Ice-T has never released the “worst” music he ever made.
The 66-year-old rapper – whose real name is Tracy Marrow – admitted he has “tested” out some material during gigs that has then been shelved but there have been tracks he’s recorded and instantly discarded because they weren’t good enough.
Asked the worst record he ever made, he told Classic rock magazine: “We tested records on the road that didn’t make it, but you ain’t heard the worst cos we didn’t put it out.
“I did some goofy s***, like a song for the movie ‘Dick Tracy’, that was whack.
“But something you might hate might be someone’s favourite s***.”
The Body Count member likes listening to a diverse range of music and is open to collaboration with artists he doesn’t know.
He said: “With Body Count we meet new bands all the time on the road.
“My producer Will Putney has a band called Better Lovers, and I also like Fit For An Autopsy.
“I listen to hardcore s***, but none of it is similar to what we do.
“I’m open to collaborations as well, I didn’t know Alpha Wolf until they came to me.
“I liked the song [‘Sucks 2 Suck’] and thought, ‘Yeah, I’ll f*** with them, they’re cool.’
“I liked working with Lionheart too.”
Ice never expected to be a musician when he was growing up.
He said: “Growing up in Summit, New Jersey, the very first music I heard was in my house with my father, listening to lots of James Brown and OG funk music.
“I got into dancing in high school – breaking, locking – but I wasn’t a singer or musician and I didn’t think that life would be for me.”
Ice caused a stir in 1992 when he and his band Body Count released the track ‘Cop Killer’ but while the furore created “a lot of buzz” when it was decided that it was all an attack on the police, he recently has insisted that the move was not particularly lucrative.
Responding to a fan’s question in The Guardian, he said: “I never really questioned myself, but the heat came when they started sending bomb threats to [our record label at] Warner Bros. I threw the rock, that’s my heat. But when other people could get hurt, that’s nerve-racking.
“But I got news for people: anybody who thinks controversy is a way to make money, it’s not. You get a lot of buzz, but now you need lawyers. So don’t just say something stupid and then back-pedal – if you’re going to say something, stand on it.”