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The seed for Body Count was planted when Ice-T tapped Ernie C and their high-school crew to play on some of his rap records, including the song Body Count from Ice’s acclaimed 1991 album O.G. Ernie C never stopped playing guitar, so his chops were tight when they eventually reconnected. Ice-T headed to the army for a few years, and upon his return started pursuing his rap career. This was before I even thought of making music.”Īfter high school the guys went their separate ways. “He was probably one of the most talented people I knew.

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“Ernie was walking around with his guitar, and it wasn’t hard to tell that he knew how to play,” Ice-T recalls. The guys eventually befriended Ice-T (né Tracy Marrow), bassist Lloyd “Mooseman” Roberts III and guitarist Dennis “D-Roc” Miles at Crenshaw High School. Ernie C had been pals with drummer Victor Wilson (later known as Beatmaster V) since the young guitarist first moved to L.A.

Ernie Cunnigan was a guitar-obsessed, left-handed Strat-wielding kid that dug a wide range of styles: from Jimi Hendrix and the Isley Brothers to what he calls the “organized metal” of Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Yes. “I’ve always pushed anti-racism and unity because I’ve always been able to look at my audience and see every color, every race, every sex, everybody enjoying themselves… If you’re in my audience, we’re all together.”īody Count’s origin story begins in 1970s South Central Los Angeles. “Music is the most unifying thing in the world,” Ice-T says. Music is the most unifying thing in the world Ice-T Their early '90s efforts paved the way for the popular guitar-slinging rap-rock and nu-metal acts of the new millennium (Korn, Limp Bizkit and more) and helped unite disparate scenes on a grassroots one-show-at-a-time level. Outside the band, Ice-T has enjoyed a long career as an actor (his most notable role, ironically, being sergeant “Fin” Tutuola on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit), while Ernie C has produced metal royalty (Black Sabbath’s Forbidden) and booked shows for fledgling acts that would become name brands (Stone Temple Pilots, Rage Against the Machine).īody Count’s sound has always been more metal than hip-hop, but their genre-blending mindset was ahead of its time and had a lasting impact on the musical landscape. They’ve dropped six more high-octane full-length albums, the most recent of which, 2020’s Carnivore, earned them their first Grammy for the single Bum-Rush. have risen from much-derided antagonists to establishment-endorsed successes. The album also cemented the successful partnership between the core team of Ice-T and Ernie C that continues to this day. Body Count debuted on Billboard’s Top 50 chart and eventually earned gold certification. The record’s thrashing, pit-starting, guitar-driven anthems were praised by music journalists and famous supporters, including members of Soundgarden, Nirvana, Guns N’ Roses and more. It wasn’t a novelty like Run-DMC and Aerosmith it was a real rock band.”īody Count’s debut was a polarizing statement – one that excited and inspired music fans just as much as it enraged and offended conservative groups. Almost like what rap was doing, but we put it in metal form. I think that’s why we caught on we brought the realism of the streets. We brought that mentality into the music. “White kids were scared of the devil we were scared of the streets. “We were trying to make it real, from a Black perspective,” says Ernie C. The songs were works of fiction, but the issues at their heart were very real and were dire concerns that plagued their community.

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We brought that mentality into the music Ernie CĪt the time, Body Count maintained that they were simply exercising their right to free speech and participating in the long tradition of protest music that used over-the-top poetics to craft gripping tales. White kids were scared of the devil we were scared of the streets. We were totally unprepared for that backlash.” “You have rock bands called Millions of Dead Cops… But little did I know it was like we touched an electric fence, and everything just hit us. But I thought the cops were a fair target, considering Black Flag had been going at the cops. “I knew I was writing controversial stuff, like KKK Bitch and Momma’s Gotta Die Tonight. “We never, ever, ever expected it to get that type of response,” Ice-T tells Guitar World today.

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