POP MUSIC : Q & A : A Rapper Goes Hollywood : Can Ice-T, the pioneer of L.A.’s gangsta rap, keep his street edge now that he’s moved far from the ghetto and into the movies?

Is Ice-T, the godfather of gangsta rap, starting to melt?

The question might appear strange to those who are seeing the Los Angeles rapper for the first time in “New Jack City,” the brutal film about big-city drug dealers that co-stars Ice-T as a dynamic, hard-boiled cop.

His 1987 album “Rhyme Pays” popularized “gangsta rap,” a musical style whose explicit narratives of ghetto violence frequently chronicle--and some say glorify--gang battles with police . But Ice-T’s music seemed tame a couple of years later when a new wave of young rappers--notably N.W.A. and Ice Cube--arrived with recordings so provocative and alarming that an FBI official accused one of their songs of encouraging attacks on law enforcement officers.

At times, Ice-T has seemed more interested in acting than in music (he made his film debut in “Breakin”’ way back in 1984). Since “New Jack City,” he’s made “Ricochet,” in which he co-stars with Denzel Washington. Washington plays a district attorney who needs the assistance of an old pal, a drug lord portrayed by Ice-T. The movie, which finished shooting earlier this month, is due out early next year.

He eventually moved far from the inner city, to a fancy home in the hills above the Sunset Strip. It also doesn’t help that Ice-T is apparently in his early 30s (he doesn’t reveal his age or true name), which is ancient by gangsta rap standards.

But Ice-T, a Newark, N.J. , native who says he grew up in a tough section of South-Central Los Angeles and attended Crenshaw High School, dismisses all this “soft” talk as nonsense and maintains that his fourth album, titled “O.G.--Original Gangster” and due May 14 from Sire/Warner Bros. Records, will prove his point.

“It’s tougher and more hard core,” he said during a recent interview at a Sunset Strip restaurant near his house. “I’m back with hard, butt-kickin’ rap. Listen to the album and then ask if Ice-T has gone soft.”

Question: Because of violence at some showings, “New Jack City” is being criticized for many of the same reasons people first attacked gangsta rap. Do you think the movie glorifies violence or drug dealers?

Answer: Not really. It’s not like “Scarface,” where they had to shoot Tony Montana (the Al Pacino character) about 80 times before he finally went down. In “New Jack City,” the main drug dealer isn’t superhuman. It just takes one bullet to kill him. And that business about the movie being too violent is bull. Look at “Lethal Weapon” or “Total Recall” and count the bodies. “New Jack City” is tame next to those movies.

In Westwood, kids who couldn’t get into the theater got mad and did some looting. The movie didn’t drive them to violence, it was circumstances outside the theater. The movie itself isn’t that violent, but some of the people who’ve seen it are violent. Some of this gang activity goes on at a lot of movies. Put some of these rival gang members next to each other at “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and they’ll kill each other.

Q: Do you worry about your acting career spoiling your credibility in rap?

A: No. Just because people can see me on the screen, that doesn’t make me less of a rapper. If I was singing and dancing like Fred Astaire or somebody, then it might affect my credibility. But ‘New Jack City’ is a tough, street movie and I (play a) tough character. Just because I play a cop doesn’t mean I am a cop or that I like cops. I think rap fans are smart enough to understand that.

Q: Does following this acting career mean you might back off of rap?

A: No way. It’s just a different career. These careers can exist together. I’m an actor and a rapper. One doesn’t get in the way of the other. I’m always looking for ways to further myself and expand. Acting is part of the constant expansion of Ice-T.

Q: What do you say to people who suggest that you can’t live in the hills and write about life in the ghetto--that you’ve sold out because you drive a Porsche and wear a Rolex?

A: They’re not thinking straight. They’re being stupid. If you have money, the last place you want to be is in the ghetto. What if I lived there? People know I have money. The laws of the street are such that they’d soon come after me--probably kill me--for my money or my cars or something. I couldn’t even park my car on the street. That’s the way it is there. People are desperate in the ghettos. Why should I make myself a target for desperate people?

Getting out of the ghetto and buying some nice things isn’t selling out. Everybody in the ghetto aspires to get out. Nobody with sense wants to live there with rats, roaches, crime and drugs.

Q: But what about your music? Can you still identify effectively with life on the streets when you no longer live there?

A: I’m doing it. I haven’t lost my edge. People who sell out are the ones who get out and don’t look back. I still have contact with people in South-Central constantly. It’s my roots. Besides, I lived the street life for years--robbing, stealing and hustling. It’s a wonder I’m not dead. I got enough information from those days for a lifetime of hard-core raps.

Q: How did the whole gangsta rap style come about originally?

