Tracy Lauren Marrow (born February 16, 1958), better known by his stage name Ice-T, is an American rapper, actor, songwriter, and producer. He was orphaned at the age of thirteen after which he lived with relatives. He began his career as an underground rapper in the 1980s and was signed to Sire Records in 1987, when he released his debut album Rhyme Pays -- the second hip-hop album to carry an explicit content sticker (following Slick Rick's La Di Da Di). The following year, he founded the record label Rhyme $yndicate Records (named after his collective of fellow hip-hop artists called the "Rhyme $yndicate") and released another album, Power, which would go Platinum. He co-founded the heavy metal band Body Count, which he introduced on his 1991 rap album O.G. Original Gangster, on the track titled "Body Count". As an actor, he played small parts in the films Breakin' and its sequels, Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo and Rappin', during the 1980s, before his major role debut, starring as police detective Scotty Appleton in New Jack City (1991). In 2018, he began hosting the true crime documentary, In Ice Cold Blood, on the Oxygen cable channel, which as of 2020, is in its third season.