Power (Ice-T album)

Power
Studio album by Ice-T
Released September 13, 1988
Recorded Autumn 1987-Summer 1988
Genre West Coast hip hop, gangsta rap
Length 47:53
Label Sire/Warner Bros. Records
25765
Producer Afrika Islam
Ice-T chronology

Rhyme Pays
(1987)		 Power
(1988)		 The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech...Just Watch What You Say
(1989)
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic [1]
RapReviews.com [2]
Robert Christgau B+[3]
Rolling Stone [4]
Yahoo! Music (favorable)[5]

Power is the second album by Ice-T. Released in 1988, the album produced the single and video "I'm Your Pusher," which got Ice-T major air-play on MTV.

The album cover, photographed by Glen E. Friedman, was the subject of controversy upon its original release, due to the provocative pose of Darlene Ortiz, Ice-T's girlfriend at the time. "I'm Your Pusher," an anti-drug song, was also interpreted as having the opposite message.[6] The album is broken down track-by-track by Ice-T in Brian Coleman's book Check the Technique.[7]

Track listing

  1. "Intro" – 1:11
  2. "Power" – 4:25
  3. "Drama" – 4:15
  4. "Heartbeat" – 4:08
  5. "The Syndicate" (feat. Donald D, Hen Gee) – 3:32
  6. "Radio Suckers" – 4:24
  7. "I'm Your Pusher" (Vocals by Pimpin' Rex) – 5:35
  8. "Personal" – 3:43
  9. "Girls L.G.B.N.A.F." – 3:00
  10. "High Rollers" – 4:36
  11. "Grand Larceny" – 3:51
  12. "Soul on Ice" – 4:42
  13. "Outro" – 0:39

Singles

“I’M YOUR PUSHER”

Produced By Afrika Islam Ice-T: I come from an era where we were all into the Blaxploitation era; whether it was Dolemite, or Supafly, or Truck Turner, The Mack. Being that I was named after Iceberg Slim, my albums had to sound like one of those movies; like a player just chopping game. So that Curtis Mayfield record (“Pusherman”), I held close until the second album. I had an idea that Rap would become illegal because I know it was too toxic. So I knew that dudes would have to sell their music like dope, so we used that metaphor and that’s something else we have seen come true. [8]


“HIGH ROLLERS”

Produced By Afrika Islam Ice-T: I like to define things and break stuff down. “High Rollers”, we just broke it down. I wanted to write it like if you were really from the game, you knew I knew what I was talking about. It had to be authentic. I never really felt like I had to be judged by rappers, I always wanted to be judged by real players. So when we did the video, we had the real guns and the real money, we had real cocaine on the scene; it was real sh*t. The people shooting the video got real shook. They wanted to know if the guns were really unloaded. I told n****s to come heavy we doing a video and they brought their own cars and it was real. That was when MTV would show guns. But me being real, at the end of the video I die. I was trying to show the real hustler lifestyle. That house in the video was my first crib from moving out of an apartment. I was wearing FILA, using a big ass brick ass phone. To me you can’t talk about this game without talking about the B-Side of the game. I would always talk hard in my music, but I always wanted to show the vulnerability of the game.

References

  1. ↑ Allmusic review
  2. ↑ RapReviews.com review
  3. ↑ Robert Christgau review
  4. ↑ Brackett, Nathan, ed. (2004). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide. Simon and Schuster. pp. page 401. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
  5. ↑ Yahoo! Music review
  6. ↑ Ice-T; Sigmund, Heidi (1994). The Ice Opinion: Who Gives a Fuck?. Pan Books. pp. page 164. ISBN 0-330-33629-0.
  7. ↑ Coleman, Brian. Check The Technique: Liner Notes For Hip-Hop Junkies. New York: Villard/Random House, 2007.
  8. ↑ http://allhiphop.com/2008/12/19/class-of-88-ice-t-and-power/

External links