You have already met Darlene Ortiz. At least you have if you have ever encountered the cover photos for either of Ice T's first two album covers; Rhyme Pays and Power. In fact, if you happened to be at an impressionable age when Darlene graced the cover of Power in a dramatically revealing one piece, brandishing a pistol-grip pump shotgun, her likeness is most likely emblazoned on the back of your retina, or perhaps just buried in your subconscious, an archetypal image that flashes in your mind's eye when you hear the word 'fierce.'
As with many such mythic images, the story of the real woman behind the iconic visual is even stranger and more compelling than the players-club fantasies conjured up in the minds of Ice T's young fans. For Darlene Ortiz was not just an anonymous model, dancer or video extra hired as eye-candy for the day. She was Ice T's common law (and down-by-law) wife. As Ice blazed a trail for a new phenomenon called "West Coast Rap"--his career almost literally embodying a missing link of sorts between the early '80s breakdance craze ( think his onscreen cameos in Breakin' and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo and gangster rap (think of his title track for the Sean Penn vehicle Colors)--Ice and Darlene became rap's very first power couple, decades before Kimye or Jayoncé.
It's a fascinating story that leads from Hollywood to the halls of Congress and perhaps it was only a matter of time before Ortiz told it in her own memoir. That memoir is now here in the form of her new book Definition of Down, a flygirl on the wall view of hip-hop history you thought you knew; in the DJ booth at L.A.'s legendary Radiotron club, behind the scenes on the set of New Jack City--and inside the feelings and private life of the man who wrote "I'm Your Pusher"; "Original Gangster" and "Cop Killer." Hanging tough through some pretty unimaginable plot twists long the way, Ortiz almost certainly earned herself another 'first' title: the culture's first certified ride-or-die chick.
We had the pleasure of sitting down with Miss Ortiz (now on her own, as you already guessed if you know much about Ice T's reality TV relationships in the last few years) in the Okayplayer office when she passed through NYC recently and got our very own 'DVD Extras' to Definition Of Down direct from the source. We now share those the highlights of that incredible and wide-ranging convo with you...
Okayplayer: So let's start with this image [on the book cover]. This photo of you for the Power album cover is probably the entry point for most people into your story...
Darlene Ortiz: Mm-hmm. (affirmative).
OKP: Can you tell me a little bit about that day that...
DO: That we shot it?
OKP: Exactly ... the actual photo shoot. What was going through your mind while you were striking this pose?
DO: Well I didn't know I was actually going to strike that pose. But, I did bring several outfits. We did know that with Glen Friedman, the iconic legendary photographer was going to shoot it. He already did our previous album and it's interesting I say 'ours' because I do feel like part of the group, sure. But it was a lot of fun. When we got there Ice knew exactly what he wanted to do. He said, "This is my idea." He didn't tell us beforehand, but we got there and he had all the props, I had brought a whole suitcase full of different outfits...
OKP: Is it a real shotgun?
DO: Yes it is. And then there is some video footage out there of the actual shootage of the album cover with all of us. So, it's out there. I have a VHS of it I just have to get it transferred to DVD now.
OKP: Was it like a day long shoot, or was it something that happened really quick?
DO: It was like a day-long shoot because we were all 3 separate, separately done. And I did change, and so did Ice because we did single shots for the singles as well. So it took all day.
OKP: Had you handled a shotgun before?
DO: Yeah I actually have some photos that I posted up when I was 10. I grew up in the country ... not in Los Angeles city, I didn't go to Los Angeles til '85. So before that my entire childhood, I was raised in Corona, California which is considered the desert. So, yeah, I had pictures that I posted up of my very first one that I got when I was about 11. So, yeah I'm pretty familiar with it.
OKP: Okay, that makes a nice segue into starting at the beginning. So tell us a little about where you're from and how you came to this...booming rap life style.
DO: I know, right? It's incredible how the whole thing happened. Well, I was a tomboy and when I started here, so it was like Melle Mel, Sugar Hill Gang, artists like that. I started gravitating towards the entire hip-hop movement. I just felt it. And, I turned into a b-girl. So I went from a tomboy to a b-girl. Kind of a natural transition right there. And I just started dancing...
Ice T in 'Breakin & Enterin'"
OKP: In terms of your style...or were you actually break-dancing?
DO: Yep, the whole nine.
OKP: Cut-up cardboard boxes?
