The fake gang Ice-T invented to keep out of trouble: “It kind of kept people off us”
Ice-T is one of the pioneers of gangsta rap and has been around for over 30 years. However, the West Coast legend, who was born on the East Coast, didn’t get exposed to LA gang culture until a bit later in life and had an ingenious way of keeping the Crips and Bloods of his school at bay.
California is known for its highly divided neighbourhoods and its toxic gangs. Still, for the first eleven years of his life, Ice-T lived with his parents in the suburbs of New Jersey. During this period, he lived a relatively quiet life, but a series of unfortunate events shook his life in a way he couldn’t have imagined.
When he was only eight years old, the lyricist’s mother suffered a fatal heart attack that left him living alone with his father until he was in middle school. However, just before he went to high school, his father also fell victim to a cardiac arrest.
As such, he was made to live with his aunt on the West Coast in the Culver City neighbourhood of LA. However, as he and his friends prepared to go to high school, the Rhyme Pays creator and his pals went to Crenshaw High instead of the local establishment.
In an interview with the online magazine The A.V. Club, Ice-T explained his shock when he arrived in California, unveiling, “[It was like] ‘Welcome to LA. Hey, guess what? We have gangs.’ Something I wasn’t used to dealing with in New Jersey and New York.”
However, Ice-T and his friends had a decoy of sorts to scare off the droves of Crips that attended Crenshaw High. Recalling how he kept the other kids on their toes, the ‘6 N The Mornin’ artist detailed, “There was like three or four of us who came from that group and went to Crenshaw. We actually created a fake gang. We told people we were part of the Hillside Crips. We had them thinking there were hundreds of us.”
He continued, “We created this other…I guess you could say shell corporation that didn’t have any backup, but it kind of kept people off us.” Although Ice-T wasn’t formally a gang member when he first entered high school, by his late teens, that life had unsurprisingly drawn him in.
Ice-T eventually joined the Rollin’ 60s, a South Central gang that the late Nipsey Hussle belonged to. Many of its members were drafted straight out of Crenshaw High School. However, Ice-T joined the military before he got too deep into street life. However, his time on the streets would provide ample inspiration for the music that would raise Ice-T up.