Tracy Lauren Marrow, better known by his stage name, Ice-T, is a rapper, actor, and author. He is credited with helping create gangsta rap in the late 1980s.

After leaving the Army, Ice-T began his extremely long career of recording raps for various studios on 12-inch singles. These tracks were later compiled on The Classic Collection and also featured on disc 2 of Legends of Hip-Hop. His first song was "The Coldest Rap" in 1982. His first official gangsta rap record was "6 in the Mornin'" one of the first of that sub-genre ever recorded. He said he was influenced by the Schoolly D record "P.S.K.," considered by many to be the first gangsta rap record.

He finally landed a deal with a major label Sire Records. When label founder and president Seymour Stein heard his demo, he said, “He sounds like Bob Dylan.” Shortly after, he released his debut album Rhyme Pays, in 1987, supported by DJ Evil E, DJ Aladdin and producer Afrika Islam, who helped create the mainly party-oriented sound; the record wound up being certified gold by the RIAA. That same year, he recorded the title theme song for Dennis Hopper's Colors, a film about inner-city life in Los Angeles. His next album Power was released in 1988, under his own label Rhyme Syndicate, and it was a more assured and impressive record, earning him strong reviews and his second gold record. Released in 1989, The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech... Just Watch What You Say established his popularity by matching excellent abrasive music with narrative lyrics.

In 1991 he released his album OG: Original Gangster, which is regarded as one of the albums that defined gangsta rap. On OG, he introduced his band Body Count in a track of the same name; Ice-T toured with Body Count on the first annual Lollapalooza concert tour in 1991, gaining him appeal among middle-class teenagers and fans of alternative music genres. The self-titled debut album by Body Count followed. For his appearance on the heavily collaborative track "Back on the Block", a composition by jazz musician Quincy Jones that "attempted to bring together black musical styles from jazz to soul to funk to rap", Ice-T won a Grammy Award for the Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group, an award shared by others who worked on the track including Jones and fellow jazz musician Ray Charles Controversy later surrounded Body Count over its song "Cop Killer", a song intended as a narrative from the view of a criminal killing a police officer, from the National Rifle Association and various police advocacy groups. Consequently, Time Warner Music refused to release Ice-T's upcoming album Home Invasion simply because of the controversy surrounding "Cop Killer". When Ice split amicably with Sire/Warner Bros. Records after a dispute over the artwork of the album Home Invasion, he reactivated Rhyme Syndicate and formed a deal with Priority Records for distribution; Priority released Invasion in the spring of 1993. Home Invasion ranked low in sales and critical reviews, and Ice-T's regular fanbase shifted more towards upper-class white teenagers. Ice-T had also collaborated with certain other heavy metal bands during this time period. For the film Judgment Night, he did a duet with band Slayer on the track "Disorder". In 1995, Ice-T made a guest performance on Forbidden by the heavy metal band Black Sabbath. Another album of his, VI - Return of the Real came out in 1996, followed by The Seventh Deadly Sin in 1999.

His first rap album since 1999, Gangsta rap, was released on October 31, 2006. Some reviews of the album were unenthusiastic, as many had hoped for a return to the political raps of Ice-T's most successful albums.

Besides fronting his own band, Ice-T has also collaborated with other hard rock and metal bands, such as Icepick, Motörhead, Pro-Pain, and Six Feet Under. He has also covered songs by hardcore punk bands such as The Exploited, Jello Biafra, and Black Flag.

Ice-T debuted as an actor in the films Breakin' and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo in 1984, only two years after his first 12" ("The Coldest Rap," 1982) appeared. In 1991, he embarked on a serious acting career, playing a police detective in Mario Van Peebles' feature film New Jack City, gang leader King James in Trespass (1992), followed by a notable lead role performance in Surviving the Game in addition to his many supporting roles, such as J-Bone in Johnny Mnemonic (1995), and the marsupial mutant T-Saint in Tank Girl, 1995.

In 1995 he had a recurring role as vengeful drug dealer Danny Cort on the television series New York Undercover, which was co-created by Dick Wolf. In 1997, Ice-T co-created the short-lived series Players, which was produced by Wolf. These two collaborations led Wolf to add Ice-T to the cast of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, where the rapper has portrayed a former undercover narcotic officer, transferred to the Special Victims Unit, Detective Fin Tutuola since 2000. Ice-T also appeared in the Law & Order universe as pimp Seymour "Kingston" Stockton in Exiled: A Law & Order Movie. His participation in this show is ironic, given the early controversy surrounding his group Body Count with their song "Cop Killer". Ice-T also appears in the movie Leprechaun: In the Hood.