Back to the Battlefront : After his run-in with corporate America, Ice-T returns at the helm of a gangsta rap business empire. Are we ready for his latest home invasion?

Ice-T bears no grudges. In fact, the rapper says he’s glad to be out of the corporate rat race and back on the street again. It’s been almost two months since Time Warner cut Ice-T loose from his record contract after a controversy last summer over his album “Body Count” and, specifically, the song “Cop Killer.” Leaning back on a leather couch in his multimillion-dollar Hollywood Hills home, he talked about his seven-month censorship battle with the media giant.

The furor erupted last June when a Texas law enforcement association called for a boycott of Time Warner over “Cop Killer.” The issue peaked July 16 when police groups descended on Time Warner’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Beverly Hills. Time Warner pulled the song 12 days later at Ice-T’s request. The final split occurred Jan. 29--a parting that also included Ice-T being released from Time Warner cable TV and book publishing deals.

Yet now the rapper-actor seems to be flourishing on his own: His long-awaited follow-up album, “Home Invasion,” is to be released on Tuesday on his own Rhyme Syndicate label (see review, Page 62). By late summer, he plans to unveil his own line of clothes, publish a comic book and nonfiction paperback as well as open a video production company. He’ll also perform a series of summer stadium concerts with metal band Slayer.

During the interview, Ice-T, a New Jersey native whose real name is Tracy Marrow, focused on the subjects that dominate his music: race relations, corporate America, corrupt cops and urban violence.

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Question: What’s the lesson to be learned from the “Cop Killer” episode?

Answer: That you can’t be part of the system and make music against the system. Pretty soon, the system’s going to step in and check you. That’s the lesson here. Time Warner cannot be in the business of black rage.

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Q: Even though the company kept assuring you throughout the controversy that they loved your music, did you feel they were pressuring you out the door?

A: Yeah. There was a pressure coming in. I had problems with lyrics and artwork, but when the split came down the pressure was not so much on the “Home Invasion” album anymore. It was on the new Body Count album. I was about to begin work on the new record and it was like, well, what can I say? How can I actually go into the studio now and create any more music?

I was aware that they were worried about the police. But there ain’t no cops on the “Home Invasion” cover and still they rejected that. I thought, “Well, what are these people afraid of now? They’re afraid of everything.” So I just said f--- it. I wrote them a letter saying I wanted out. It was like they were asking me to jeopardize my integrity. I couldn’t be a puppet.

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Q: Your critics--guys like Oliver North and Texas police boycott leader Ron DeLord--think Time Warner used you as the fall guy to publicly pull “Cop Killer.” They say that even after you changed your lyrics, cut songs and altered the artwork on the new album, the company fired you. What do you think about that?

A: You see, with Ollie North and all those guys, they’re soldiers. Time Warner ain’t a soldier. I’m a soldier. And it ain’t over. In a war, you do what you have to do. I was rolling with this platoon and they weren’t really ready to go up this particular hill. When I realized my squad wasn’t ready for that particular battle, I said, “Cool, I have to retreat and return with superior firepower.” Now my new squad is ready. Now the problem for Ollie North and Charlton Heston and them is that I am no longer down with the Time Warner army. They think I’ve been fired. Well, now I’m like a renegade soldier. Now I’m the general. I’m the one and only shareholder. Now they’re going to have to deal with me, straight up.

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Q: Your critics relish the fact that few artists in the entertainment community rallied to support you during your battle with the cops or when Time Warner was pressuring you to make changes before you split with the company. Did you feel abandoned?

A: The entertainment community is basically a bunch of sellout mothers out to get their own rocks off. Wesley Snipes called to help, but that was it. So did people like Ice Cube and Cypress Hill and Public Enemy. But in the eyes of America, rappers are all just the same bunch of n-----s, so nobody really cares if we join together.

The support needed to come from mainstream artists, but they ain’t with it. How many people do you think there are in show business who will get out there and stand up for something if it’s going to cost them a record deal or a TV spot or something? They’re scared, man. They like to say a lot of things about artistic freedom, but they’re fakes.

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Q: Why do you think mainstream entertainment companies refuse to put out violent rap music, but continue to release violent movies?

