Ice-T Album: “Power”

For me Ice-T is one of the best rappers ever and I've spent long hours listening to his hardcore gangster rap. Kind of odd for a middle-aged white guy but what can I say? His in your face, pro-freedom of speech attitude is one that I hold myself. He is one of the founding fathers of gangster rap and one of it's most innovative lyricists. I've seen Ice-T do his rap act only once but have seen him with his band Body Count four times and he puts on a tremendous show.

Power is worth the cost of the CD just for the front and BACK cover alone!! This is one of my favorite rap albums. As always Ice drops clever lyrics and in Power mixes ups the beats and pace to keep the entire album entertaining. You won't be hit the skip button to miss songs on this album.

Power gets an impressive four stars:

Drama *

I'm Your Pusher *

Personal *

High Rollers *

Girls LGBNAF just misses being a star.

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Ratings: CDs are rated simply by how many good songs are on the album. Great songs get two stars, and good songs get one star. Songs that get no stars are those that I might like but not enough to give it a star or ones I find boring or actively dislike. CDs are not penalized for songs that I don't like because they are easy enough to skip over. There is no maximum number of stars a CD can get, but of course the more stars it gets, the better the CD.

As with all reviews, these are my subjective opinions on the album.

So good. So fun, so honest.

From the heart original storytelling with animation in his delivery. Genuine performer, excellent samples and beats, producing and mixing.

You forget how fresh and uplifting this music was and is. Ice T is an entertainer and just plain groovy to listen to. He's a poet, in the end. I love that I got the hair-brain idea of buying this cd in 2012, I've listened to it several times..

The drums and earlt synths sound cool and a download won't have the sonic dynamics as the physical cd with 44.1k/16.

PS, Play it loud and with confidence and see everyone that hears it SMILE really big at you. :)

This CD is brilliant. Its the original hardcore rap with no censors or edits. The lyrics say it like it is over bomb dropping drum beats. If you're looking for an old school rap cd, forget all that other toy hip hop stuff, get this. Its excellent.

I might be grandpa for saying this, but when I wanna be rocked afresh with swift/smart/smooth rhymes, I go back to the time when Rap was still strong and had no imitators or pretenders to the throne.

"Power" was recorded in two weeks, but it sure doesn't sound like it--some of Ice's classic tracks are right here: "I'm Your Pusher", "High Rollers", "Girls LGBNAF", "Power", "Radio Suckers"... not a weak link on the album with the exception of party number "The Syndicate".

Later albums "The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech..." and "O.G." would embody perfection, but this was the REAL Ice at his zenith.

Before I got this album, I used to listen to a lot of Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and other rappers like them. What can I say, When I first played this through, the raw, street-level beats and fiercly intelligent lyrics were a refreshing change from any other rap I'd ever listened to. Ice-T covers everything from cold hard street tales to political issues to songs with powerful messages and just plain party-type tracks with great rhymes. This is easily Rap's best example of powerful and articulate lyrics. So pick this up, you'll get much more out of it than anything by Nas or Jay-Z, and once you go the Ice-T route you never go back to the lesser brands.