How does Ice-T mark beating a tough level on “Call of Duty?” He whips out his junk and does a little helicopter dance.

Ice-T remakes his own track from his 1993 Home Invasion LP, now with Body Count, yet the new version uses the Rick Rubin instrumental from Jay-Z’s version. Full circle, bitches.

?uestlove plays a cadaver on this week’s episode of Law & Order. Ice-T examines in the deadest collabo ever.

Papoose pays homage to Ice-T’s classic on this cut from The Nacirema Dream.

Jimmy Fallon and Ice T tests out the Sony PS4 up at Late Night. We genuinely think the Sony rep is afraid of Ice.

In the 90′s, you might have heard scholars talking about Jazz as “the only form of music ever born in America”, largely ignoring a sub-culture that was in full swing just a few blocks away from their comfortable suburban homes. But today, rap music and hip-hop culture have invaded just about every corner of mainstream society, and it can no longer be written off as just a fad. But while the commercialization of hip-hop has helped it become accepted as a legitimate art form – however so reluctantly – it also has made way for an influx of one hit wonders and disposable acts, and in turn has confused the naive consumer. Chris Rock once said, “I’m tired of defending rap music.” What he meant by this, was that rap had got to a point where there had been so much garbage flooding the market, trying to explain the actual “art” of rap music to your parents or girlfriend had become a lost cause. Ice-T looks to correct this in his directorial debut, Something From Nothing: The Art Of Rap.

The main thing viewers will notice in The Art Of Rap is the crop of emcees that Ice-T selected to interview for the documentary. From the founding fathers (Grandmaster Caz, Afrika Bambaataa) to the walking gods (Rakim, KRS-One) to this generation’s rhyming heroes (Nas, Eminem), just about every living legend of rap music is spoken with. Ice-T digs deep, finding out details about each artist’s creative process, their personal early rap histories, or their favorite verses. This leads to plenty of rap nerd spaz outs – like Eminem reciting Naughty By Nature’s “Yoke The Joker” or Immortal Technique performing “New Jack Hustler” acapella, or Dr. Dre revealing that “Boyz In The Hood” was N.W.A.’s attempt at cloning “6 In The Morning”. There are also plenty of unheard acapella verses spit, most notably Eminem’s ridiculous as-of-yet unheard verse that suggests he has unlimited, jaw-dropping verses just lying around inside his head, or Joe Budden’s chilling acapella laid atop shots of the New Jersey slums.

The backdrop of Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap is a subtle snapshot of America, as Ice-T’s camera crew visits some of the poorest neighborhoods in the country, with amazing shots of entirely graffitied blocks in New York, or everyday drug deals going down in the streets of L.A. Curiously, the south is largely ignored. Despite an interview with Bun B, the overlooking of Outkast, Goodie Mob, Ludacris, or Scarface seems like a glaring omission. And, despite his battle with LL Cool J – which is touched upon briefly here – L’s presence is missing here, in a documentary that speaks with most of the greatest, most influential emcees of our time. Jay-Z is also not present, but that one we kind of understand, for some reason.

The Art of Rap can be a bit disjointed at times, where T lets off-camera bloopers stay in the final cut, or lets strange segues go. For instance, after his interview with Eminem in Detroit, he poses the question, “Who ever thought one of the greatest rappers of all time would be a white cat?”, which leads to shots of Los Angeles with “Forgot About Dre” playing in the background, and then cuts to an interview with… Ras Kass? Nevertheless, the Dr. Dre interview comes later, and despite some strange editing, The Art of Rap never fails to keep you on your toes to see who Ice-T will speak with next.

While The Art Of Rap does have it’s nit-picky moments, largely it succeeds in defining the difference between “rapper” and “emcee”, and that was its goal. Ironically, the documentary picks many of the same faces seen in 1997′s Rhyme or Reason, which unfortunately suggests perhaps the art of rap itself hasn’t progressed much over the past fifteen years, thanks to it’s wide commercialization. But if this is the issue, it makes Ice-T’s film all the more poignant.

Ice-T speaks with Dr. Dre about his approach to making beats, in this outtake from Something From Nothing: The Art Of Rap, which is in stores now on DVD.

Ice-T’s critically acclaimed documentary may have not been a huge success in theaters, but we’re sure it will be a hit when it’s released on DVD this Tuesday. Even cooler, VH1 aired the film this week, and have made it available online to watch in full. This documentary – here presented in 8 parts – has interviews with just about everyone from Afrika Bambaataa to Eminem.

In the wake of the Aurora, CO shooting at the premiere of The Dark Knight Rises this past weekend, the most hot-button political topic of the moment is gun control. Ice-T sat in at London’s channel 4 to speak on his new film, The Art Of Rap.

While in house, he spoke on gun laws in the U.S.

“It’s legal in the United States,” Ice-T said. “The right to bear arms is because that’s the last form of defense against tyranny. Not to hunt. It’s to protect yourself from the police.”

“And do you see any link between that and this sort of instance?” Guru-Murthy challenged.

“No. Not really,” Ice-T responded. “If somebody wants to kill people, they don’t need a gun to do it.”

“Makes it easier though, doesn’t it?” the host pushed back.

“Not really. You can strap explosives on your body. They do that all the time.”

A classic done justice.

Lord Finesse recites a verse from “Flip Da Style” from Ice-T’s “Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap”, in theaters June 15th.

Something From Nothing: The Art Of Rap is in theatres June 15th.

Something To Nothing: Art Of Rap is a feature length performance documentary film about the runaway juggernaut that is Rap music. At the wheel of this unstoppable beast is the film’s director and interviewer Ice-T. Ice-T takes us on a deeply personal journey to uncover how this music of the street has grown to dominate the world. Along the way Ice-T meets some of the remarkable superstars of Rap, from Eminem to Dr Dre, to Snoop Dogg and Kanye West. He exposes the roots and history of Rap and then, through meeting most of it’s most famous protagonists studies the living mechanism of the music to reveal The Art Of Rap.

He’s dead on. We’re sure it also helps that he’s with Coco.