My name, my real name, is Tracy. I always thought I was like a boy named Sue. So I made my friends call me ‘Tray.’

Well, I am very happy that I was able to play a part in bringing music from the streets onto the radio and into modern culture, I worked very hard and always believed in the...

Los Angeles is a microcosm of the United States. If L.A. falls, the country falls.

I’m competitive in that I would like to outsell my last record.

An MC is somebody who can control the crowd. An MC is a master of ceremonies so not only can you say your rap, you can rock the party.

You have to come in on a professional level to make it, otherwise you just can’t get into rap.

If I do a song where I’m angry, when it’s time to perform it live I’m not mad, I’m happy. I’m at a concert. But I have to somehow drum up that rage. That’s acting.

Ultimately I am happy that everybody is embracing hip hop and the sounds from the streets.

When I was in the 12th grade, I got my girlfriend pregnant. I just got out of school, she was a 10th-grader. I’m a teen parent, and I’m at a point where I’m like, ‘Man...

I ain’t got no beef with east coast, I think it’s just being hyped up.

I’m in a very good place to make records. Needing to make money off music is very dangerous.

I make an effort to keep it as real as I possibly can.

I think when people say ‘real hip-hop,’ they want it more buried in the streets. They want it more connected to the streets and the grime and the roughness of the streets. They don’t want...

‘New Jack City’ was a perfect marriage of music and film. They used a lot of musicians: myself, Christopher Williams. People that were popular because of their music were given the chance to act. And...

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.