DO: No, I didn't do cardboard, we did tile. We moved to little pieces of linoleum. But I met a breakdancer, back in that, what was it like '84, almost '85, because it was about a year before I met Ice. And then that's what brought me to Los Angeles to attend the mecca of the hip hop movement in L.A. which was the Radiotron. And that's where I eventually met Ice.
OKP: Was that breakdancer somebody we would know by name? Like somebody from ...
DO: Yeah his name was Oz Rock, he has since passed. But he came from New York and was like the first break-dancer to do more extreme movements that we were able to do. We would see it on TV, on dance shows and concerts and performances like that, like Crazy Legs we would see. Those were like our gods, you know dance gods. So yeah, he came from New York. Made a big name out there, he was doing commercials. So it was almost like I was with a, kind of a rock star guy, before Ice T.
OKP: Because from my memories--I was an elementary school kid at that time--I was break-dancing. My first association of Ice T is being on screen, with like Turbo and Ozone and those guys onscreen in Breakin'.
DO: There you go! Who I'm friends with still today.
OKP: So that's still kind of the same L.A. scene that Oz Rock was moving in?
DO: Yes, yes it was. He hung out with all the dancers, there in MacArthur park at the Radiotron. And he was a judging at a dance competition I was in. I hadn't even gone to L.A. yet, he was a judging a dance competition I was in, in Riverside, Southern California. More south than L.A. And then, he invited me to come to Radiotron for the first time and I was like,"Oh my god I can't believe...yeah oh this is it, what's going to happen from here?" And who knew.
OKP: So now when you met Ice was that before Breakin' came out.
DO: No Breakin' had already come out. Because I actually went to go see him and a bunch of other cast members at a movie promotion at a rollerskating rink, almost two years before I met him. We went to go meet the cast, and he turned around and we took a picture of him pointing at me. Years later my friends who live here in Brooklyn, they had moved out there to live away from a lot of the drama out here they would encounter, and we became friends--we're still friends to this day, but they moved back here. She said, "Remember that? We went to that thing before the set." She says you remember,"He pointed right at you." Turned around and he got a picture of me just looking right at me in the camera. So bizarre, but this is kind of like how things were going for me. It was just like, whoa. It was just in that path, it was just so crazy to see that. And then two years later...
OKP: So you met 2 years ... Were you dancing, were you?
DO: Yeah, I was a b-girl and that's when I was with, I got Oz Rock about a year after that, and then I was with him for about a few months. And then he flew to the Philippines, and there was an incident out there where he got himself into some trouble with a girl, and then I broke up with him and then I was single, so there you go.
OKP: And then you got to L.A....
A Young Darlene aka Glamorous D Holding the Mic at Legendary LA Venue Radiotron Ca. 1984
DO: And then I got to L.A. and I was by myself...I mean that was my world. It was therapeutic for me trying to escape from my mother who was not a great mother at all, she was an abusive alcoholic. So I was trying to stay. So I would do what I could. Here I was underage, but yet I was gone for weekends at a time. Just sleeping and doing what I could, sleeping in cars, abandoned buildings, as a matter of fact I slept there in Radiotron a few times in the director's office, he would just lock it for me inside. But that's how serious I was about staying there and trying to enjoy myself and have a good time before I had to go back home.
OKP: Did you end up going back home? Or did you just ...
DO: All the time, yeah all the time until I met Ice, and then that's when I was like, "I want to be with this guy, but how am I going to be with him if I live way out here, he lives in L.A." And so I eventually just ran away. I met him almost 3 months before I turned 18.
OKP: Okay. So he, from the chronology I'm getting, he was a pretty established star at that point? Had been in movies and maybe a album out?
DO: No, he didn't have a record deal. He had gotten the part in Breakin', but that was, years had passed.
OKP: That was just a cameo...
Ice T in Breakin' and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo
DO: Yes, and he was still back to doing his, somewhat criminal activities, or at least around his friends. And he said, "Well I'm going to stick with this. But I can't stick with this without making a living." So they would support him in ways, like say "Hey, we know that you're trying to go legit..." they really looked out for him. And us, when eventually I got with him they really look after the whole family.
OKP: So, tell me a little bit about where that lead you, to be on those album covers [for Rhyme Pays and Power]...?
DO: You mean 'lead us' --because, to me I believe it was our, and I look to use those words not his, but our biggest selling albums, in his rap career. I mean later on he did Body Count, but I think those are his biggest selling albums, and of course I hear from a lot of people all the time that the reason that a lot of people did purchase some of the albums were initially because they saw my photo. And then hopefully, they would then like what they heard, but most of the time I hear a lot of people say--especially, you know East Coast, and then all over other parts of the world besides West Coast--that they were like intrigued by the photo first and then maybe they got into the music.
