After Ice T and Coco made it through the turmoil a few years ago, Ice T and Coco appear to be stronger than ever as we saw Ice and Coco party it up last week in Vegas. The two have a young baby Chanel and all seems to be well in Ice-T land.
All this talk of Ice-T got us thinking about some of Ice-T’s most classic cuts and one of the first one’s that came to mind was “You Played Yourself.” The track samples “The Boss” by James Brown from the Black Caesar Soundtrack, is produced by Afrika Islam and has a concept that is still relevant today with strip clubs and drug use reaching new levels of popularity.
The song details several tales of people playing themselves. One person is a 1989 wankster, another is a rapper who doesn’t appreciate his fans and ends up broke, the third is a drug addict that ends up on death row for killing someone out of haste.
At the time Ice-T said it was his favorite song on the album The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech…Just Watch What You Say. It was a time when Ice-T making headlines for the harsh language used in his raps, but there was a deeper message that could be taken from the project. The artwork from the The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech reflects that frustration as the cover shows a Black man with guns pointed to his head and in his mouth.
“One of my most favorite songs on the new album is a song called, ‘You Played Yourself.’ Because I feel like its like a million ways out here for people to rip you off and play you. But I think the worst thing to possibly do in life is play ya self,” Ice-T said in an interview at the beginning of the interview circa the time of release.
Check out Ice-T’s#### below and don’t “Play Ya Self” this weekend.