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Album Review
by Mie Helden
16-1-2003
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| Ice T presents some 'old skool' bros |
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Ice-T : 'Ice T Presents Westside'
(Obsessive Recordings)
Rewind #10: Ice-T (re)Presents his future
At one juncture in time Public Enemy in the East, NWA in The West, as well as Ice-T, appeared to rule the rap-world across the Atlantic and other oceans. Public Enemy are still around trying to fight the corporate record world by any means available, NWA are rumoured to be reforming but it turns out that Dr Dre is going to produce next Ice Cube’s album while Ice-T, he’s an actor and part-time rapper. Long way from a birthplace of New Jersey’s Newark for Tracy Murray.
Back in the day, when NWA rocked the world with their ‘F**k The Police’ that became a soundtrack to the LA riots following the Rodney King’s ‘verdict’, Ice got into serious trouble with his ‘rock’ side-band Body Count; a track ‘Cop Killer’ was deemed ultra-offensive, the then Prez George (Papa) Bush and his government considered Ice-T to be the biggest treat to American way of life and morality that naturally led to termination of Body Count and Ice-T’s contract with Warner Bros.
Their move to Virgin failed to produce music to equal success and bad-MF notoriety of earlier work but the messages remained relevant: ‘Home Invasion’ warned about rap infiltrating the white’s ‘hoods and infesting it with ‘alien’ imagery, ideology… It did but changed nothing much for the simple reason that the corporations tamed, sanitized and neutered it all together. Ice-T continues to drop new studio recordings every few years but there appears to be lack of spark, power, platform… Or perhaps the times have changed so much that what was once sacrilegious is now downright accepted or successfully buried by the powers in charge.
‘Ice-T Present Westside’ reminds us of some early days of his and few other contemporaries from 1987 and all the way to the present day: Ice-T opens the double-set with, probably the first gangsta-rap cut, ‘6 ‘n The Mornin’’ and we travel across the years with a little help of Tone Loc, Cypress Hill (1991), The Pharcyde, Dr Dre (‘92), Snoop Doggy Dogg (‘93), 2Pac (‘95), Jurassic 5 (‘98), Xzibit (2000)… Additional explanations about the period and music can be heard in an Ice-T interview, split to end each disc.
A quote of the rather informative cover claims that gangsta-rap couldn’t have been invented in the East because New York City had no gang culture the Los Angeles way. But don’t get a wrong impression that this is full of gangsta-rapping, it is a rather eclectic collection that doesn’t only feature the Ice-T’s preferred expression but a wider overview of the LA scene. Of course, due to leasing material difficulties caused by rivalry among rappers some obvious names from the scene are missing.
8/10
Mie Helden
16-1-2003
‘Ice-T Presents Westside’ is available now on Obsessive Recordings
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