OKP: For those of us who didn't grow up in that world, we just got a great window into what that scene was like from this movie Straight Outta Compton. Can you give us your insider perspective of what that scene was like when you were with Ice. Were you interacting with those other people, kind of coming up in the same scene>
DO: Eventually yes, because we...you have to remember, we were way before that. So it was almost like we're by ourselves. You know, he is. We're making this trek and this movement by ourselves, and then you started hearing about other people dibble-dabbling in rap, and coming up and getting deals and all that so he was solo, literally by himself out there in the West Coast. And then they came around and of course there was only a handful of West Coast rappers, it was like what, maybe under 20, maybe. So everyone would click and get to know each other, but we were around them. I even attended Ice Cube's wedding, you know that's how close everybody was.
OKP: I guess that's probably what I find it so fascinating is that, especially if you're not from there, from the outside, you've seen the media and stuff. And with these two big waves, it was like L. A. was kind of ahead of the national b-boy, electro craze, so you had like Egyptian Lover and that kind of stuff ...
DO:That's right!
OKP: And then you had this other wave, of gangster rap. And Ice, in some ways, that breaking cameo and his first albums, it's kind of like the missing link in a way. Did you see that evolution happening? Like when did people kind of say,"This break-dancing stuff isn't a thing anymore." What was that process like in L.A.?
DO: It kind of molded itself right into that. Because his background is you know, he's from the streets. It's funny you say Egyptian Lover because there's some great stories in there as well. Who is still a really close contact and good friend of ours. Again, back then everybody kind of knew each other, you know were very supportive of one another. It definitely made that transition. Because it was as hard as it was. Even though people were like, "Oh dancing, breakdancing." But it was a hard form of breakdancing, you know what I'm saying? So it kind of naturally made that transition. I mean you have pop-lockers that were dressed ... I mean they're right off the street. You look at West Coast pop lockers, they look like gang bangers. So it was kind of a natural transition when we started to rap, and it kind of just molded, did a natural flow right into gangster rap.
OKP: Were there people in the scene who tried to go back, or go in a different direction? That kind of pushed back, that were not changing with the times?
Ice T + Darlene On Oprah
DO: No, you had your different genres of it, even like Egyptian Lover. You know what I'm saying it kind of had that dance, kind of fest that wasn't really singing. And then you had the conscious rap, you know Ice ... And then they all respected each other too. So that was interesting because nowadays you have...I don't even know, I don't even know how to describe ...
OKP: So should I take that you don't have any particular favorites among the young generation?
DO: Actually I do! You know we have a son who is going to turn 24 on the 23rd of this month, and so I hear a lot through him...
OKP: Happy birthday to him!
DO: Thank you, thank you, yes! I'm excited, he keeps growing up, he's grown up. But I love J. Cole, you know Kendrick of course, and even B.o.B. But I have to have something and a lot of times even if I love the dance ... I love Kid Ink, who by the way is in there, has a tattoo of me. Has that image on his body. But, I, there's not that much. There's not that much out there. I really keep myself on some old school, backspin, you know ... I just, I can't. There's not that much out there. I give it a go. I don't dis it or anything. Because, we had some of that stuff too. It was just the dance stuff, and that type stuff ... World Class Wrecking Cru that had some interesting stuff.
OKP: They're another one of those missing links. So out of curiosity in 2015 if you're sitting around the house listening to what you love to listen to, what do you love to listen to?
DO: Oh my god. Well I'm a hardcore funk, old dance stuff. Like Jimmy Castor. The other night when we were at the I actually, one of the DJs said, "Hey, you want to hear something, what do you want to hear?" And that's the first thing I said. I said, "Do you have any Jimmy Castor?" "Of course!" And I love that. But, I'm an old school, funk, R&B, and of course old school rap. But mostly, r&b and dance music, like funk stuff.
OKP: So besides this book coming out which is obviously a big moment, where are you at in your career and professional life now?
DO: Well I have written some treatments. One of them was picked up by Discovery channel. And their still trying to shop it. It's a reality series, not what you would think! It's actually quite cute and entertaining. It's called Love Don't Live Here. It all has to do with the transition of my ex leaving, and me slowly selling off all the goods. Having yard sales, and Love Don't Live Here.
OKP: When Ice left, did he leave behind a lot of rabbit fur Kangols, and ...?