A: Because it’s all bull----, that’s why. In the last scene of that Clint Eastwood movie that everybody says is the best film of the year, he smokes the police point blank with a double barrel shotgun. I know, people will say, “Oh, but he was a bad cop.” But who the f--- do they think we’re talking about in our songs? The only difference is that Clint Eastwood is white. If you took Michael Douglas out of “Falling Down” and put a brother in that movie, it would never come out. What this is about is a fear of black people with guns. A fear of the true penalty that America still has yet to pay. They never broke even. They never gave us our 40 acres and our mule and they know we’re still mad.

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Q: Why do you think no group has ever been able to rally as effectively as the cops to stop companies from distributing other potentially offensive songs, such as music that degrades women, gays or minority groups?

A: Because the cops are a military organization. They’re a gang. They know how to move in a war. They did an excellent job. My problem was that I wasn’t in the position to call the shots. I was a private and my general was not prepared.

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Q: Some Warner Music people looked on “Home Invasion” as a 1993 update of “Peter Pan” with you turning white kids against their parents. What’s the record about?

A: It’s about breaking down racial barriers. A home invasion is when robbers break into your house while you’re still there and hold your family hostage. Because really, that was the whole problem with “Cop Killer.” White parents got crazy when little Johnny in El Paso started singing the song and little Sally took down her poster of Vanilla Ice and put up Ice-T in shackles over her little princess bedroom set. They get scared when their kids start liking black rappers like me and Cube and Public Enemy.

The parents tell the kids all these lies about black people and we tell them the truth. So what I’m saying in “Home Invasion” is, “Hey, moms, it’s too late! Your kid’s had his head in that Walkman for a long time now. You have no idea how deep we’re into your house. We’re sitting right there at your dinner table and you don’t even know it.”

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Q: What is the next album by Body Count going to be like?

A: It’s aggressive. Ain’t nothin’ on there about no police, I don’t think. Not so far. Only thing different is that we’re doing a lot of samples in the form of Ministry on it. More sound effects. Also we’re adding lightning and rain to the live shows to make it more theatrical. We have a tentative stadium tour set this summer with Slayer.

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Q: Do you think of yourself as a poet?

A: Yeah. That’s why I don’t really make my music to dance to. An Ice-T album is not really something to play in a club. It’s something you put on, sit back with some headphones or ride in the car and listen to. It’s like a musical novel.

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Q: What do you like to read that might surprise people?

A: Science fiction and abstract stuff. I really like Omni magazine and things like that. The future is the only place I got to look. I mean if you look back, it’s really depressing. Words like traditional and the good ol’ days don’t mean anything to me. All I got is the future.

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Q: What about the future? Besides the new album, what’s in store for Ice-T?

A: My company. It’s small but we have a lot of different little branches and about 20 people working for us. We have our own record label, our own merchandising, own video production company, our own music and book publishing divisions. We’re going to put out an Ice-T comic and my own book soon which will be called “The Ice Opinion--Who Gives a F---?”

Plus, we have a new clothing line coming out next month. It’s called OGG: Original Gangsta Gear. They’re like plain clothes in solid colors that we’ll be selling in major stores like Nordstrom through a big deal we did with Japan. Our motto is: “Can’t go out of style. ‘Cause it’s not in style.”

It’s funny, you know, people get after me now, they say, “Oh, man, you’re making money and you should be embarrassed because of it.” But I say, look, for every dime I’ve made, somebody else has made a dollar off it. When I was in “New Jack City,” I made $28,000 and they made $60 million. So why should I apologize for anything I got?

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Q: Your critics wonder how you can write gangsta rap and live in a big house in Hollywood Hills.

A: Because real gangstas--successful gangsters--live in houses like this. All the big hustlers that I ever knew lived in big places way out. Go to Miami and hang out with some real gansters and you’ll see. I ain’t no little punk on the street. I’m a real ganster. I don’t care what the press says. As long as my friends are happy to see me, that’s all I care about. Now if people on the street were saying Ice shouldn’t be up on the hill, then I’d have a problem. But the street ain’t saying that. The street is saying, “Ice move higher up the hill.” They look at me and they see someone who has made it. Because, man, everybody in the hood is trying to get the f--- out. I mean, before I was a rapper, what in the hell do you think I was robbing for? To stay broke? I was always trying to get into a house like this.