Time Magazine interviewed Ice-T about his role as director and inspiration for his upcoming movie, “Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap.” Ice was moved by the lack of respect for the game to create a film “not about the money, the cars, the jewelry, the beef.” “I want to talk about the craft,” he said.
He then elaborated on the future of hip hop, explaining that the basis lies in vocal delivery, which gives the genre a wide array of plateaus to travel upon; Flo Rida was his prime example, who uses mainly dance music as his foundation for his lyrics. However, Ice-T gave a promising statement for all hip hop fans, saying “people will be rapping on records as long as we’re alive…”
The director showed the most prowess over his film as well as the entire genre itself, though, when asked “do you think rap and pop have to stay separate?” Ice defined the origin of hip-hop as “counter-culture;” hip-hop should be everything that isn’t playing on the radio. “When you kind of blend into what popular culture is doing, you’re losing the power of hip-hop…If you’re just going to rap about ‘I got money and we balling,’ you’re not doing with it what it was meant to do.” This was Ice’s only shot at contemporary artists, pointing out the obvious lack of sustenance and meaningful commentary in the lyrics of today.
Ice-T ended his answer simply but intelligently, with clear incite on the game he’s spent his entire life playing in: “It’s [hip-hop] meant to rock a party, but it was meant to change the world.”
Props to Time Magazine.
-Kevin Shea (@kevinnshea)
