Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Ice: A Memoir of Gangster Life and Redemption-from South Central to Hollywood
    Unavailable
    Ice: A Memoir of Gangster Life and Redemption-from South Central to Hollywood
    Unavailable
    Ice: A Memoir of Gangster Life and Redemption-from South Central to Hollywood
    Ebook326 pages4 hours

    Ice: A Memoir of Gangster Life and Redemption-from South Central to Hollywood

    By Ice-T and Douglas Century

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    My life’s been a great story / In the ultimate war / Should I ill or do right? / Make peace or go raw?—Ice-T, “Exodus”
     
    He’s a hip-hop icon credited with single-handedly creating gangsta rap in the 1980s. Television viewers know him as Detective Odafin “Fin” Tutuola on the top-rated TV drama Law & Order: SVU. But where the hype and the headlines end, the real story of Ice-T—the one few of his millions of fans have ever heard—truly begins.

    Ice is Ice-T in his own words—raw, uncensored, and unafraid to speak his mind. About his orphan upbringing on the gang-infested streets of South Central Los Angeles. About his four-year stint in the U.S. Army’s famed “Tropic Lightning” outfit. About his successful career as a hustler and thief, the car crash that nearly killed him, and the fateful decision to turn away from a life of crime and forge his own path to international entertainment stardom.

    Ice by Ice-T is both a tell-it-like-it-is tale of redemption and a star-studded tour of the pop culture firmament. The acclaimed rapper and actor shares never-before-told stories about friends like Tupac, Dick Wolf, Chris Rock, and an antler-clad Flavor Flav, among others. Readers will ride along as Ice-T’s incendiary rock band Body Count narrowly escapes from a riotous mob of angry concertgoers in Milan, and listen in as the music legend battles the self-appointed censors over his controversial “Cop Killer” single.

    Most of all, Ice is the place where one of the game’s most opinionated players breaks down his own secret plan for living, offering up candid observations on marriage and monogamy, the current state of hip-hop, and his latest passion: doing one-on-one gang interventions and mentoring at-risk youths around the country.

    With insights into the cutthroat world of the street—and the cutthroat world of Hollywood—Ice is the inspirational story of a true American original.

    Praise for Ice

    “Ice-T, in short, is someone hip-hop might have invented if he hadn’t invented himself. . . . A goes-down-easy mélange of memoir, self-help, and amateur criminology. Ultimately, Ice showcases an eminently reasonable, positively likeable guy, the gangsta rapper even a parent could love.”—New York Times Book Review

    “It's as cool as its namesake. . . . A fascinating memoir, the pages of which are jam-packed with tales of a guy who ‘actively did everything I rhymed about.’”—Associated Press
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRandom House Publishing Group
    Release dateApr 19, 2011
    ISBN9780345523303
    Unavailable
    Ice: A Memoir of Gangster Life and Redemption-from South Central to Hollywood
    Author

    Ice-T

    Ice-T is an award-winning rapper, actor, songwriter and producer. He released a string of groundbreaking rap albums in the 1980s and then formed the Grammy Award–winning metal band Body Count with high school friend and guitarist Ernie C. He has appeared in numerous films, including New Jack City, Ricochet, and Trespass. In his role as Detective Tutuola on NBC’s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Ice holds the distinction of being the longest running male actor on any primetime drama in history. Through his music and lecture tours, Ice-T has become an influential spokesman for America’s youth. Follow him on Twitter @FinalLevel. 

    Read more from Ice T

    Related authors

    Related to Ice

    Related ebooks

    Cultural, Ethnic & Regional Biographies For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Riccardo

      Jun 14, 2022

      My understanding of my family’s religion was that we didn’t have to go to church if we didn’t want to and that our belief in God was tenuous at best. I grasped the seventh principle, “the interconnected web of all existence,” and I understood the hum

      14 min read

    • Article

      ‘We Are Bridges’: Featured Nonfiction from Cassandra Lane

      Apr 20, 2021

      Lane's memoir, which won the 2020 Louise Meriwether First Book Prize, explores the author's ancestral history in order to give her future child a family history. The post ‘We Are Bridges’: Featured Nonfiction from Cassandra Lane appeared first on The

