By Gil Kaufman
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It will probably come as no surprise that over the quarter-century that Ice-T has been portraying Sergeant Fin Tutuola on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit he’s seen a lot of special guests come and go on the police drama. So, when Billboard caught up with the rapper/actor on the red carpet at the 77th annual Emmy Awards on Sunday night (Sept. 14) and asked him to choose a favorite memory from his record-setting 550-plus episode run, naturally the “You Played Yourself” MC leaned into his hip-hop roots.
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“I really enjoyed the episode [when] Ludacris came on the show,” Ice-T said of the double-down from the “Get Back” rapper on two different episodes in 2006 and 2007 when he guest-starred as Darius Parker, Tutuola’s troubled nephew. He also gave props to OutKast’s Big Boi, who popped into season 10 in 2008 as a rapper named Gots Money who got tangled up in a murder connected to an exotic animal smuggling operation.
“Anytime a rapper would come on the show that was love and I had a good time working with them,” Ice-T said in the video you can watch in full above.
Interviewer QTCinderella then hit Ice with a tougher question: if he had a chance to remake the show’s iconic “dun-dun” theme music, what would it sound like? “It would sound like ‘Rebel Without a Pause’ by Public Enemy,” Ice said, busting out a bit of the “Yes, the rhythm, the rebel” first verse.
After joining the police procedural in 2000 in its second year, Ice-T has racked up appearances in more than 450 episodes, second only to OG cast member Mariska “Olivia Benson” Hargitay, who has 574 eps on her resumé, making her the longest-running primetime live-action character in TV history; Ice-T is just behind as the longest-running male series actor in American TV history.
Both were on hand at Sunday’s Emmy Awards to pay tribute to the Law & Order universe, appearing alongside former SVU co-lead Christopher Meloni and Law & Order‘s S. Epatha Merkerson and Tony Goldwyn as they presented the award for best drama series.
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