Ice T on Witnessing His Parents Pass Away And Being Introduced To LA Gang Culture

[00:00:00]A lot of people, like I said, don't know your story, where's the whole story, the rapper, the artist, whatever. So, I want to start from the beginning. And starting from the beginning is, you know, Lil Ice, who is where was he born?

[00:00:13]What was the family and like let's start it from there.

[00:00:15]>> I mean real quickly, I was born in Newark, New Jersey.

[00:00:18]>> Mhm.

[00:00:18]>> Uh my mother and father my mother was a very fair-skinned black lady. She was from um New Orleans. They was Creole, you know?

[00:00:28]And that's where you get a lot of light-skinned black people with light eyes.

[00:00:32]Uh but my father was your complexion.

[00:00:34]>> Mhm.

[00:00:35]>> So, therefore, back in the '50s, people look at them like they were interracial marriage.

[00:00:40]So, >> my mother got to hear white people talk about black people in front of her cuz she could pass. Back in those days, they said you could pass if you're very fair-skinned.

[00:00:50]So, that's why all racism went out the window in my household. My mother said that's just stupid. My father my everybody So, I never had a bit of racism in me because I was it was taught out of me early. Like, you know, don't ever look at anybody and decide who they are by what they look like, you know? So, I always say I judge a devil by its deeds. I watch people closely.

[00:01:12]And I always knew that the person that looked most likely would probably stick be the one to stab me in the back. And the person that looked least likely would probably be the one to drag me out of a burning building. So, that early in my life was like I wasn't really connected in race with to anything. Uh my mother passed when I was in the third grade.

[00:01:33]My father died when I was in the seventh grade. My mother died from a heart attack. I was with her.

[00:01:39]We were watching Batman back in the day, black and white TV, black Batman. And my mother leaned her head back and she was having a heart attack. In those days, they just moved the kids away.

[00:01:50]Uh meaning kids didn't go to funerals or anything like that back in the day. Like, they just move you over to an aunt and they they shelter you away from it. From the pain. From all of it. You know, and um you know, when my mother passed uh I I remember a cold moment though after the funeral family members came back to our house and they would allow me to be there after, you know, and uh my relatives stole my mother's clothes.

[00:02:23]My her minks and [ __ ] My father was hot. I was but you know, and that was a quick lesson that like don't trust anybody.

[00:02:31]>> Trust no one. No, >> [laughter] >> you know what's crazy, man? I'll tell you a quick one in my world that I didn't understand it. My mom died. My mom died from an aneurysm.

[00:02:39]>> Mhm.

[00:02:40]>> Later on in life.

[00:02:42]We in a hospital. She still on a machine and my dad's grabbing her finger and everybody crying. He's trying to >> to pull that diamond off.

[00:02:50]>> He's trying to pull the ring off and he said they ain't robbing my wife on there. And then he was like, I should take the wig. And I said this is crazy, man, but >> No, it's crazy and you know, you let people in your house. It's it's you're mourning a a death but now they're wandering through the house and their attitude is well, she don't need this no more. You know, and and but it really hurt my father >> Mhm.

[00:03:13]>> to see that. And I seen him like I I I'm a kid. I'm watching this. I'm like, yo, this is crazy. And then my father passed I was in the seventh grade and they called me into the principal's office and everybody had those faces on like so and the cold thing is when my mother died, I don't I didn't cry. I I was just kind of like like off balance. Like every time this happened, I'm like, so what's going to happen to me?

[00:03:39]>> Same here.

[00:03:40]>> Yeah.

[00:03:41]>> Right. I was like, you know, you're a kid. You're like what's going to happen? So then that moved when my father passed, I was like, so what's going to happen to me? So I had an aunt that his sister and then that summer they sent me to LA.

[00:03:56]And in LA I moved in with a sister of his that I never met.

[00:04:00]And she had I had two cousins out there.

[00:04:03]They were grown. They had just got out of high school. So in comes a kid in the eighth grade that she got to take care of.

[00:04:09]>> From Jersey.

[00:04:10]>> Yeah. And up to that point I was not no bad kid. I wasn't I never was involved in nothing. I was just a kid. I mean people say oh yeah well I was 12 years old I was selling coke. No. I was still just a good kid.

[00:04:23]Basically I hadn't gotten in nothing yet, you know. I might have stole a bike or some [ __ ] >> [laughter] >> I hadn't gotten busy. So I got to LA.

[00:04:32]And uh I got bused to Palms Junior High School which is in Culver City. Uh I lived in View Park which is very upscale area of Los Angeles. Uh It's above Crenshaw up on the west side.

[00:04:47]If you're on the west side of Crenshaw it's like so nice area.

[00:04:51]And my aunt was a social worker.

[00:04:54]And she's also alcoholic. So she's out there deciding who gets to be in what foster homes and then coming home getting smashed.

[00:05:03]So I was kind of like I didn't like it there.

[00:05:07]But I I I did I did eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh grade there. Now when I got out when I got to to to high school I was like I don't want to I don't want to bus cuz they would they would they would The back then there was integration. It was integration. So they would take the kids out of the hood and moving them into white junior high school. I didn't have a problem with the white junior high school. I had a great time there.

