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When considering the work of a high-profile, successful recording artist, it\u2019s often instructive to look at the work they did prior to their breakthrough. Important clues in regard to their creative development can often be identified, and the arc of that development can be more fully understood and appreciated.<\/p>\n
In hip-hop, one of the genre\u2019s game-changing releases was Ice-T\u2019s 1991 release, O.G.: Original Gangster<\/i>. That album was a watershed moment in so-called gangsta rap, and its two dozen tracks represent the fully formed realization of Ice-T\u2019s artistic visions, replete with sex, violence and humor. But three years earlier, the Los Angeles-based rapper had put in place many of the elements that would characterize O.G.<\/i>\u2019s artistic triumph.<\/p>\n
Released in September 1988, Power<\/i> was Ice-T\u2019s second studio album. His debut, 1987\u2019s Rhyme Pays<\/i> was a solid west coast rap effort that moved beyond the substyle\u2019s reliance on primitive and rudimentary synthesizer beats, but today \u2013 notwithstanding the gangsta subject matter of some of its tracks \u2013 production-wise, Rhyme Pays<\/i> sounds a bit thin.<\/p>\n
A co-production with hip-hop icon Afrika Islam, Power<\/i> was Ice-T\u2019s first breakthrough. On the album, he establishes himself as a keen chronicler of one kind of urban African American experience, one with which listeners could alternatively identify, sympathize or reject. Then and in the future, Ice-T would come in for criticism by those claiming that he sought to glamorize the lawless, drug- and crime-infused scenes described in his tracks. The truth is far more nuanced. Like urban poet and author Iceberg Slim \u2013 noted as a major influence upon Ice-T \u2013 his raps were often more concerned with authentically describing situations in a kind of reportorial fashion. True, as the narrator of a given piece, Ice-T would sometimes position himself as a party to the mayhem, but in the end, the tracks were focused on offering a kind of positive (or at least morally neutral) scene-setting as opposed to glorification of crime.<\/p>\n
Ice-T dedicates Power<\/i> to the Rhyme Syndicate, the collective with which he would often work. The opening track drops the listener into his world of mordant humor, with a spoken-word vignette that finds one of the characters more concerned with hearing Ice-T\u2019s new tape than offering aid to a critically injured friend (whom, incidentally, he has just shot).<\/p>\n
The music starts after that. With insistent beats (using the technology of the day) and some expertly-edited loops, Afrika Islam lays down a solid and relentless beat upon which Ice-T spits his toasting rhymes. \u201cPower\u201d is full of braggadocio and self-referential phrases, but the listener can \u2013 if they choose \u2013 set aside the subject matter and luxuriate in the beat and the feel of the vocals.<\/p>\n
\u201cDrama\u201d finds Ice-T adopting a more laid-back (but no less sinister) vocal tone; in many ways the track is a precursor of the (more fully-realized and thus vastly superior) \u201cMind Over Matter\u201d from O.G.<\/i> An alluring synthesizer line helps create an aura of danger as Ice-T tells a story of an arrest, conviction and what follows.<\/p>\n
Steely bass lines form the basis of \u201cHeartbeat,\u201d another example of boastful toasting. The synth drums are a bit primitive here \u2013 and the production is stark compared with Ice-T\u2019s future efforts \u2013 but the turntable scratching is appealing. It\u2019s as close as Ice-T comes to a party track on Power<\/i>\u2019s first side.<\/p>\n
The self-referential \u201cThe Syndicate\u201d is bracingly uptempo, and features Ice-T\u2019s partners in rhyme. \u201cRadio Suckers\u201d presents the most intricate and densely layered backing track on Power<\/i>. It points the way toward O.G.<\/em>\u2019s wide-screen production.<\/p>\n \u201cPersonal\u201d samples the gritty guitar riff from Heart\u2019s \u201cMagic Man,\u201d helping further to break down the barriers between hip-hop and hard rock. While he had done a bit of rock sampling prior to this, Ice-T clearly discovered he had struck gold with the approach; part of O.G.<\/i>\u2019s undeniable power would come through the use of bone-crushing riff samples from the likes of Black Sabbath.<\/p>\n Power<\/i>\u2019s central party tune is the very NSFW \u201cGirls L.G.B.N.A.F.\u201d In (hopefully) more enlightened times, the track can be seen as glorifying objectification, but Ice-T endeavors to make the point that \u201cit\u2019s good to me and it\u2019s good to you.\u201d Other than Ice-T\u2019s raps and some background murmuring, the track features little beyond a drum machine, so in the end it\u2019s not what it could be. As Ice-T continued to find his voice, he discovered that party raps weren\u2019t what he was about.<\/p>\n The deep groove of \u201cHigh Rollers\u201d provides an alluring backdrop for another cautionary tale; listeners who took the time to listen to Ice-T\u2019s raps would understand that he wasn\u2019t glorifying the thug life; in his own way he was attempting to suggest a way out of it. But listeners could be forgiven for their confusion upon hearing the track that immediately follows: \u201cGrand Larceny\u201d uses a bank robbery as a metaphor for live performance. Still, it\u2019s easy to miss that and come away thinking that the track \u2013 replete with goofy, stereotypically white police dispatcher voices \u2013 celebrates crime.<\/p>\n Taking its title from Eldridge Cleaver\u2019s 1960s memoir, \u201cSoul On Ice\u201d is the closest that Ice-T comes on Power<\/i> to imitating his hero Iceberg Slim. Where Iceberg used an actual jazz band on his 1970s LP Reflections<\/i>, Ice-T employs samples and loops. But other than that, he\u2019s in rhyming storytelling mode; \u201cSoul On Ice\u201d features one of Ice-T\u2019s best lyrics. However, it represents a direction he wouldn\u2019t seriously pursue on future releases.<\/p>\n The album ends with \u201cOutro,\u201d a silly but inevitable spoken word bit that picks up the scene laid out in \u201cIntro.\u201d The injured man doesn\u2019t fare well.<\/p>\n For his next album, The Iceberg\/Freedom of Speech…Just Watch What You Say!<\/i>, Ice-T dispensed with the party raps (except for the guilty-pleasure comedy of \u201cThe Girl Tried to Kill Me\u201d) and moved in a more sinister storytelling direction, one that came to full flowering on the classic O.G.: Original Gangster<\/i>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/ice_t_power2.jpg\")
\u201cI\u2019m Your Pusher\u201d lays out a metaphor in which a vinyl record takes the place of drugs; while it contains its share of menace and danger, at its heart it\u2019s a anti-drug message: \u201cYou wanna get high? Let the record play,\u201d Ice-T advises. In a nod to \u201870s funk and soul, the track folds in samples from Curtis Mayfield\u2019s \u201cPusherman.\u201d In an ominous preview of his future battles around the controversial \u201cCop Killer\u201d track, Ice-T would find his message misinterpreted by many as pro<\/i>-drug.<\/p>\n