body count

Body Count emerged in 1990 as a five-piece, two-guitar juggernaut fusion of hip-hop, heavy metal, and rebellion. Twenty-seven years later, the band has grown to a septet, but kept its sonic and lyrical sights on target.

Ice-T’s guitar tag-team raps about the cold-steel riffs and slamming grooves on the controversial outfit’s brutal new LP.

It’s been 25 years since rapper Ice-T’s band Body Count released “Cop Killer.” This topical protest song—probably more controversial than any single before it—drew fierce criticism from law-enforcement agencies and politicians, including then-President George H. W. Bush. Things got so intense that, after receiving death threats, the band scrapped the song from its eponymous 1992 debut.

With that song and the album, Ice-T and his crew had arrived at an interesting intersection of hip-hop and rock, combining thrash and metal guitars with spoken and sung lyrics—and more than a little rage. In an ironic twist, in 2000 Ice-T began playing a police officer, Detective Fin Tutuola, on NBC’s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. But through half a dozen albums and the deaths of three of Body Count’s founding members, the band’s formula remains largely intact—anger and all.

Read MoreShow less