Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 10, 1993 TAG: 9302100067
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
RAPPER TO SPEAK FOR HIS CASE
Forget the pop charts.It's the controversy chart that has had rapper Ice-T in the No. 1 spot. Especially in Western Virginia, where the nation's only court battle over the sale of Ice-T's album "Body Count" to a minor has kept this singer/actor in the news long after the controversial song "Cop Killer" was taken off the record.
Ice-T, born Tracy Marrow, will be at Radford University on Thursday. But he won't be giving a rap or heavy-metal performance. He'll be talking about freedom of speech and the First Amendment in part of a seven-city tour.
Florida. Ohio. Radford.
The visit is being sponsored by a number of campus groups, and ticket sales, which began last week, will help pay for the $8,000 lecture.
The university has received a few calls from people angered that the rapper will be lecturing on campus, but Keith Keiper, director of student life, said he isn't expecting any problems.
According to Rhyme Syndicate, Ice-T's management agency, even when the singer performed "Cop Killer" on tour last year, there were no incidents.
"Cop Killer" is a story about a fictional Los Angeles youth who lashes out at police, trying to get even. Ice-T has said it shows what can happen when a troubled youth is pushed too far by racism and police brutality.
Ice-T has been a rapper, a heavy-metal artist and an actor. He has produced anti-gang videos, testified to a congressional committee about gang problems and received a key to the city of Atlanta for promoting anti-drug and anti-violence programs in high schools.
Yet it is "Cop Killer," a song his opponents say promotes violence, for which he is most known these days.
Record stores pulled the album from their shelves after pressure from groups, including law enforcement agencies, over the song's lyrics. Finally, Ice-T took the song off the album, though he still performed it in concert.
Camille Leverett, head of the Black Awareness Programming Board and a student at Radford University, said the artist is misunderstood.
"That's part of the reason we're bringing him here," she said. "So people can hear him and ask him about what he stands for. I think a lot of people will be enlightened."
Although Ice-T's visit is a part of the university's Black History Month celebration, the Black Awareness Programming Board had been trying to get him to speak at any time during the semester. The fact that he had February available was just a coincidence, Leverett said, and his speech is expected to cover a range of topics.
The 30-something Ice-T is no stranger to hard knocks. His parents died when he was still a child. He later moved in with an aunt.
It was during high school that he began writing rhyming slogans - for local gangs.
He recorded his first album in 1982 for a local label and earned $20.
A decade later, he made his acting debut as an undercover cop in "New Jack City," and he was nominated for a Grammy Award.
A few months after that, his music was called "vile" and "despicable." Still a few months after that, he released "Body Count."
Times Warner, the record company that stood by him through the controversy and said it stood for freedom of expression, has since parted ways with the singer, citing "creative differences."
His management company had no comment last week about the future of "Home Invasion," an album that had been recorded and was to be released by the end of last year by Warner Bros.
The label has returned the master tapes to the artist.
Last Thursday, ticket sellers opened an office in Heth Student Center to a short line of students waiting to buy tickets for the show. By 11 a.m. more than 200 had been sold. Preston auditorium holds 1,500.
"Not bad for a college campus on a Thursday morning," said Keiper.
ICE-T at Radford University on Thursday, 8 p.m. Tickets, $6. 831-5420.