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“If they put a bullet in me then I’m dead. But I can’t live a coward…the problem is I have injected the white kids with the anger of the black kids” –Ice-T
Rodney King was found dead by his fiancé in a swimming pool on June 17. King is best known for what happened on the worst night of his life in 1991. High on PCP, he led Los Angeles police officers on a 100-mile-per-hour car chase and was later beaten on a roadside by officers. Video footage captured the attack; in the following year, it was played repeatedly on televisions nationwide. An all-white jury in Simi Valley, California nonetheless acquitted the officers a year later. Los Angeles erupted. Hundreds of buildings were burned or destroyed. Fifty-three people were killed.
The King saga was one of the many national stories in the 1990s with strong racial undertones: Authorities scoured South Carolina for a black man when Susan Smith’s children went missing only to discover that she had strapped her own children in a car and pushed them into a lake. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas said his contentious nomination hearing and associated sexual harassment charges amounted to a “high-tech lynching.” In rural Virginia, a black man was beheaded and burned in a town named Independence. The acquittal of O.J. Simpson was seen by many as a ‘receipt’ to the Los Angeles Police Department for their record of brutality.
King’s beating and the renewed racial tensions resonated beyond the riots; in politics, art, cinema, pop culture and even in metal. Weeks before the riots, Body Count introduced their eponymous debut, an album originally set to be called Cop Killer. Released 20 years ago, Body Count remains the most controversial metal record ever recorded and released for mass distribution (via Time Warner) and the only record to ever become a national legislative priority. It continues to resonate whenever art and censorship are discussed.
While bands like Mercyful Fate, Judas Priest and Twisted Sister were mentioned during the Parents Music Resource Center witch hunts of the ’80s and Bob Dole went after Cannibal Corpse, Body Count is the only album to ever attract the attention of a sitting president (George H.W. Bush) and the cinematic Moses (Charlton Heston); the only album that imperiled the stock price of a thriving media company (Time Warner) and the only record that led police departments to say they wouldn’t respond to calls at stores where the album was sold. Never mind the fact that Dan Quayle, the 1990s version of Sarah Palin, was a heartbeat from the presidency; America again found a reason to target art instead of scarier realities. Tackling incendiary lyrics and demonizing black musicians in Raiders baseball caps makes for easier talking points than challenging something more substantial.
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Footage of Rodney King being beaten by Los Angeles police
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At the core of the story is American’s long history of racism. Rap was long reviled by politicians and conservatives because it sold an image that terrified the establishment; articulate young African-American men, often armed, with no respect for the police. In my suburban hometown you had to show an ID card to get a copy of the 2 Live Crew’s As Nasty As They Wanna Be. NWA’s “Fuck Tha Police” was an urban anthem that became more menacing when suburban teens started playing it in their parents’ Jeep Cherokees.
Body Count took music most associated with white kids – heavy metal – and combined it with rap’s audacity and rhythm. Politicians had trouble attacking rappers because artists could counter that they wrote about what happened in their neighborhoods and empowered themselves through self-expression. Then Body Count appropriated hallmarks of white rebellion – swapping samplers for electric guitars and power chords. They became an easier target.
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Ice-T – “Rhyme Pays”
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Body Count’s debut was conceived long before any of the events that brought the album international attention. Ice T’s move – combining rap and metal – was just as influential as D.R.I and Corrosion of Conformity’s decision to fuse punk with metal a few years earlier. It’s also been arguably as musically influential; bands like Rage Against The Machine, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park and even certain deathcore artists learned something from Body Count.
During high school in Crenshaw, Ice-T befriended Ernie C and the other musicians who would later form Body Count. He was exposed to heavy metal as well as hip-hop artists like Afrika Bambaataa. On his first record, Rhyme Pays, – amid verses about typical subjects like self-bravado and street living – he brilliantly sampled Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” and the “Tubular Bells” theme for “The Exorcist”. His sampling of a metal lick came a year before Public Enemy sampled Slayer’s “Angel of Death” on “She Watch Channel Zero.” T’s vocal delivery wasn’t smooth, but aggressive and high-strung; in short, it was perfect for metal.
The ferocity of Body Count is often overlooked because “Cop Killer” received so much attention. It’s perhaps the best rapcore album and a strong statement about urban decay and police misconduct offset by moments of silliness that feel like the awkward pause in a horror movie.
