Ice-T turns from cop talk to posing nude

NORTH BERGEN, N.J.- US rapper Ice-T once gained fame talking about killing cops.

Now the controversy over his latest album has led him to compare himself to a peace-loving John Lennon. Surrounded by leopard-print cushions in his penthouse apartment outside New York, the 48-year-old rapper defended a racy new album cover showing him naked in bed, his groin area covered by his wife’s bare legs.She wears only a flesh-coloured G-string with her buttocks in centre frame; a silver gun lies on the nightstand.”It’s not pornography, it’s sexy,” he told Reuters of the cover of ‘Gangsta Rap’, his first album in seven years, released in the United States on Tuesday.Some music stores will carry a sticker concealing the cover images of the rapper, whose real name is Tracy Marrow, and his wife Nicole ‘Coco’ Marrow (27), an exotic swimsuit model.”It’s part John Lennon and Yoko Ono.It was art when they did it and it’s where everybody wants to be – laid up in bed,” he said, referring to the couple who held ‘bed-ins’ for peace and appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone with a naked Lennon wrapped around his spouse.Dressed in a black baseball cap, silver jewellery and white sneakers and facing framed photos of Coco posing in string bikinis on motorbikes and flashy cars, Ice-T said he would never have posed “with my butt laying there naked by myself”.’ Coco said she loved the photo shoot because “it’s not just some other guy I am posing with”.Ice-T is no stranger to controversy.His single ‘Cop Killer’, which included the lyrics “I’m about to bust some shots off, I’m about to dust some cops off,” was cut from an album that was re-released without it.Ice-T said the song dealt with “the vibe at the time” of backlashes against police brutality in Los Angeles.”The old Ice-T was like, ‘I will kill everybody’, but the new Ice-T is kinda like, ‘by the way, I’m not gonna kill you guys’,” he said.”Now it’s a different type of anger and aggression.”Nampa-ReutersSurrounded by leopard-print cushions in his penthouse apartment outside New York, the 48-year-old rapper defended a racy new album cover showing him naked in bed, his groin area covered by his wife’s bare legs.She wears only a flesh-coloured G-string with her buttocks in centre frame; a silver gun lies on the nightstand.”It’s not pornography, it’s sexy,” he told Reuters of the cover of ‘Gangsta Rap’, his first album in seven years, released in the United States on Tuesday.Some music stores will carry a sticker concealing the cover images of the rapper, whose real name is Tracy Marrow, and his wife Nicole ‘Coco’ Marrow (27), an exotic swimsuit model.”It’s part John Lennon and Yoko Ono.It was art when they did it and it’s where everybody wants to be – laid up in bed,” he said, referring to the couple who held ‘bed-ins’ for peace and appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone with a naked Lennon wrapped around his spouse.Dressed in a black baseball cap, silver jewellery and white sneakers and facing framed photos of Coco posing in string bikinis on motorbikes and flashy cars, Ice-T said he would never have posed “with my butt laying there naked by myself”.’ Coco said she loved the photo shoot because “it’s not just some other guy I am posing with”.Ice-T is no stranger to controversy.His single ‘Cop Killer’, which included the lyrics “I’m about to bust some shots off, I’m about to dust some cops off,” was cut from an album that was re-released without it.Ice-T said the song dealt with “the vibe at the time” of backlashes against police brutality in Los Angeles.”The old Ice-T was like, ‘I will kill everybody’, but the new Ice-T is kinda like, ‘by the way, I’m not gonna kill you guys’,” he said.”Now it’s a different type of anger and aggression.”Nampa-Reuters