Ice-T - Home Invasion

The hardcore rapper's 1993 album featuring 19 tracks. Virgin. Album Description

"Every Single F'in Thing I Write, Is Gonna Be Analyzed By Somebody WHITE!" (Rating: 8 out of 10- -4.0 stars)

Thats Ice-T for ya, with his 1993 album Home Invasion. After all the heat that he taken from so many people for his infamous song "Cop Killer" from the Body Count, and being dropped from Warner Brothers/WEA, he spins out this album. As you can realize, all the controversy has affected him, and he took it out on this album. Not to mention, him beefing with Reggie Dennis, the chief editor of The Source Magazine. Some see that as a bad thing, but I personally see it as a plus.

Majority of Ice-T's vocals, he sounds pissed off, and it will be evident on the first four tracks. With lyrics stating that he is rich and others are no threat to him, on "It's On". I admit though, the following two tracks are great in my opinion.

Getting all of that behind him, he finally gets back to what he has done earlier in his career with "G Style" and "Addicted To Danger". The latter song is about a girl who he hooks up to turn out to be an undercover agent. "Gotta Lot Of Love" is a good song about gang peace in the L.A. streets. Personal stories like "Thats How I'm Livin'", about Ice's lifestyle all before his rap career, and "**** Hits The Fan" are dope as well. Ice revisits his pimp style on "99 Problems" (yes, Jay-Z did use that song) featuring Brother Marquis of 2 Live Crew.

Fortunately, the flaws on this album are limited. I like the idea of "Race War", but at times the song gets confusing (especially the whole blacks being republican thing and what he means by that). "I Ain't New Ta This" is straight awful. And I understand he is trying to put his people on, but it works sometimes. Even though DJ Evil E sounds good on "Pimp Behind The Wheels", the idea of placing a 14 year old girl named Gripsta on "Funky Gripsta" doesn't sound right.

Home Invasion is an excellent album I believe. I believe that many fans were expecting another O.G. Original Gangster here, but only received less than half of that album. The other portion is the frustration of the aftermath of the effects done by the "Cop Killer" song. I can't knock Ice for speaking his mind here on this LP, because to me, it works out nicely. Peace.

Lyrics: A-
Production: A-
Guest Appearances: B
Musical Vibes: B+

Top 5 Tracks:
1. Home Invasion
2. Ice M.F. T
3. Gotta Lot Of Love
4. Depths Of Hell
5. Pimp Behind The Wheels (DJ Evil E The Great)(featuring Evil E)

Honorable Mention:
1. 99 Problems (featuring Brother Marquis)
2. Watch The Ice Break April 30, 2008

Ice T goes off the deep end

While O.G. had a lot of thought provoking insight to go along with the humor and violence, Home Invasion is just a relentless and almost childlike temper tantrum. Free to do as he wants with his own record label, this is the best he could come up with? If he's not bragging about how great he is, he's spewing hatred in all directions. Here are some high and lo-lites of this album.

1. Warning: This is pretty funny and warns the listener that this is not a 'pop' album. One of the strong points made by Sir Ice on this album is that he hates pop and pop stars.

2. It's On - One of the few great tracks
3. Ice M.F. T - Good tune, but Ice T is giving himself all props and inflating his ego to godlike quality.

4. Home Invasion - I understand that this song is about invading homes through his music and having kids listen to him despite their parents, but some really ugly images and horrific wordplay bring the song down to a very low level.

5. G Style - Back to the OG style. It is really missed on this album. This song seems better than it really is because it's mixed in with all this junk.

7. Question And Answer - Ice T is ranting about sellouts and pop stars again.

9. Race War - Ice T has now declared war for the world. And while there will be white kids rolling with the Africans, there are also gonna be black Republicans. This song is hatefilled and ridiculously stupid.

10. That's How I'm Livin' - The Ice T biography from birth, to LA, to the Army, to be the hippest, flyest, mac daddy of them all.

11. I Ain't New Ta This - This song sucks so bad it's funny. The chorus sounds like they are saying "I ain't nudatist"

12. Pimp Behind The Wheels - Switching places, Ice T takes up DJ position while Evil E takes the mic. Now we know why Ice T is the rapper and Evil E lays the beat. Listen to this song closely, you can tell Evil E is going hoarse by the end of the song. There is a reason for this. He probably had to do take after take after take to get anything sounding good out of him. When they pieced it all together, this 4 minute song probably took 8 straight hours to actually record. Evil E please do not embarrass yourself anymore. And no one cares that you are the "pimpfffth" behind the wheels. You have been dissed.