While everyone went nuts about “Cop Killer” I don’t see how they missed the opening section of the album, “Smoked Pork.” The track features Ice-T and Mooseman gunning down a cop and was never cut from later releases. “Body Count’s In the House” has sweet groove and “The Winner Loses” is about the evils of crack cocaine: “Living his life in the dark light / Every dollar he gets goes into the pipe.” Cautionary tales are interwoven with juvenile songs like “Evil Dick” and “KKK Bitch,” about dressing up in Klan robes and having sex with a grand wizard’s daughter. The thought of Charlton Heston reading lyrics like: “We had our hoods on / We were slick / She pushed her butt up hard against my dick” is as funny as Tipper Gore reading the lyrics to The Mentors “Golden Showers” a decade earlier.
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Body Count – “Cop Killer”
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“Cop Killer,” originally the last song on the album, was the logical exclamation point. It’s a statement of frustration about unchecked police brutality. The lyrics don’t catalog the violence but are almost straightforward and staccato: “Cop killer / Better you than me / Cop killer / Fuck police brutality / Cop killer / I know your family’s grieving-fuck em’ / Cop killer / But tonight we get even.” T said in interviews in the ’90s that the album wasn’t about someone angry about the Rodney King incident. The timing is just too coincidental to think otherwise – and King is name checked in the song’s final minute.
The outrage about “Cop Killer” quickly escalated. Death threats were sent to Time Warner executives, and stockholders threatened to pull out of the company. Ice-T received constant death threats and bomb threats during appearances. In July 1992, the New Zealand Police Commissioner tried to stop a Body Count appearance.
Ice-T finally relented and released the album with “Cop Killer” cut and replaced with a spoken word track called “Freedom Of Speech.” His collaborator was former Dead Kennedys vocalist Jello Biafra, who had run afoul of the government for including a poster of H.R. Giger’s Penis Landscape inside the Frankenchrist album. It’s interesting to contemplate what might have happened if he chose to stand his ground, but I’ve never had almost every cop in the United States declare me a hostile.
The controversy eventually died down. Body Count went on to be sold for exorbitant prices at record shops for the rest of the ’90s. But the Internet – then in its infancy – assured that “Cop Killer” would live on. Today you can visit YouTube and listen to a song that the government literally tried to snuff into extinction. The Rodney King beating video, now considered the world’s first viral video, also lives on forever via technology; in the days after King’s death the comment sections turned into memorials.
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Ice-T on Arsenio Hall
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Body Count continued in the years after their debut but with little controversy or fanfare. The band released a subpar album called Born Dead, toured and recorded a cover version of Jimi Hendrix’s “Hey Joe.” Much like Ice Cube, who frightened as a lawless protagonist in NWA songs, Ice-T traded outlaw status for mainstream acceptability and a role as a police officer on “Law And Order: Special Victims Unit”.
The epilogues weren’t uniformly happy. D-Roc and Beatmaster V died of cancer. Mooseman was killed in a drive-by shooting, the victim of the same violence Body Count exposed. Violence still simmers in inner cities and police corruption is all too frequent. The recent shooting in Florida of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager, by a neighborhood watch coordinator stoked racial fires yet again. The important records – the ones we remember – remind us of both the best times and the worst, the divine and the depressing. Body Count is best remembered for the summer of 1992, when one of our greatest cities was nearly toppled and burned. The band and album literally held the government hostage and captivated a nation. It was the ultimate rebuke to authority, an act more brazen than anything by an Occupy protester in a Guy Fawkes mask or a Norwegian with a pack of matches and a gas can. It’s the last time I remember when music seemed like a legitimate threat to social order. If you fancy yourself a musical rebel you can’t take it any further.
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Now this dude plays hella Gears of War. SWAG.
Refreshing article
This article hit me like a ton of bricks. I’m 37 now, but I swear I haven’t thought of Body Count in a decade–let alone that me and my suburban pals listened to it repeatedly–enough to remember lyrics to the songs.
I’d also forgotten how devastatingly transgressive this record was. Along with NWA, there wasn’t anything “worse” you could listen to if you were a white Southern kid. For while metal was revolutionary, by the early 90 Metallica was on tv & selling out big venues all over the South; there was a cautious safety. That wasn’t present with rap, especially not Body Count. This was a direct threat to the institutions–not like Public Enemy, who advocated for intelligence and change. This was a bomb.
I’d forgotten that all. This article is tremendous.
I still own the copy with “Cop Killer” on it. I enjoyed the album quite a bit when it came out. The productionw as kind of thin, but it was cool to me that Ice-T was playing metal.
