Life repeats itself three times, first as tragedy, second as rap music and third as farce. Ice T has been on the third revolution for a long long time and any idea that the former Tracey Marrow is still using memory recall from his gangbanging, drug selling (not to mention stint in the army) days has to be taken with a huge huge dose of reality TV.
It might be true, “I Will Always Love You” –his ode to the men and women of the armed forces, might well be sincere as well, but he doesn’t have the chops to write a rap powerful enough to sound much more than like be harangued by a loud mouth asshole.
Body Count, Ice T’s metal rap band, are not bad at what they do: it is all brute fault bitches and blood and gore and guns; it’s like welcome to my most boring nightmare. In 2014 it is difficult to do much but wonder at Ice T’s “Cop Killer” –how serious can you take this stuff? Well, very serious. His label wouldn’t release his follow up album. But Ice T were already in the farce business and their 2014 incarnation Manslaughter, isn’t even there.
If a horror movie doesn’t scare you, is it still a horror movie? IF Ice T doesn’t threaten you, does the body count count. The body drop and the self help advise comes in spurts of rehabilitated nonsense, meanwhile the band writes cruncy tuneless rock riffs and white noise. It is easy to pinpoint to figure out what Ice T’s problem is: just compare “99 problems” to Ice baby Ice witless “99 problems BC”… the latter doesn’t have one witty line, not once. It is amazing how just plain bad Ice T is here: this is terrible: “I’ve got a bitch from the north, I’ve got a bitch from the south, I gotta bitch he likes to hold it and suck it in her mouth.” You see, I don’t mind the bitcj, and I don’t mind the explicitness, I hate the silliness. It just stinks as rhyme; it doesn’t mean anything.
On “Back To Rehab”, he raps “You say you’ve done getting high, you say you’ve had your last drink…” and the band interrupt with bullshit. What is that exactly? It isn’t honesty, maybe satire, nah, parody? Ice T is already a parody.
What it is, what Body Counts job is, very loud metalcore while Ice T screams about bitches, gangstas and the army and while it has moments here and there of cathartic something or the other, song for song it is just Insane Clown Posse only worse.
Grade: C-
