Ice-T - Early Life

Early Life

Ice-T was born Tracy Marrow, son of Solomon and Alice Marrow, in Newark, New Jersey. As a child, his family moved to upscale Summit, New Jersey. Solomon was an African American, and Alice was Creole. For decades, Solomon worked as a conveyor belt mechanic at the Rapistan Conveyor Company. The first time race played a major part in Tracy's life was at the age of 7, when he became aware of the racism leveled by his white friends toward dark-skinned children, and that he escaped similar treatment because they thought that Marrow was white because of his lighter skin. Relating this incident to his mother, she told him "Honey, people are stupid"; her advice and this incident taught Marrow to control the way the negativity of others affected him.

His mother died of a heart attack when Tracy was in third grade. Solomon raised Tracy while he was a single father for four years, with help from a housekeeper. Tracy's first experience with an illegal activity occurred after a bicycle that Solomon "bought" him for Christmas was stolen. After Tracy told his father, Solomon shrugged, "Well, then, you ain't got no bike." Tracy stole parts from bicycles and assembled "three or four weird-looking, brightly painted bikes" from the parts; his father either did not notice, or never acknowledged this. When Tracy was 12 years old, Solomon died of a heart attack. For many years, AllMusic.com has stated that his parents "died in an auto accident", but Ice-T has stated that it was actually he who had been in a brutal auto accident and that was decades later.

Following his father's death, Tracy lived with a nearby aunt briefly, and was sent to live with his other aunt and her husband in View Park-Windsor Hills, a middle-class black neighborhood by South Los Angeles. While his cousin Earl was preparing to leave for college, Tracy shared a room with him. Earl was a fan of rock music and listened to only the local rock stations; sharing a room with him spurred Tracy's interest in heavy metal music.