I’ve always been given them.

Redemption just means you just make a change in your life and you try to do right, versus what you were doing, which was wrong.

As long as I’m around the cats in the hip hop scene, they’ll throw me a track and I’ll write a rap over it.

If I’m going to be a jazz player, I need to understand Miles Davis.

I started writing rhymes first and then put it to the music. I figured out I could lock it to the beat better if I heard the music first. I like to get a lot...

Because I first made my name as a rapper claiming South Central L.A., people often assume I’m strictly a West Coast cat. But my family was actually from back East. I was born in Newark,...

The music led to the acting. But movies aren’t something you can just will yourself into. Someone has to choose you, and you have to be quite fortunate to be chosen.

I think L.A. radio is learning from the Bay. The Bay is a very classic place. Mac Mall, C-Bo, all that stuff, they love their artists, they’re old school up there. My first big concert...

I’ll never sell 14 million like Hammer, I just wanna do a good Ice-T show.

I have no hatred for cops. I have hatred for racists and brutal people, but not necessarily the cops. The cops are just doing what they’re told to do.

I’m on the front line and I am a rapper.

Most interviewers are looking for a headline. They’re not skilled. They’re looking for shock value.

As an actor, you can do what you want with your role. That’s why they hire you; to take the role and make it real.

I’ve evolved, but I’m the same dude, I’m just in a different place. We all change, we all grow. I shouldn’t be in the same place that I was 30 years ago; I should be...

The next day, I got a phone call from him and he told me to come and read for a movie called New Jack City. So I went over there and they told me I...

I think the most successful are the most paranoid. The first thing people do when they buy a mansion is they build the biggest wall you could possibly build around it. What happens is, now...

If it sells, it sells. If it doesn’t sell, I’ll go make a movie.

I’m just disillusioned with the hip-hop sound right now. It’s too materialistic. You know, I’m the kind of guy … I can’t do that. If you track my movement, you’ll never see a picture of...

A lot of the younger kids now can rap, but they’re scared of the crowd. Mastery of that stage is an MC. I don’t know if you’ve seen any great MCs on stage but when...

Oh man, nobody is as tough as Mr T. Ice T is pretty tough though as well.

If you’re really a rapper, you can’t stop rapping.

Hollywood has its own way of telling stories. I was just telling stories that I was familiar with. And it’s what I want to do in the future: I want to take my audio cinema...

When I first started out in music, I was so negative. I was knee-deep in the streets. Then my friends started going to jail. They said, ‘Boy, you better start taking this seriously; you got...

Some music comes from a real place; some music comes from your imagination. It’s difficult to find out what’s real and what’s not, especially with the gangster stuff.

I couldn’t possibly have lived all the things that Ice-T on the records lived.

I’ve never been competitive with anybody but myself.

I think everybody wants to redeem themselves after they’ve done something that might be considered negative. I don’t think anyone wants to go to the grave negative.

So you don’t have to take us too seriously; I mean, we’re already intimidating enough on stage.

A good emcee will rhyme a lot of different ways. Don’t limit yourself.

I’m normal. I just had a different occupation for a while, and when you’re in a different occupation, you have to carry yourself a different way. Most of my art is me bringing you stories...

I started rapping before anybody had ever bought a car from it. It was truly about the art form and the culture, more so than now, where it’s a successful way to make money. Back...

I have to grow with my audience.

I think singing and acting go hand in hand. Take an R&B singer: one song says, ‘I love you,’ the next is, ‘Baby, don’t leave me’, the next is, ‘If you leave me I don’t...

I was born in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in Summit, an upscale town in north Jersey. There was this tiny area of Summit where most of the black families lived. My parents and...

The best way to listen to the album is to put it on, get some Moet, lay back with your boys, and kick it.

My father’s family came from Virginia and Philadelphia. He wasn’t a brother who talked a lot. He was a workingman, a quiet, blue-collar dude.

Military is a great place for a jock. That’s the first thing they test you, they test you physically. If you can run, if you can do the pushups, it’s not as hard a transition....

I think, people look at me, and they say, ‘You were very aggressive,’ I say, ‘Yeah,’ you know, and I’ve made a better life for myself, for my son, so I should reflect that with...

I mean rappin’ to me is easy, it’s something you can do over a week.

The right to bear arms is because it’s the last form of defense against tyranny.

Everything we do helps the new artists in the long run.

We have groups that do that, but I can’t rap with the mentality of an 18 year old when I’m in my 30’s.