Body Count (album)
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| Body Count studio album | ||||
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Publication |
1992 |
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| Label (s) | Sire Records | |||
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Format (s) |
Cassette, CD |
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Title (number) |
17th |
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running time |
52 min 37 s |
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| occupation |
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Africa Islam , Ice-T , Ernie C |
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Body Count is the self-titled debut album of the crossover formation Body Count , which was first released on March 30, 1992 under the name Cop Killer . After Warner distributors shipped about half a million copies of the album, it was withdrawn after months of controversy on July 28, 1992 and under a new name and without the controversial song Cop Killer , which was replaced by a track called Freedom of Speech (a collaboration by Singer's Ice-T was replaced with Jello Biafra ), republished. The original version was mainly denounced by police associations, who blamed Ice-T and his band for the unrest in Los Angeles that began a month after the work was published . In the US presidential campaign of the same year, several candidates, including Bill Clinton , George Bush and Pat Buchanan , commented on this song.
Music genre
Body Count is now considered a groundbreaking album. Intro magazine described it as "one of the first attempts to fraternize hip-hop and hard rock music over a full album length". This makes it a pioneer of Nu Metal . The spectrum of songs ranges from Thrash Metal to relatively classic Hip-Hop to the power ballad The Winner Loses .
Controversy
Debate about the album began on June 11th after a Texas police association went public at a press conference to complain about Body Count. The following day, a member of the Los Angeles City Council , Joan Milke Flores , who was then campaigning for the US House of Representatives as a Republican candidate , asked Time Warner to voluntarily withdraw the album. She also reached out to all the radio stations in the area asking them to boycott the band, regardless of the fact that Body Count wasn't playing anyway.
A few days later, more police associations joined Flores. The police union leader in Los Angeles said of the song Cop Killer : “ This song does nothing but arouse the passions of the criminal element who make the streets of Los Angeles unsafe. “(This song encourages the criminal elements that roam the streets of Los Angeles). The record company initially sided with the band with the argument of artistic freedom. On June 16, the Republican called for Governor of Alabama , Guy Hunt , the record stores of the State album to sell more. On June 17, Time Warner received a signed letter from 60 members of Congress (57 of whom were Republican Party members) criticizing the company for distributing the album. Shortly thereafter, three of the largest record stores took the albums off their program. US Vice President Dan Quayle called the album obscene . Other politicians and public figures were also outraged by the contents of the album. President George Bush, for example, called the song "sick", some police groups called for a boycott of all Time Warner products, and Charlton Heston attended a shareholders' meeting of the company where he gave a speech in which he discussed the songs Cop Killer and KKK Bitch argued and criticized Time Warner for spreading them. Commenting on the riots in Los Angeles, Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan said: “ ... where did the mob come from? It came out of rock concerts where rap music celebrates raw lust and cop killing. "(Where did the mob come from? It came from rock concerts where rap musicians celebrate raw lust and the killing of cops.)
The album reached number 26 on the Billboard chart in the defused version after having consistently ranked between 32 and 50 prior to the debate. Time Warner and Body Count split a short time later.
Track list
Original version
In this version, the cover of the album features a graffiti- style, muscular gangster with a revolver on his hip and a lock chain in his hand, with the words Cop Killer tattooed on his chest .
- Smoked pork
- Body Count's in the House
- Now Sports
- Body count
- A statistic
- Bowels of the Devil
- The real problem
- KKK bitch
- C note
- voodoo
- The Winner Loses
- There Goes The Neighborhood
- Oprah
- Evil Dick
- Body Count Anthem
- Momma's Gotta Die Tonight
- Out in the parking lot
- Cop killer
New version
The Cop-Killer - tattoo on the cover was in this version by a body count replaced -Tattoo. The last song was replaced by Freedom Of Speech ( Remix using Jimi Hendrix ' Foxy Lady - Sample ). The intro to Cop Killer (“Out In The Parking Lot”) was omitted.