A: I invented it because I wanted to rap, but I couldn’t rap about what the New Yorkers were rapping about--going to parties and doing silly things. That was too shallow. There was really no West Coast rap scene at the time so it was wide open. My friends said that I should rap about what I knew. I had been running the streets livin’ that gangster lifestyle for a lot of years. That’s all I really knew about. It was reality-based rhyme.

Q: Did you worry that you were encouraging violence by writing about tension between gang members and police? You certainly were accused of being irresponsible.

A: What’s irresponsible about telling the truth? A lot of people forget that the ghetto is an ugly, dangerous place. The rappers keep that information in people’s faces. Maybe one day the government that’s wasting all this money on wars will finally listen and start taking care of their own people for a change.

Q: What were your feelings when you saw the videotape of of the Rodney King beating? For your part, did it vindicate gangsta rappers?

A: Hell, yes. We’ve been rapping about the L.A. cops and people like (Police Chief Daryl) Gates for years and nobody believed us. Gates is the real gangster. He should be in the unemployment line. In the ghetto, the cops have always been like a street gang that’s out of control--aggressive bullies that beat the hell out of you whenever they can. Now people see it wasn’t a fantasy.

Q: Do you see the King incident leading to a flood of records about police brutality?

A: Some rappers will probably take advantage of it, but only the weak ones--the slow ones who haven’t (already been into the scene) for years. For me it’s old news. I’ll still mention it in some ways but I’m not going to make a whole album about police brutality.

Q: But the final song on your new album certainly seems like a strong attack on law enforcement.

A: I don’t like the police and I don’t care who knows it. If they’re beating black people half to death for no reason, why should I love them? I’ve been on the other end of the stick. . . . I’ve been abused by the cops--treated by them like I’m not a human being, like I’m less than a dog.

Q: What about that line in the same song (“Ya Should’a Killed Me Last Year”) where you call the President’s wife a name we can’t print in the newspaper? Do you think that’s a cheap shot?

A: It depends on your point of view. That rap was written when we were about to go to war in the Persian Gulf. I knew a lot of people--blacks and whites--were going over there to fight a war that didn’t make sense to them. A lot of people would die senselessly. I was mad at Bush in advance for the people who would die and she’s his wife, so she goes along with his thinking, so she got some of the wrath too.

Q: The new album seems a bit tougher than the last one, “Freedom of Speech . . . Just Watch What You Say.” Was that deliberate?

A: Sales were good on that album, but (I can see where) some of the raps made some people think I was going soft. I just got caught up in messages--about freedom of speech. People at the record company wanted me to do that and I’m sorry that I listened to them. But what really made it seem a little soft is that the other rappers had gone so hard core. This new album doesn’t have a lot of overt messages on it. Kids don’t like being preached to.

Q: What do you think is happening today in rap, with people like Vanilla Ice and M.C. Hammer selling almost 10 million albums each? Is that good or bad for rap?

A: I don’t like Vanilla Ice. He says he’s from the street, but I don’t believe him. What street . . . Sesame Street? Black rappers have genuine anger about what they rap about. But Vanilla Ice comes across as a fake, and not just because he’s white. His color doesn’t matter. He needs to clean up his act and get some humility. His mouth is too big. He should stop shooting it off--and stop being an arrogant jerk. I’d like to meet him. My boys want to meet him. We’d tell him a thing or two and teach him some manners.

Q: What about M.C. Hammer?

A: He’s cool. He’s not wallowing in his fame and acting like he’s better than the world. He’s a decent guy and he works hard and he doesn’t dis people out of arrogance. I don’t listen to that pop rap he does but it’s a matter of taste. I think Hammer is good for rap--good for the image of rap.

Q: In July, you’re going on a rock tour that includes Jane’s Addiction, Living Colour and Nine Inch Nails. Why tour with rockers instead of rappers?

A: It’s tough (for rappers) to find tours now. I’d do shows with the New York Philharmonic just to go on tour. If you’re a hard-core rapper and swear and talk about violence, you can’t tour with R&B; acts because the (explicit) language would be a problem with their audiences. And hard-core rappers can’t tour together because theaters and arenas don’t want them. People are so afraid that the show will attract gangs and generate violence.

But the rock scene is different. Rap goes over well with the rock crowd. I’ve seen it. You can add a rapper to a rock show because you’ll still get mainly the rock crowd, which means that threat of violence isn’t there. Another good thing about this for rappers is exposing your raps to a new audience.

Q: What about the future of rap? People have been predicting for years that it’s just a fad that is going to fade away soon.

A: I think it’s going in the direction of dance-oriented rap, like what C+C Music Factory is doing. It’s not going to get more hard core. The Geto Boys took it as far as it could go on the male side and BWP (Bytches With Problems) did the same thing for women. You can’t get more hard core than that. In terms of gangsta rap, I can’t say what the future will be. I just know I’ll be part of it.