      8 min read

    • Article

      Untold Resilience

      Dec 6, 2020

      I was 16, he was 20 and Leslie was the first person I ever fell in love with. It’s difficult to try to describe the intensity of emotions in regard to relationships during that period. Those times were different; we were so aware of the horrors of wa

      4 min read

    • Article

      I Never Called Her Momma

      Sep 13, 2023

      I Never Called Her Momma
      39 min read

    • Article

      Happy Endings

      Sep 1, 2023

      Happy Endings
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Last Waylon Party

      Jan 18, 2019

      The Last Waylon Party
      14 min read

    • Article

      Beverley Knight

      Aug 28, 2023

      Beverley Knight
      5 min read

    • Article

      Always Someone Leaving

      Jul 6, 2023

      Always Someone Leaving
      5 min read

    • Article

      Refusenik

      Jan 1, 2021

      I was promised a girl held her glossy image, shatterable, ice skating on a Soviet pond. I’d never seen snow but for the cut out paper flakes hung in school hallways. I only knew rain as intermittent confusion. Los Angeles in the ’80s. We set fire to

      7 min read

    • Article

      White Paper Family

      Aug 11, 2019

      White Paper Family
      9 min read

    • Article

      Don’t Call Slaves “Immigrants”

      Mar 31, 2017

      You know honey, us colored folks is branches without roots and that makes things come round in queer ways. –Zora Neale Hurston   Ben Carson’s comments earlier this month equating immigrants and slaves didn’t surprise me, and not just because the r

      10 min read

    • Article

      Patrick Mason.

      Jan 2, 2020

      Patrick Mason.
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Beautiful Unforeseen

      Sep 2, 2022

      The Beautiful Unforeseen
      9 min read

    • Article

      Nikki Sixx

      Oct 12, 2021

      Nikki Sixx
      14 min read

    • Article

      Heather Small Looks Back: ‘James Was Born In March – By November He Was With Me On Tour’

      Mar 12, 2022

      One of the most instantly recognisable voices of the 90s, singer Heather Small was born in west London in 1965. A chance meeting with Hacienda DJ Mike Pickering led to the formation of M People, who went on to sell more than 10m records of uplifting