[00:05:30]You know, when we would get off the bus the girls treat us like the Jackson 5.

[00:05:34]You know, we would getting [laughter] off the bus it was like cool. And the little white girls liked us and the white boys didn't have a problem with us. Everybody was good. It was no racism over there. It was cool. I mean the I think the kids were too See the thing of it is this racist [ __ ] hits in adulthood.

[00:05:48]>> Yeah.

[00:05:49]>> Kids really don't engage in it unless they're taught it.

[00:05:51]>> So, [ __ ] >> You know? So, the kids was cool.

[00:05:54]Everybody was cool. But, I didn't want to catch the bus cuz it added another hour to every day school. So, I went I wanted to walk to Crenshaw. When I got to Crenshaw, I was culture shocked.

[00:06:03]>> That's when it all kicked in.

[00:06:05]>> Yeah, welcome to the gangs. Uh welcome to, you know, at the time it was 1973.

[00:06:11]So, this is the era of Tookie and Kutes and and and and and and all the big gangbangers that was, you know, Raymond Washington. This is when the real gang was happening. And uh I I'm not sure if Raymond had got killed yet, but it was right there. I don't I think I think might he might have happened in '72, but '73 that's when I got to Crenshaw. And um you know, the gangs have already joined up cuz they weren't coming from Audubon, they're coming from Bethune, they're coming from Horace Mann, the other black high school junior highs.

[00:06:43]>> Okay.

[00:06:43]>> So, when I get there, I'm coming from another area. So, I immediately said, "It don't make any sense for me to join a gang because I'm not really from any >> Either either part.

[00:06:53]>> See, people don't understand is you're not in a gang, you're from a gang.

[00:06:57]>> It's where you live.

[00:06:58]>> It's where you live.

[00:06:59]>> Exactly.

[00:07:00]>> So, so when if I if you say you live on 65th, you're in the 60s, you're a 60, you know, just by where you live.

[00:07:06]>> Where you live, yeah.

[00:07:07]>> Now, whether you're an active gang member or you just an affiliate, you're going to understand the rules of that particular gang.

[00:07:14]>> in that gang in the neighborhood.

[00:07:15]>> Right. So, Rolling 60s was really Crenshaw High School is in the 60s hood.

[00:07:20]>> Mhm.

[00:07:21]>> Right? So, you got 60s, then you had Hoovers, then you had Hoover Hoover Crips at the time. Now, they're Hoover criminals. You had ATGs, which are Eight Tray Gangsters, cuz that's 83rd Street.

[00:07:31]You had Harlem Crips with the 30s. There were no 40 gang. There is a gang now, the 40s, but there weren't 40s at the time. So, you got all these gangs around you. Now, Now Bloods, there were Brims in Crenshaw, but they moved out. They went to Manual Arts, they went to Dorsey. They they they kind of like evacuated the school. So it was a [ __ ] school.

[00:07:51]So, pretty much in that school through my time, da da da da da.

[00:07:56]Uh went from, you know, the whole gang lifestyle to starting getting into the hustling lifestyle like the cats in the school. There were other cats in the school. You had the gangbangers.

[00:08:04]>> Hey, hey, gang one That was one culture.

[00:08:06]>> You got the other players. These cats is wearing feeler, uh shooting dice, perms, you know, got got a different look going, more about the women and stuff. So I I I I was always light-skinned. I had light eyes, so I was more familiar with that.

[00:08:22]>> lifestyle.

[00:08:22]>> I could be over here with these players.

[00:08:24]So I started hanging out with them and the players and the hustlers cuz at the time gang membership was not about money. If there was money, it was just them jacking you for your leather coat.

[00:08:33]>> whatever. More turf, right? More >> Yeah. Later on when I got out of high school, that's when coke hit and that's when the gangs became money.

[00:08:42]>> Money hit.

[00:08:42]>> But when I was in high school, the gangs weren't as much about money. So I needed some money, you know what I'm saying? So by the time I got to the 12th grade, I left my aunt's house.

[00:08:53]>> Mhm.

[00:08:54]>> Uh I was getting $250 social security from my parents and I told her I said, "Yo, give me this money. I'll be out of here." She said, "You can't live off $250." I said, "You sign this. Sign this check." So she signed the check over to me. I found an apartment over by Manual Arts on Kansas Avenue for $100 a month. There was a paper called The Recycler.

[00:09:17]>> How old was you then? You were 16? 17?

[00:09:20]>> Uh about to turn 18. I was in 12th grade. I said, "Give me I found it." So I went to the guy, old cat. I mean, the apartment was no bigger than this area right here. And um I told him I needed a place to stay. I said I got money coming in. He says, "You too young this and that and third."

[00:09:39]I said, "Here's the deal.

[00:09:41]I'll have this check come to you."

[00:09:43]>> Mhm.

[00:09:43]>> My my my social security >> Your check every >> come to you and you give me the difference.

[00:09:48]>> The 150.

[00:09:49]>> Yeah.

[00:09:50]So now he was secure with how he was going to get the money and we had a deal. So I I That was like the first business deal I >> Transaction.

[00:09:57]>> Like >> Yeah, you've been good you you wrong man. You've been good at business from from young though.