body_count_album_ice-tYoung Martin Cizmar, Award Winning Journalist™, was stunned to learn about a searing instance of censorship yesterday.

He immediately took to his digital press in the sky to protest.

Young Martin is a watchdog, of sorts, on this issue.

We blush to remember that even PHXated has come under a discomfiting Cizmarian gaze for similar crimes.

Martin was misinformed, of course, but still.

In his latest case, Our Martin had just been informed that an old song called “Cop Killer,” done by Ice-T’s then metal band, Body Count, waaay back in the early 1990s, had never been available on a recording.

“Wait, You Still Can’t Buy a Copy of "Cop Killer” By Ice-T and Body Count on ANY Format?

Young Martin was stunned:

That’s right, Ice T’s controversial song, recorded with his LA Metal band Body Count, has been successfully censored for 18 years.

That’s despicable.

Martin learned this from a silly little report called “The Mindlist,” done by some folks at Beloit College.

The Mindlist marvels that time has passed and things change.

The setup is that incoming students, being only eighteen or so, aren’t familiar with things that happened more than, uh, eighteen years ago.

To enjoy the list, you have to pretend that incoming college students have no sense of curiosity and don’t avail themselves of the myriad information services at their disposal to learn about the past, but whatever.

Its examples range from the thuddingly obvious:

Email is just too slow, and they seldom if ever use snail mail.

… to the thuddingly labored:

“Go West, Young College Grad” has always implied “and don’t stop until you get to Asia…and learn Chinese along the way.”

Young Martin jumped on this entry:

‘Cop Killer’ by rapper Ice-T has never been available on a recording.

He seemed not to apprehend—and in any case didn’t vouchsafe to readers—what PHXated just explained, that the list-makers were looking at that narrow eighteen-year period.

He didn’t seem to appreciate that “Cop Killer' had of course been released.

It was on the Body Count record, which came out, uh, nineteen years ago.

Ice-T was trying to be controversial and push the envelope in the naughty rap realm of the time.

He succeeded, and got his little nosed burned in the understandable furor that erupted. He said then, and says now, that it was his decision to pull the song off the album, not that of his label, which was Warner Brothers.

Also, even if Warners had made him pull the song, it’s not “censorship.” It’s their label, and they can release or not release what they want.

And they put it out in the first place!

After all the work Beloit and Young Martin put into this non-issue, it feels a bit churlish to point out …

… the song is available all sorts of places. You can get a live version of it on the iTunes Store, for example.

Or download it from one of more than a dozen mp3 blogs listed just here, on Elbo.ws.

And finally, let’s remember that some of these tough-talking anti-police rap guys, Ice-T prominent among them, were chuckleheads.


The complete PHXated Young Martin Cizmar™ archive is here.