To call Body Count’s “Cop Killer” the most controversial song of all time is probably not an understatement, and today marks the anniversary of when Ice-T announced that it would be pulled from the band’s self-titled debut album.
On July 28, 1992, Ice-T held a press conference to address the controversy surrounding the song, which had initially been included on Body Count’s first record, after the band had only played it live for a couple of years. It was subsequently removed from future pressings of Body Count and essentially banned across the country, but today you can find the track on YouTube with one quick search.
As the title implies, “Cop Killer” is a song that finds Ice-T fantasizing about murdering police officers, and it was born out of frustrations around the beating of Rodney King, which sparked the ’92 L.A. riots. The recorded version of the song mentions both King and Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates.
The song was widely criticized by police, political action groups, and politicians. Even late President of the United States George H. W. Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle publicly criticized the track, which Ice-T has described as a “protest song.”
Ice-T’s Response
Explainin’ his perspective on the song, Ice-T once said: “I’m singing in the first person as a character who is fed up with police brutality. I ain’t never killed no cop. I felt like it a lot of times. But I never did it. If you believe that I’m a cop killer, you believe David Bowie is an astronaut.” Somewhat ironically, Ice-T went on to star as NYPD detective/sergeant Odafin Tutuola in Law & Order SVU.
While the studio version of “Cop Killer” has never been rereleased, a live version of the song appears on Body Count: Live in LA, which was released in 2005.
Notably, the song’s controversy would remain a constant for the band, as Body Count guitarist Ernie C, previously told PopMatters that it “still lingers for us, even now. I’ll try to book clubs and the guy I’m talking to will mention it and I’ll think to myself, ‘Man, that was 17 years ago’, but I meet a lot of bands who ask me about it too and I’m real respected by other artists for it. But it’s a love/hate thing. Ice gets it too, even though he plays a cop on TV now on Law & Order SVU.”
The post Banned in the USA: Today Marks the 33rd Anniversary of Ice-T Pulling His Most Controversial Song From Body Count’s Debut Album appeared first on VICE.
