You Played Yourself

In this song, Ice-T sends a warning to the aspiring rappers and drug dealers who neglect their education, believing everything is going to work out for them. When it doesn't, they'll learn the hard lesson: they played themselves. Ice-T had been around the block - he was in his 30s and had seen many wannabe gangsters and rappers get chewed up.

The track is based on the 1973 James Brown song "The Boss," which appeared in the film Black Caesar. On his previous album, Ice-T released "I'm Your Pusher," which sampled the Curtis Mayfield song "Pusherman" from another blaxploitation film, Super Fly. In a Songfacts interview with Ice-T, he explained: "We were just vibing off of different things, and at that time, my whole image was the player, the hustler. We said, 'How about we base a lot of my music off of blaxploitation music?'"

Ice-T crafted the song with his producer, Afrika Islam. The writers of "The Boss" - James Brown, Charles Bobbit and Fred Wesley - are also credited as composers.