13. Gotta Lotta Love - After all the hate on this album, Ice suddenly and without warning feels good and loves everyone in an imaginary land where the Crips and the Bloods walk hand in hand. This is Ice T's attempt at a Will Smith 'Summertime' song

16. 99 Problems - 2 Live Crew in the House. Not a bad song, and it's got a few laughs.

17. Funky Gripsta - I am now convinced that Ice is on some bad crack. He introduces this cut and introduces 'Gripsta' a 14 year old female ("that's right a 14 year old female") I don't know who let this girl in the studio, but she is terrible. She sounds like MC Pee Pants singing the 'Candy Song" from the Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

19. Ain't A Damn Thing Changed - Ice just has to finish this album on a sour note by pouring one more hatefilled bucket of syrup on this pancake of an album.
April 23, 2008

I like it despite obvious flaws

Ice-T's 5th offering is for the most part considerably more aggressive, both in lyrics and in music, than his earlier works. I think it's partly so because of all the problems with his song "Cop Killer", and the resulting break up with his record label. But part of this newly found aggression was surely added intentionally. Think of it as a concept of O.G. pushed to the edge and then some. Many people didn't appreciate it, and many complained about over the top amounts of explicit lyrics here, much of which are there just for the sake of it. I think it's not a problem, as it gives the album great recognizability and a character of its own. "Home Invasion" is the album that has some of the best Ice-T songs, like "It's On", "Home Invasion", "Race War", "Watch The Ice Break", or "Gotta Lotta Love". It also struck me with its 2 slow tracks, "Addicted to Danger" and "That's How I'm Livin'", both of which feature an unusually melodic, and at the same time very menacing and dense musical background, with Ice-T's vocal tone to match. These are the tracks that will easily justify the purchase of this album.

On the down side, there are several worthless filler tracks here, that should have been scrapped before the CD went into print. It's the pointless guest-star songs "Depths of Hell" and "Funky Gripsta", as well as a couple of other weaker tracks. Whether their presence lowers the value of this album, is to be decided by the listener him/herself.

My copy of "Home Invasion" came with a bonus remix CD titled "The Last Temptation of Ice". Of 7 tracks there, one, "Ricochet", is previously unreleased. The liner notes suggest that it was written during the "O.G." sessions. This one is quite good. I also liked remixes for "Gotta Lotta Love" and "G-Style", which add more musical value to these, musically basic, tracks. The other 4 songs on the remix CD are a throwaway, most always lyrically edited for radio format. I guess, this bonus CD wasn't worth the extra bucks that I paid for it. February 25, 2005

Creative Ice-T Album

For me Ice-T is one of the best rappers ever and I've spent long hours listening to his hardcore gangster rap. Kind of odd for a middle-aged white guy but what can I say? His in your face, pro-freedom of speech attitude is one that I hold myself. He is one of the founding fathers of gangster rap and one of it's most innovative lyricists. I've seen Ice-T do his rap act only once but have seen him with his band Body Count four times and he puts on a tremendous show.

Home Invasion is probably the funniest album Ice-T has put out and it is one of my favorites. I find it odd that Ice-T fans that I know don't like this album as much as I did. It think it's a superb album and while not as good as OG The Original Gangster, it may be Ice-T's most creative album (other than Body Count's first release).

I rate this album very highly. In fact it gets six starts from some very excellent songs. Very few albums get six starts from me. Most albums you're lucky to have but one song you truly like on it. This one is full of good songs.

The six stars are for:

Home Invasion *
G Style **
Watch the Ice Break *
Pimp Behind the Wheels *
99 Problems *

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Ratings: CDs are rated simply by how many good songs are on the album. Great songs get two stars, and good songs get one star. Songs that get no stars are those that I might like but not enough to give it a star or ones I find boring or actively dislike. CDs are not penalized for songs that I don't like because they are easy enough to skip over. There is no maximum number of stars a CD can get, but of course the more stars it gets, the better the CD.

As with all reviews, these are my subjective opinions on the album.
August 28, 2004

Ice-T - Home Invasion

This was a pretty bad album from Ice-T but I've heard worse from him. I think that all that "Cop Killer" hoopla clouded his vision. There are a lot of lousy tracks on here like "99 Problems", which Jay-Z took from and made his own version of it for 2003's The Black Album. June 18, 2004

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