      4 min read

    • Article

      Two Years Of Solitude

      Dec 31, 2021

      Two Years Of Solitude
      12 min read

    • Article

      The Ones We Sent Away

      Aug 7, 2023

      The Ones We Sent Away
      47 min read

    • Article

      Shirley Collins

      May 29, 2023

      Shirley Collins
      5 min read

    • Article

      Djamila Azzouz

      Oct 12, 2023

      Djamila Azzouz
      5 min read

    • Article

      All You Got Left

      Oct 17, 2023

      All You Got Left
      11 min read

    • Article

      Allegiance

      Nov 6, 2023

      Allegiance
      12 min read

    Reviews for Ice

    4/5

    32 ratings6 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      I completely and totally enjoyed this book. I think the only times I put this book down was because I knew I had other things to do, had to take care of my little men, or I was really tired. It was a hard book to put down and when I was doing other things, this book was always creeping up telling me to read it..lol..Whether you like Ice T or not, it's very much worth reading...Especially the men...of every age...But it seems to be more directed at teens and young adults.
    • 5/5
      I completely and totally enjoyed this book. I think the only times I put this book down was because I knew I had other things to do, had to take care of my little men, or I was really tired. It was a hard book to put down and when I was doing other things, this book was always creeping up telling me to read it..lol..Whether you like Ice T or not, it's very much worth reading...Especially the men...of every age...But it seems to be more directed at teens and young adults.
    • 5/5
      I completely and totally enjoyed this book. I think the only times I put this book down was because I knew I had other things to do, had to take care of my little men, or I was really tired. It was a hard book to put down and when I was doing other things, this book was always creeping up telling me to read it..lol..Whether you like Ice T or not, it's very much worth reading...Especially the men...of every age...But it seems to be more directed at teens and young adults.
    • 3/5
      This book was an impulse check out at the library. I was standing in line waiting to checkout and it was on the new non-fiction display. I enjoy watching Ice-T on Law and Order SVU. I like to read the occasional biography. So I decided to give it a try.For the most part, I enjoyed reading this biography. I felt as though I was getting an inside glimpse into what makes Ice-T, Ice T. I realized that Ice-T is a lot different than my perception of Finn on Law & Order SVU. I found it to be well written and interesting.However, if you are looking for a biography that will provide a moral lesson for today's youth, this is not it. He does discuss his transition from crime to legitimate work, but he doesn't take a strong stand about the wrongness of his time as a criminal. He's very true to his beliefs, which makes for an honest read.Also, if you have a problem with foul language, particularly the F-word, then you might want to skip this book. If you want to learn about the man behind the image, then you should read this book, but if you have an "agenda", if you are looking for a motivational "don't do crime - take the straight and narrow path" story, you might want to search for another book. If you are looking for an honest account of this man's life then this is a good read for you. He's very true to himself and he doesn't pull any punches. He doesn't smooth over his mistakes. And while he might not provide a strong warning against a life of crime, I really didn't find that he was glamorizing it. He does point out that there are risks and the price you pay if you get caught is high.Overall, it was an impulse check out that turned out to be a rather good read.
    • 3/5
      I am a fan of Ice-T from his New Jack City movie days and really enjoy him as Fin on Law & Order: SVU. I picked the book up because I like his Hollywood roles, I was interested in learning more about him, and I wanted to be able to booktalk it to the teens who are undoubtedly going to be interested in it.So for teens: yup, they will love it! The length of the book is perfect; longer tomes would seem preachy and would scare off readers he will reach with these 240ish pages. He talks frankly about his time in & with gangs - when muscle not firearms ruled the streets. Ice-T also talks briefly about the car accident that nearly killed him and became the catalyst for turning his life around. We learn of his hip-hop career and his Hollywood/New York acting career, including a poignant story about Tupac.His co-writer let Ice-T's voice come through: the language is harsh (there is a lot of "foul language") but it is true to the streets and how teens actually speak. Lyrics from several of Ice-T's songs are sprinkled throughout the story and at the beginnings of each section.Booktalk pointer: Encourage teens to flip to the last chapter, Daily Game of Life, for a list of 50 life-tips. Reading this last bit will not ruin the rest of the book as reading the last chapter often does.Why I only gave it 3 stars: I felt there could have been more and I really wanted more. The perfect example of this was his recollection of his performance in Milan that turned riotous. The description was vivid; I felt like I was running by his side as he made his escape. THAT was what I was hoping for in this book, that level of detail, that level of recollection. I truly felt like everything was touched on and brushed over - but few incidents had the detail and emotion that the telling of Milan incident relayed.I think Ice-T met his goal here. He spends a good deal of time speaking about gangs, performing gang interventions, and mentoring youth. This book sums up a lot of information in an easy-to-read format that will convey valuable messages - especially the message that the best hustle is a legal hustle.But he left this fan wishing he had gone a bit deeper and shared just a bit more of the stories ... guess that is the sign of a good hustle, eh? Leave them wanting more!
    • 4/5
      In full disclosure, I'm a 29 year old white woman who listened to Ice-T rap in high school in my bedroom in the suburbs (and even then it was considered old school). I'm THAT fan. And now, I get a kick out of watching IceT add edge to SVU week to week. I had high expectations for his book, and was not disappointed. IceT has an amazing life story. Born Tracy Morrow and orphaned at a young age, IceT found himself coming of age as the Los Angeles gang scene was heating up. His book recounts is time in the military, how he gained fame as a rap star despite minimal radio play and controversy, and his success as an actor since. He delves into his family life and sums it all up with some wisdom, sayings that are part hustler part common sense.ICE is written in ICE T's distinctive voice. You can almost hear him as you read. There is no other rap star out there whose book I'd consider reading, but IceT's. His charisma is undeniable. And even the diehard fans should enjoy some surprises. For instance what struck me the most was how humble he is. He hands out a lot of credit and praise throughout the book which of course makes him even more likable. He's just a cool guy with a great story and now he can add excellent memoir to add to his credit.