Meaning of the lyrics
The lyrics of the album are interspersed with irony and exaggeration, as Ice-T emphasized in interviews. The All Music Guide attests that the lyrics are similar to a comic book. Between the individual songs there is spoken information and statements by the band, such as A Statistic ("At the moment there are more black people in prison than in college "). The main themes are police violence, racism , drugs and sex. Lyrics that stand out are described below.
KKK Bitch (No. 8)
KKK Bitch (KKK for Ku Klux Klan ) tells about the band's tour experiences in the southern United States . In the introduction the song is announced as a love story , it follows the story of an encounter with a good-looking white southern woman who tells the protagonist after intercourse that her father is the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Dressed in white sheets, the band attends a meeting of the clan. Body Count countered the hate speech with a statement against racism, according to which they love all girls, regardless of their origin, if they are only available for sex. This song came under criticism in particular for a line of text that implies a sexual relationship between Ice-T and the twelve-year-old nieces of Tipper Gore .
Momma's Gotta Die Tonight (# 16)
This song is about the relationship between the narrator and his mother. First he emphasizes his love for his mother and his gratitude before he explains why he now hates her. In a dialogue she explains to him that white people shouldn't be trusted, whereupon the narrator asks, “ I thought we were all the same momma, why momma? “(I thought we were all the same, mom, why, mom?), Which his mother replies by forbidding herself from such questions. One day when he introduces his mother to a white friend and is beaten for it, he finds out that his mother is a racist, whereupon he sets her on fire. The listener is advised to either distance themselves clearly from racism or to proceed as described.
Cop Killer (No. 18)
Cop Killer is a first person song that tells of the preparations for the murder of a police officer in revenge for abuse and discrimination suffered by police officers. The song makes explicit reference to Rodney King and the then police chief of Los Angeles , Daryl Gates (" FUCK THE POLICE, for Daryl Gates. - FUCK THE POLICE, for Rodney King ".)
Ice-T repeatedly made it clear that the song was not a call to violence and that he was not a "cop killer" himself. It is fiction, and anyone who takes his texts literally would probably also consider David Bowie an astronaut.
literature
- Heidi Siegmund, Ice T: The Ice Opinion. 1995, ISBN 0-330-34369-6
Web links
- Fears of the White Unconscious: Music, Race, and Identification in the Censorship of "Cop Killer"; Article by Barry Shank (English)
- The Music of Murder by Dennis R Martin, former President of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, and Rap, cops, and crime: clarifying the 'cop killer' controversy by Mark S. Hamm and Jeff Ferrell (English)
- Christopher Sieving: Cop out? The media, "Cop Killer," and the deracialization of Black rage. in Journal of Communication Inquiry, Oct 1998 v22 n4 p334 (Word document, English; 82 kB)
- Ice-T speaks out on censorship, Cop Killer, his leaving WB, and more (English)
- Just a song? An artist's right to speak is inviolable - so long as his records sell - controversy over Ice-T's album 'Body Count' advocating killing of police officers by Charlton Heston (English)
- The album in the All Music Guide
- Review at sputnikmusic.com (English)
- Report in the New York Times (English)
swell
- ↑ Body Count at Allmusic (English)
- ↑ Uwe Buschmann: Body Count - "Live In LA" ( Memento of the original from September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Intro No. 137)
- ↑ Jon Pareles: Dissing the Rappers Is Fodder for the Sound Bite ( Memento of the original from March 12, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . New York Times, June 28, 1992 (accessed November 9, 2009)
- ↑ Esther Addley: Wisdom from the 'hood . The Guardian, August 13, 2003 (accessed November 9, 2009)
- ↑ Barry Shank: Fears of the White Unconscious: Music, Race, and Identification in the censorship of "Cop Killer" ( Memento of the original from October 11, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Article from Radical History Review , Fall 1996 (accessed November 9, 2009)
- ^ Robert Christgau: Mr. Tipper . Village Voice, July 21, 1992
- ↑ Interpretation by James Bowman for National Review : http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n14_v44/ai_12504454/pg_2
- ↑ http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n14_v44/ai_12504454
- ^ Matthew McKinnon: Hang the MC - Blaming hip hop for violence: a four-part series ( Memento November 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ). Article of February 7, 2006 at cbc.ca (accessed on May 14, 2008)