I’ve never actually listened to the Body Count record front-to-back, although “KKK Bitch” was a regular on my freshman “piss-off-the-rest-of-the-dorm” playlist with “Rock-N-Roll Nigger” and some pre-album Hollywood Undead songs.
After reading this, I really want to hear it. I wonder if the time is right for another rap-core generation to release some music. I sort of hope so.
It’s definitely worth giving another spin — just make sure you get the original release and not the doctored rerelease, which I believe is all that’s sold via retail.
I remember seeing the album in a BMG ad along with Pantera’s Vulgar Display of Power and Sonic Youth’s Dirty in an old issue of X-Force. I thought it was really badass so I knew I had to get it, but I couldn’t find it anywhere at the time, and years went by. I didn’t get to listen to the full album until 2001 because my brother in LA had the OG cd version, but he wouldn’t give it to me. It was also funny to note that my brother moved to LA just before the riots happened.
I was thrifting last month and I stumbled upon a pristine OG version for 99 cents. It literally looked like it was never played. I’ve been searching for an OG version for almost 2 decades and I finally found it in a Salvation Army store.
I have some older friends who saw Body Count when they toured with Carcass sometime in the early 90’s. That must’ve been one hell of a show!
First off, this is a metal album, there is nothing rapcore about it. It’s not the best metal album, none of these guys were virtuosos, but it’s metal. I vividly remember at the first Lollapalooza Ice-T did a 1/2 set of rap and then brought Body Count out, the place went crazy. They were a fun live band, and Ice-T has always been a metal fan, so it came from a genuine place.
Great post as always, Justin.
I think that this post is not only timely due to King’s demise, but also because of the current political / social climate. I think that because of the economy and the upcoming American election this fall, racial tensions are high and based on incidents like the Trayvon Martin case, you have a group of disenfranchised young people whose anger is similar to the frustration that was felt during that era.
I remember when this album came out, which was for me a time in which there was a lot of issues surrounding the National Front and a spate of cop shootings of young black men in my hometown (Toronto, Canada). It seemed like the perfect soundtrack to my life at that time. In addition, as a black female metalhead I felt a bit vindicated in my listening habits, as it merged the black militant in me with the music I loved. I wonder if this record encouraged more people of colour to listen to a different musical genre that wasn’t racially coded as ‘black music.’
Thanks much Laina.
Anyone interested in really learning about this topic (race and metal) should get Laina’s book “What Are You Doing Here?: A Black Woman’s Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal” when it is released by Bazillion Points this fall or perhaps a bit earlier.
I always thought the weirdest thing about this album was There Goes The Neighborhood. This stuck out like a sore thumb in being a more complex arrangement, more intricate playing…it’s not virtuostic or anything, but clearly is a different level. I always thought it must be different song writers/band, but never seen any evidence of that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rloidlFbi4w
It is a cover from a black rock/soul group called the Busboys who Eddie Murphy was affiliated with.
fun ice-t fact: he’s the only non-member of black sabbath who’s ever sang on one of their albums. it wasn’t very good, but still.
Body Count toured the shit outta that album…I must have seen them 3-4 times around then. They would be on bills with hard rock, metal, and punk bands like DRI and “Uncle Bud Green” (I think).
The craziest show was at the Omni in Oakland, where Ice did both Body Count and his rap act. I’m this 20yrold skinny kid in glasses and a sweater(!) and across the street is this gang of like 30-40 oaktown locals staring at us in line like, “What you doing here, white boy?” We get in, and Ice and Mooseman are walking around, and start talking up the ladies i’m with. I walk up like “Cool, I’m gonna say hi” and Moose just stares at me mean, and then Ice T starts dissing me…called me a college white-boy NARC or something, then walks off like I blew his game. Ice is like 4 1/2 feet tall, BTW.
It was one of weirdest interactions I ever had with an artist..I’m mean, yeah, I’m pretty uncool, but I ended up marrying one of the girls I went with. There was no way the girls were going back stage with them
I still got Moose Man’s Bass pick, and a Body Count T. And then memories of when Ice T dissed my uncool sweater wearing white boy ass.
David
This story rules buddy. Just wanted to say that!
But what about Coco?!? j/k, I got a great laff out of that.
I was at the Omni shows. They were great and I remember Ice and crew walking around in the crowd beforehand. I don’t remember it being such a hardcore crowd though? but then I’m black and from Oakland so it might be hard to tell.
