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Body Count

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Ice-T's crossover thrash outfit, formed in Los Angeles with guitarist Ernie C at the end of the 80s — rap-honed political fury delivered at hardcore speed, and still no interest in softening it.

Ice-T's taste for heavy metal grew out of sharing a room with a cousin who only listened to rock radio, and he came to favor acts like Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Edgar Winter. At Crenshaw High School he found classmates who felt the same way, including guitarist Ernie C, D-Roc, Beatmaster V and Mooseman, and the group that became Body Count first played together on tracks from Ice-T's own solo album before taking shape as a band in 1989.

Musically the group works in fast, riff-heavy crossover territory, with Ice-T delivering lyrics as a shouted, rap-inflected bark over Ernie C's playing. The band's 1992 self-titled debut arrived with the track "Cop Killer," which triggered a national political controversy; Ice-T eventually pulled it from later pressings himself, feeling the uproar had overshadowed the music, and the band left Sire Records the following year.

Three of the original members have since died: D-Roc from lymphoma, Beatmaster V from leukemia, and Mooseman in a drive-by shooting. Body Count kept going regardless, with a lineup that now includes guitarist Juan Garcia, bassist Vincent Price, drummer Will Dorsey and backing vocalists Sean E Sean and Little Ice, Ice-T's son.

The band won its first Grammy at the 2021 ceremony, for Best Metal Performance with "Bum Rush" off the album Carnivore, having been nominated once before. Body Count has released seven albums since the debut and is reportedly working on a ninth, tentatively titled Death Wish, keeping the same combination of horror imagery, humor and blunt political commentary.

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