LOS ANGELES — Ice-T’s reputation as an O.G. original gangster is now set in stone — in the form of a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. The rapper and actor was honored with a recording industry star Friday, the walk’s 2,747th, at 7065 Hollywood Blvd.
Taking the mic to speak on Ice-T’s behalf were “Law & Order” franchise producer Dick Wolf, “Law & Order: SVU” co-star Mariska Hargitay and Public Enemy rapper Chuck D.
Ice-T — real name Tracy Lauren Marrow — was brought on stage to bask in the moment as Wolf stepped up to say a few words about their quarter-century relationship. In the audience sat his wife, Coco, and their 7-year-old daughter, Chanel, who would later join her papa at the podium.
“Ice has appeared in more of my shows than anyone else on Earth. It goes back now 25 years,” Wolf said. “I’m now gonna show how old I am by saying, ‘Ice is the coolest guy I have ever met,’ and I’ve said that to him. I don’t know what the term for it is — ‘the bomb’? I don’t know.”
He went on to praise the actor, who plays Sgt. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola on “SVU,” for his work ethic and his “universal appeal,” saying that nobody gets the reaction Ice-T does when filming among the public on city streets.
“He is universally liked by his compatriots,” Wolf said, “and I assume the same is true of the music world.”
Then it was time for Hargitay to talk about the Walk of Fame, which she considers an “unspeakably sacred” place where her star sits next to her mother Jayne Mansfield’s.
“Your whole story runs so deep,” Hargitay said of Ice-T’s legacy. “It runs deep particularly here in L.A., and it runs deep around the world. You are a rapper and an actor and an artist. And at a time when people overuse words without thinking and wearing out the meanings, you are indeed the real O.G.”
She continued: “You have lived a story that has shaped how you look at the world. A story that would have hardened many people beyond recognition. but instead it filled you with humanity, with humility, with grace and with oh-so-much wisdom. You are a devoted husband and a proud, proud, proud father, and you are taking your place here for all those reasons and for so many more.
“But to me, Ice, the reason you’re here, and the reason you have fame in my heart, is because you are the O.G. of friendship. You are my real deal, my true blue, authentic, unshakable friend, and I cannot tell you what that means to me.”
Hargitay, like Wolf, said she never saw Ice-T complain, ever, in their decades working together.
“You know why, Maris?,” the rapper broke in. “Hustlers don’t complain. We figure it out.”
Hargitay figured something out as well: She said Ice-T lets her call him “Icy” — a nickname nobody else is allowed to use.
Then came Chuck D, the Public Enemy rapper, who has his own nickname for the rapper: Iceberg.
“O.G., original gangster, original god, is where Ice-T has been all along,” Chuck D said. “He’s changed the world with words. I call him Berg as a nickname ‘cause he’s so cool that he could sink the Titanic and raise it again.”
He talked about how Ice-T — who was born in New Jersey but moved to the Crenshaw District as a teen — brought East Coast and West Coast rap together in conversation before corporations turned East vs. West into “a thing.”
“He brought theater to hip-hop and rap, and you got frozen in the moment like he’s the Black rap Alice Cooper, without biting off the bird’s head,” Chuck D said as the friendly crowd laughed. “And he would hold you in the palm of his hand with words, wisdom and wit.”
He then praised “Iceberg” for his efforts as an author, a thrash-metal artist and an actor in TV and movies. He called him out as “the superhero that he is, the ambassador, spokesperson, father, godfather, husband and bigger brother. And also friend.” And he wished him a happy birthday; Ice-T turned 65 on Thursday.
“It’s a good run,” Chuck D said, “and we’re gonna keep on running.”
When it was finally Ice-T’s turn at the mic, he didn’t disappoint.
“I never thought I would get a star — really? I mean, the way my life was going, it was what can we come up in Hollywood and steal. We were really out here causing real problems. And this was just out of the question. Show business was just out of the question.”
Then came hip-hop, and Ice-T found something he could do, he said, telling the stories of the life he had been living on albums including “Rhyme Pays.” When Ice Cube and N.W.A came up and the media branded the “reality” genre “gangsta rap,” Ice-T said, he pronounced himself the “original gangster” who started it. He said he founded the Rhyme Syndicate to keep all the L.A. hip-hop groups from fighting with one another.
“With the Syndicate” — modeled off mafioso Lucky Luciano’s Commission of crime families back east — “we never had one beef in L.A. between rappers,” Ice-T said. He was proud of that.
Then he got a role playing a cop in Mario Van Peebles’ “New Jack City,” which piqued his interest in acting. His career grew from there, eventually leading to New York and “Law & Order: SVU.” That turned into 24 years on the show, which he said he loves because of the “good people” involved. He said he’s still having fun, and that’s why he shows up.
About the star ceremony, he said he thought his friends were more excited about it than he was — and he thanked them, along with his music, film and TV colleagues.
“Last but not least,” Ice-T said, “I want to thank the motherf— haters, ‘cause you really make me get up in the morning and be the best that I can be. All the naysayers, all the people that wanted to end my career, now I’m on the Walk of Fame ... and that’s the motivation! You’ve got to let the haters motivate you.
“If it wasn’t for the haters, I definitely wouldn’t have pulled this off, I swear to God,” he added a moment later. “I’m gonna give you so much more to hate in the future.”
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