I got an OG copy right after it came out, before the controversy really got spun up. As albums go, I don’t know that it’s aged all that well – as was said upthread, the production is thin and at times it verges on novelty-album status, but Body Count live weren’t half bad. I thought Ice-T’s team-up with Slayer sounded more convincing, and I’m sort of sorry that more rap and metal pairings didn’t happen. Leaving the Judgment Night soundtrack aside for a second, there was a lot of potential there.
The Lollapalooza 91 half rap/half rock set was like a bomb going off
Dec 92 @ Vic Theater in Chicago, cops bused in to protest and it was full of angry energy
great live band and bummed that they have lost so many members
Yep. Ice T’s collaboration with Black Sabbath on Forbidden.
That shit was off da hook, dog.
Ice-T also collaborated with Six Feet Under if I’m not mistaken. I believe it was on the track ‘One Bullet Left’.
Indeed, it’s on “True Carnage” along with a Karyn Crisis duet.
This is kinda of a strange case of synchronicity, because I woke up this morning with “There Goes The Neighborhood” playing in my head, so I went on youtube and shared the video for it on facebook. Another fact: I’m from l.a. and some of the gangsters in high school would say that the initials BC (Body Count) also stood for Bloods/Crips.
Ice T spoke at my school a few years ago. I find it funny that the bigger schools around my area would usually have some corporate jagoff like the CEO of Boeing or the CFO of Monsanto speak, who fucking cares about how much taxes they did not pay or how many houses they owned in the last decade. I’d rather listen to a more signficant icon that has contributed to the history of music like ICE MUTHAFUCKIN’ T!
I still get pumped sometimes hearing these songs, just like i’m 14 again. I think they captured something that got lost once most of the band died (Born Dead wasn’t too too bad, but the last 2 albums…yikes).
If only people weren’t as complacent and scared anymore.
The Body did an awesome cover of “Cop Killer”
One of the most brilliant things about Body Count and this album is that it made a naive white teenage girl who grew up in a rural Northern California town, who had never had any run-ins with police (let alone bad ones), understand why someone would feel compelled to kill a cop — and would want to celebrate the desire to do so.
Well written, Justin — this whole thing takes me back to a period in my life I don’t think about so much anymore. Aside from making me nostalgic, you’ve captured the essence of why this album was so important, and the explosive climate in which it was released.
While I agree with the article, this album did come at the very end of thrash’s amazing (nearly) decade long run and by that time, did feel very novelty/opportunistic to me and all my metal buds. I still wish I’d had the chance to see them though!
Smoked pork and body count in the house – as far as intros go – is on par with Sargent D and the March of the SOD. It’s that good. I still spin it to do this day.
I think I also played “there goes the neighborhood” on my radio show in college – at 2 a.m. – and I got the only other call I ever got besides the lady who always called to request Candlemass’ Bewitched. They called to complain and were going to file a complaint that I was racist. Until I told him it was Ice-T. Long pause. “Oh. Ok.” And he hung up.
Listening to it right now. Sweet song. “We’re here. We aint’ goin nowhere. Right next to you. Body Count, muthafucka . ..”
Great article.
The record doesn’t mean anything to me. I don’t think I’ve ever heard any of it, and I don’t remember knowing anyone who had it, although my best friend’s dad (a cop) said something vague about it once or twice. Then again I was 10 in 1992, and living in a small town in the Great Plains which was sans black people (I never saw a black person in town until 6 years later; he was driving a delivery truck from out of town and wanted directions). The Rodney King stuff was a complete mystery to me when I saw bits and pieces on TV. I can’t relate in the slightest.
Yet, the article puts all of it in perfect context. Excellent work.
(Now I gotta get a copy of this. AND the Judgment Night soundtrack!)
( Also, it looks like the original CDs are about $30 on eBay. Yikes!)
@ post-felix:
I agree. And here’s a great live performance of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=besaeC0ZpX8
The number of Black on white hate crimes far, far exceeds white on black ones, and they get virtually no national attention when they happen. I bet we’ll never see any metal albums about that, and if we did, metal ‘progressives’ will dismiss it as racism when it’s simply the truth. Ice-T can say whatever he wants, but it’s a shame we’re not given the whole side of the story.
I should know better than to even react…but that’s the dumbest statement I’ve heard in a while. White on white crime and black on black crime are wildly more predominant. And yes, there’s plenty of music about each of those cases. I’ll leave it at that.
When it comes to inter-racial violence (not violence in general), black on white is much more prevalent. Body Count was ranting about white on black violence. Not sure what’s so dumb about my statement. Yeesh, metal fandom sure is politically monolithic these days.