FIRESTO STORM “We never, ever, ever expected it to get that type of response.”
30 years ago, in April 1992, Los Angeles was a powder keg. Tensions between minority communities and law enforcement had reached critical mass as the city, and nation, waited for the verdict of the highly publicized trial of four LAPD officers charged with using excessive force during their arrest of African American motorist Rodney King.
The violent incident — during which police repeatedly beat King with batons after pulling him over for speeding and evading arrest — was, unfortunately, a familiar reality for many citizens within Los Angeles’ Black and minority neighborhoods. For years, discriminatory drug laws, aggressive policing and a general lack of accountability for those in power had become a way of life.
What made King’s arrest different was that a bystander filmed the shocking scene on a camcorder and sent the tape to local news outlet KTLA. The widely broadcast footage attracted national media attention and gave a public face to what many community leaders and artists (most notably N.W.A with their 1988 banger “Fuck tha Police”) had been saying for some time: the police had gone too far. But any hopes for justice went up in smoke on April 29, when the jury failed to convict the officers. The acquittals lit the spark — and for five days protests erupted into riots, looting and arson throughout the City of Angels. It was into this combustible landscape that L.A.’s own Body Count released their self-titled debut just a few weeks earlier on March 10. The South Central crew, led by rapper Ice-T and guitarist Ernie C, expected to turn some heads with their hardcore-meets–heavy metal songs that fiercely confronted political and social issues. But they never could have predicted the firestorm of criticism that Body Count would ignite.
The 18-song album served up vicious cuts addressing drug abuse, racism and more, but it was Ice-T’s seething screed against police brutality, “Cop Killer,” that became a lightning rod for the negativity. President George H.W. Bush obliquely labeled their expressions “sick.” Vice President Dan Quayle went all in, calling it an “obscene record,” and law enforcement organizations around the country, and world, boycotted the record.
“We never, ever, expected it to get that today. “I knew I was writing controversial stuff, like ‘KKK Bitch’ and ‘Momma’s Gotta Die Tonight.’ But I thought the cops were a fair target, considering Black Flag had been going at the cops. You have rock bands called Millions of Dead Cops… But little did I know it was like we touched an electric fence and everything… just hit us. We were totally unprepared for that backlash.”
