#71, "Cop Killer," Body Count (1992)

150 Favorite Songs: #71, "Cop Killer," Body Count (1992)

The thing about "Cop Killer" that's so remarkable is that more than thirty years later, it still sounds positively dangerous. It wasn't the first song to suggest that maybe the singer would support violence against law enforcement, of course—that dates back from "Fuck Tha Police" to "I Shot The Sheriff" to "Policeman." But "Cop Killer" is the one that still sounds like something that you shouldn't be able to get away with singing about.

"Fuck Tha Police" is arguably the more important song, but it is nowhere near as unapologetic and unequivocal as "Cop Killer," which is a bonkers thing to be true if you’ve ever listened to “Fuck Tha Police.” The conceit of that one is that the cops are on trial for the way they've treated young black men like Cube, Dre, Ren, and Eazy-motherfucking-E (Yella's voice and name are absent on the recording). "Judge Dre" presides while the others give their impassioned testimony: Cube talks about the violence he's endured, the indignity of being searched and touched inappropriately, the way that black officers react toward him when they're with white cops, etc, etc—it's a detailed argument. “Have you considered that perhaps the police are fucked, and thus should get fucked?” the song asks of the listener by laying out its thesis and making its argument in the voices of the various individuals in NWA. By the time Cube promises that "when I'm finished / there's gonna be a bloodbath / of cops dying in LA," you can understand that he's justifiably angry. 

"Cop Killer" makes "Fuck Tha Police" seem downright polite by comparison. Ice-T doesn't fuck around at all here. It's less a "this is why I hate cops" and more a "how-to" power fantasy. It's all "I got my black gloves on / I got my ski mask on" and "I got this long-ass knife / and your neck looks just right." Even in the preamble to the song, he lays out his position—that police who brutalize the people they're supposed to protect are committing such a violation of public trust that he'd be happy to "take a pig out here in this parking lot and shoot him in his motherfucking face." He's not even picky which cop it is. 

That's the other thing about "Cop Killer”: There's no equivocating here. One of the most interesting things about the song is the fact that Ice-T is absolutely cold as fuck in a way that we rarely see. “But Ice-T,” you might ask, “Have you considered that the police officer whose murder you are fantasizing about is a fell human being with a family? Does that shared humanity lead you to experience empathy and thus reconsider the violence you wish to see done?” The answer, of course, is that yes, he has considered that, and no, it does not. It’s in the fucking chorus! "I know your mama’s grieving,” he sings, “Fuck her!!” That is some harsh shit. If "Fuck Tha Police" is about how the rage against the police that the NWA guys felt is justifiable because of how they'd been treated, "Cop Killer" takes for granted that police are the enemy. And that, as the enemy, they need to die. 

I mean, shit. This record got pulled from the shelves thirty-two years ago, amid protests and boycotts from police unions who threatened not to respond to calls at record stores that carried it. To this day, copies of the first Body Count record do not include “Cop Killer,” substituting it for a duet with Jello Biafra called “Freedom of Speech” where Ice laments that his has been compromised. Even on streaming—you can listen to Body Count without “Cop Killer,” but you won’t find one with it. (There are a lot of bands who’ve covered it that are on Spotify now.) Honestly, it's harder to believe he got it on the shelves in the first place than it is to reckon with the fact that it got pulled. It's so transgressive even after three decades that it feels like you're doing something wrong if you sing along (try it with the windows down!). 

But, of course, Ice-T demands that you sing along. That's the other genius of "Cop Killer.” It's participatory. After the "fuck the police!" breakdown near the end, he starts calling you out, the listener at home: "Have some motherfucking courage," he commands, punctuating it with a "fuck the police" before imploring the listener to sing along. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" It’s your turn to sing along: "Cop killer!" you’re meant to shout. "Good choice," Ice remarks.

There's something fascinating about taking a sentiment like that—a sentiment that got his record yanked off of shelves, that still has police angry with him (cops are still pissed that Ice-T is on Law & Order: SVU, which is one of the all-time great troll jobs anyone ever pulled off), and demanding it become universal. 

Because that's the thing that really makes "Cop Killer" dangerous: it was on the Body Count record, which was Ice-T's heavy metal band. That was a record that he knew would be played by an awful lot of white kids. Demanding that a largely-white audience sing along about the very specific ways that they'd go out and kill some cops (with the headlights turned off and a twelve-gauge sawed-off) crossed a boundary that white folks were not prepared for back in the early ‘90s, when genres were more segregated. “Cop Killer” aimed to get their kids singing along. White artists started to cover it almost immediately—here’s Soundgarden playing it in the summer of 1992 (Chris Cornell, unlike Ice-T, doesn’t fully commit, explaining in the “fuck the police!” part that he means it metaphorically; when Body Count would play it live, Ice would specifically dedicate to all of the armed police officers surrounding the stage, and point to individual fans in the audience who weren’t singing along to call them out.) Of course they banned this shit.

There are only a few times when rock and roll actually felt dangerous. There was a time when people rioted to "Rock Around The Clock" (at least, that's the myth), when Elvis' hips threatened to impregnate all of the teenage girls in America, when kids suddenly had hairstyles and clothing that their parents could never understand. 

That power left most music a couple decades ago, though. The Public Enemy logo has a Beats By Apple logo on the other side; "dangerous" artists lead their fans to concert crush, not rebellion. Maybe "Cop Killer" was the last truly dangerous rock song—and that alone makes it powerful enough to keep talking about.