''Rhyme Pays'' is the debut

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...

by American rapper

Ice-T Tracy Lauren Marrow (born February 16, 1958), known professionally as Ice-T (or Ice T), is an American rapper and actor. He is active in both hip hop music, hip hop and heavy metal music, heavy metal. Ice-T began his career as an underground r ...

, released on July 28, 1987, by

Sire Records Sire Records (formerly Sire Records Company) is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group and distributed by Warner Records. History Beginnings The label was founded in 1966 as Sire Productions by Seymour Stein and Richard Gotteh ...

. The album peaked at number 93 on the US ''Billboard'' 200 and number 23 on the

Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a music chart published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine that ranks R&B and hip-hop albums based on sales in the United States and is compiled by Luminate. The chart debuted as Hot R&B LPs in the issue dated January 30, ...

charts, and was certified

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

by the

Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...

(RIAA).

Music and lyrics

The album, especially tracks like " 6 'N the Morning", is considered to have defined the

gangsta rap Gangsta rap or gangster rap, initially called reality rap, is a subgenre of rap music that conveys the culture, values, and experiences of urban gangs and street hustlers, frequently discussing unpleasant realities of the world in general th ...

genre. Ice-T claims that this would be his first

hip hop Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hip- ...

album to be carrying a parental advisory warning label, although, it was years before the industry-standard explicit-lyrics sticker was developed and Too $hort's first album that also had to be carried with an "Explicit Lyrics" warning back in 1985. The 1988 CD release included four bonus tracks. Ice-T stated on his autobiography that

Seymour Stein Seymour Steinbigle (April 18, 1942 – April 2, 2023), known professionally as Seymour Stein, was an American entrepreneur and music executive. He co-founded Sire Records and was vice president of Warner Bros. Records. With Sire, Stein signed ba ...

took exception to the song "409" for the line "''Guys grab a girl, girls grab a guy/If a guy wants a guy, please take it outside''", which he saw as homophobic. Ice-T insisted that those lines were not meant to be homophobic, but simply a statement of his own preferences. An article by Dennis Hunt noted that this lyric "may rub gays the wrong way" in an interview on the album's release. Ice-T would later become one of the first hardcore rappers to condemn homophobia.

Critical reception

In a contemporary review for ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first Alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, ...

'',

Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and later became a ...

gave ''Rhyme Pays'' a "B" and credited DJ Afrika Islam for helping flesh out Ice T's crime-themed raps: "Can't know whether his streetwise jabs at

Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party and became an important figure in ...

and

recidivism Recidivism (; from 'recurring', derived from 'again' and 'to fall') is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have experienced negative consequences of that behavior, or have been trained to Extinction (psycholo ...

will make a permanent impression on his core audience, but his sexploitations and true crime tales are detailed and harrowing enough to convince anybody he was there." According to

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

's Alex Henderson, "the West Coast was well on its way to becomining a crucial part of hip-hop" when ''Rhyme Pays'' was released. ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'' writer Dennis Hunt said the album helped popularize

Commercial performance

''Rhyme Pays'' debuted at number 93 on the US ''Billboard'' 200 and number 26 on the ''Billboard''

Top R&B/Hip Hop Albums Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a music chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine that ranks R&B and hip-hop albums based on sales in the United States and is compiled by Luminate. The chart debuted as Hot R&B LPs in the issue dated January 30, ...

charts. It also became the first hip-hop album to be released on

Sire Sire is an archaic respectful form of address to reigning kings in Europe. In French and other languages it is less archaic and relatively more current. In Belgium, the king is addressed as "Sire..." in both Dutch and French. The words "sire" an ...

and

Warner Bros. Records Warner Records Inc. (known as Warner Bros. Records Inc. until 2019) is an American record label. A subsidiary of Warner Music Group, it is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded on March 19, 1958, as the recorded music division ...

. The album was eventually certified

by the

(RIAA) for sales of over 500,000 copies in the United States.

Track listing

Charts

Weekly charts

Certifications

References

Ice-T albums 1987 debut albums Sire Records albums Albums produced by Afrika Islam Albums recorded at Unique Recording Studios {{1980s-hiphop-album-stub