Ice-T, Warner Bros. Call It Quits : Pop music: The company is said to have wearied of the controversy ignited by the outspoken rapper. Other major labels aren’t expected to sign him.

Warner Bros. Records’ severing of ties with Ice-T on Wednesday was described by sources at the label as “inevitable” given the national furor that began last summer over the controversial rapper’s “Cop Killer” recording.

Likening the relationship between Ice-T and Time Warner Inc. to the drive-by shootings often described in rap songs, one observer close to both parties suggested that the company had grown weary of its association with such a target of criticism: “The protesters are really going for him, but everybody’s going to get sprayed.”

In a statement late Wednesday, Mo Ostin, board chairman of Warner Bros. Records said, “The decision to end this seven-year relationship was a difficult one for all concerned, but in the final analysis, we believe that this was the best way to resolve our creative differences.

“The collaboration process between the label and the artist has traditionally been a private one, and we will continue to honor that privacy. We wish Ice-T all the best.”

Ice-T, who could not be reached Thursday, is free under the separation to take his upcoming “Home Invasion” to another label.

Industry observers expect other major labels to steer clear of the outspoken rapper, forcing him to turn to one of the smaller, independent labels that champion such other hotly debated rappers as Ice Cube.

“No one is safe in rap now,” said Reginald C. Dennis, music editor at the Source, the nation’s leading rap magazine. “Ice-T could have a gold record every year for the next 10 years. That the kind of audience he has. But if Warner Bros. thinks he’s so detrimental that it’s worth missing out on that, it means any artist who speaks out (at a major label) could find themselves out the door.”

A top executive at a rival major label agreed with that assessment.

“It is extremely unlikely that any major label will touch Ice-T now,” he said. “This is the era where all the major labels are part of publicly owned companies and as such, each is subject to the same kind of pressure Time Warner was feeling from their shareholders. But Ice-T will be a bonanza for independent record distribution. Whoever picks him up will sell a million copies.”

Last summer, then-President Bush called Time Warner, the $12-billion conglomerate that owns Warner Bros. Records, “irresponsible” for releasing the “Cop Killer” song and some police organizations around the country demanded that the company disassociate itself from the recording and apologize to officers nationwide.

The issue peaked July 16 when about 100 protesters, representing officers from several police groups--including the Los Angeles Police Protective League and the Fraternal Order of Police--descended on Time Warner’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Beverly Hills. Actor Charlton Heston, who opposed the record, made the national news that night reading lyrics from “Cop Killer” to stockholders.

Twelve days later, Time Warner agreed to stop distributing the song at the request of the Los Angeles rapper. But that didn’t stop the criticism. Ice-T has been in the news repeatedly since then, often as the target of demonstrations at his concerts, and his critics vowed to stay on the case.

“I couldn’t be happier,” retired Col. Oliver L. North said Thursday of Warner Bros.’ action. North, the former Reagan Administration aide involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, is head of the Freedom Alliance, a conservative watchdog group that had called for criminal proceedings against Time Warner over the “Cop Killer” recording.

“An action like this demonstrates the power that the average American shareholder can bring to bear against mega conglomerates such as Time Warner. Everybody knows that there isn’t any room in American society for the kind of hatred and advocacy of violence expressed in Ice-T’s music.”

The timing of the Warner Bros. announcement Wednesday that the company and the rapper were ending their relationship by “mutual agreement” caught even Warner Bros. employees by surprise since the label released “Gotta Lotta Love,” a single from Ice-T’s forthcoming album, to radio stations on Jan. 9. The album itself, “Home Invasion,” was due Feb. 23.

But the break itself was not a surprise, sources said.

“I think everyone tried to do a conscientious job of seeing this thing through,” said one insider at Time Warner. “There was a continuing dialogue within the company and with Ice-T about the music and how to handle it. And Ice-T was cooperative . . . about a few lyrics and things.”

In the end, however, sources said, on the condition that they not be identified, that the company saw it as a no-win situation. Regardless of the album’s content, the expectations were that Ice-T would continue to be attacked--and that much of that attack would include Time Warner and its image.

The concern was that the company, under the best scenario, would have to spend hundreds of hours in damage control--far more time than could reasonably be spent on a single artist or album.

The final straw was apparently the art work for new album. According to one Time Warner executive, the album was a drawing featuring a montage of violent images.

Rejecting that concept, the company reportedly was planning to release the new album with a blank blue cover with simply the album title on it. Some of the blank covers had apparently already been printed.

The Source magazine’s Dennis, who heard an early version of the “Home Invasion” album, said, “There aren’t any blatant anti-cop things on it, but there were the kind of things you’d find on any Ice-T album. In the back of my mind I thought he’d have problems even skirting anywhere near these issues.”

Calvin Howard, the southern regional president of the National Black Police Assn. and a supporter of Ice-T, said Wednesday’s action “seems like some kind of racial slap in the face toward Ice-T and also to all of his black listeners.

“Frankly it comes as a total shock to me and I’m sure it will shock all of the members of our organization who supported Ice-T. For as long as Ice-T has been associated with Warner Bros., it disturbs me that the company has suddenly decided to distance itself from him and has taken this type of attitude toward his music.”

Free-lance writers Richard Cromelin and Chuck Philips contributed to this story.