Rap star Ice-T says he'll drop "Cop Killer" from his latest album to spare Time Warner Inc. from further attacks and will instead hand out copies of the song for free.
"It's not a Warner Bros. fight. It's my fight," he said Tuesday.Time Warner, the parent of Warner Bros. Records, says new copies of the album "Body Count," without the song, should be in stores within weeks.
The news failed to appease police organizations and others who have called for a boycott of the media conglomerate over the song, in which the rapper sings, "I'm going to bust some shots off. I'm going to dust some cops off."
"I'm glad Warner understands that one shouldn't celebrate the killing of police officers," said actor Charlton Heston, who denounced the album at a Time Warner shareholder meeting earlier this month. "I'm sorry they still think it's OK to sing about raping women, murdering mothers and sodomizing little girls."
Ice-T said he wanted to shield Time Warner from criticism, and
he denied that the move was prompted by law enforcement complaints.
He said that by giving the song away for free, he'll prove the record company wasn't interested only in profits, as some have alleged.
"I'll bring it back to South Central and give it away free at concerts," Ice-T said, referring to the mostly black and Hispanic section of Los Angeles.
Ice-T repeated his assertion that "Cop Killer" is a protest against police brutality. "The record is not a call to murder police. The record is about anger," he said. "This is the end result of police brutality."
More than 1,000 record stores nationwide have pulled the album.