Album: The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech…Just Watch What You Say
Year: 1990
Maybe it’s a West Coast thing, but I liked Ice-T from the moment I heard him rap the theme to Colors. In fact, it’s pretty much the only thing I remember from Colors.
But in a genre where authenticity danced with bullshit, he always seemed — from my vantage point as a privileged white dude — simultaneously more authentic and a bigger bullshit artist.
I also liked his laconic delivery and his way of building a story, not to mention his way of bringing his writing and recording process into his songs. Even when he was the central character in his songs, he always seemed to also be the omniscient narrator.
In one of his best songs, the 1989 single, “You Played Yourself,” he address a fuck-up — maybe a series fuck-ups — explaining how they get bragging, relationships, careers, and eventually, their lives just flat-out wrong by committing the sin of hubris.
You think you’ve made it, you’re just a lucky man
Guess who controls your destiny, fans
But you diss ’em cos you think you’re a star
That attitude is rude, you won’t get far
Cos they’ll turn on you quick, you’ll drop like a brick
Unemployment’s where you’ll sit
No friends cos you dissed ’em too
No money, no crew, you’re throughYou played yourself…
That’s right, you played yourself…
You played yourself…
Yo, yo, you played yourself…
And with a perfectly-placed horn sample from James Brown’s “The Boss” wafting throughout, “You Played Yourself” is at its most chilling when its subject goes down the rabbit hole of drug addiction.
Lyin’ and cheatin’, everybody you’re beatin’
Dirty clothes and you’re skinny cos you haven’t been eatin’
You ripped off all your family and your friends
Nowhere does your larceny end
And then you get an idea for a big move
An armed robbery…smooth
But everything went wrong, somebody got shot
You couldn’t get away, the cops roll, you’re popped
And now you’re locked, yo, lampin’ on Death Row
Society’s fault? No
Nobody put the crack into the pipe
Nobody made you smoke off your life
You thought that you could do dope and still stay cool? Fool.You played yourself
You played yourself
Ain’t nobody else’s fault at all
You played yourself
Maybe it’s a little bit on the nose, but that’s part of the point, and part of the message: take responsibility for your actions, dude.
Official video for “You Played Yourself”
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