***ICE-T”O.G. Original Gangster” SireSo now Ice is...

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ICE-T

“O.G. Original Gangster”

Sire

So now Ice is a big Hollywood movie star. Can he still rap with the South-Central homeboys? He sure can. He was among the first and he’s still among the best, even if his fourth album doesn’t really offer much new, Jack.

On the surface, from the title on down, this seems like a self-conscious bid to maintain street credibility. There’s a lot of tough talk and reports from the front of Los Angeles, “The Home of the Bodybag”--the kind of stuff that’s gotten routine lately. But below the surface are a sharp eye, intelligence and craft that fuel his vivid docudramas as he delineates the truth and consequences of urban life and death, most notably in the chillingly paced “Midnight” and the prison scenes of “The Tower.”

The thing is, Ice-T is ashamed of where he comes from--he’s ashamed of the ignorance and bravado that put people in body bags and prison cells, even if he once seemed to glorify those very things. And even if he brags that “William Morris is my agency,” he hasn’t turned his back on his roots. He just wants everyone there to know that, as a song title puts it, his ticket out was “Mind Over Matter.”

Albums are rated on a scale of one asterisk (poor) to five (a classic).