DO: Yeah! Are you kidding me? A lot of that. Fedoras, dress shoes ... because you know he had the whole wide spectrum of things. He would dress from street stuff to your pimp gear and all of that. But yeah that's all eventually gone. I have some stuff that I held on to. For our son, like in case for entertainment maybe they want a floor length red fur coat or something and I ...
OKP: You go to keep a few, just in case...
DO: I did, I did! I swear, I have it in the storage. But I'm also I'm a fitness instructor. That's one of my passions. I've been doing that for the last 20 years. And also, I volunteered for hospice, and I'm going to get my end of life midwife certificate, because I like to help people transition and make...help them pass with ease. Their families and stuff because I kind of feel like I have that in me. But I definitely would love to get movie options, if that's possible. Because I think that this story needs to be told. It's something entirely different than Straight Outta Compton. It's kind of like the prequel story to that.
OKP: Now, if you don't mind me asking, at what time did you and Ice split...
Darlene's Cameo Alongside Denzel Washington in The 1991 Film Ricochet
DO: 2001, 2002. So he was already on Law & Order.
OKP: Right, and he had already done some big movies with Denzel [Washington] and such
DO: Oh yeah! Which I'm in that movie [Ricochet] by the way with Denzel. It's in the very beginning. I was almost 9 months pregnant so I weighed about 200 pounds, and it was Denzel's idea. And I'm walking around the set and he just said, "Hey, listen. You, my friend, have been waddling around here, we're going to get her a scene." And I'm like, "Right on, no way!" And I was huge. They didn't have clothes on there for somebody that big, so they split the back, put it together with some, prop ropes. It was cut in the back. I like telling people that. And then they go, "Oh really, you did some acting." And I go, "Oh well a little something, with Denzel Washington."
OKP: Any cameos in New Jack City?
DO: Yes, yeah!
OKP: Keep talking...(!)
DO: ...in the club scene when him and Wesley [Snipes] first meet, and they give each other the evil eye. And he's like, "Okay, who is this guy?" And it's funny because I always say, "Stop it right there, pause it right there! Here I am, see?" And it's like this [covers one eye] half my face. He's got his arm around me and we're dancing, it's slow motion, I go: "Right there!" It's official.
I've been going through a lot of my stuff because it was time to do the book and gather up the photos for it. I was in my storage and I ran across some high-8 tapes. And I go,"Oh, that's right Jesus." I was allowed, somehow [to film behind the scenes of New Jack City] just because nobody told Ice 'no.' He just told all the producers and records, "Hey, my girl is going to be walking around with a camera." Okay, fine. They would even make room for me, let me do the scenes, then come over here stay in the corner I would stay out of harms way. And I have hours of side footage from New Jack City that nobody's ever seen, of just them putting makeup on, clowning, joking ...
OKP: Now, did you already know Mario Van Peebles at that time? Because he had done a breakdance era movie with Ice [Rappin' Hood] in the early '80s as well...
DO: No. I think Ice knew him, but I was there [when he was recruited for New Jack]. We were at [LA club] Power Tools, my girlfriend and I were with him and went to the restroom. And he was like, "Ugh, they're taking forever." He went in the men's room, and then they actually had the meeting in there! Mario said, "Hey who's voice is that on the other side of the stall?" And Ice goes, "It's me, I'm Ice." And they came out and literally sealed the deal. So, yeah...it happened in the bathroom at Power Tools! I was outside like, "What is it taking them so long in the men's bathroom?"
OKP: Now fast forwarding a little bit. So 2001 and 2002 you said you guys parted ways...in terms of your career, were you kind of like, "Okay, I'm done with this lifestyle and music and I'm going to do something else now?"
DO: I was a stay at home, full time mom. So that was my world, you know what I'm saying? Raising our son. That was the first thing. But I did have in the back of my mind, like "Well, what am I going to do, though?" I knew he was going to get to a certain age where I'm going to have to do some things, but I was still taking his father's word, which is the reason I was a stay at a home mom, was because he needed me as well. I said, "You know, when he starts to go to school for longer hours, I can go work... " But he would always say, "That doesn't make any sense." Everything was still supporting his career. And I was down for that, all the way to the very end. And I said, "Well, he has given me his word all these years, why not believe him now?" So I trusted him, so I basically just put everything into his world, and then I kind of got the rug pulled out from underneath me when he did decide to leave.
OKP: After you came to grips with break-up, what was it that sort of brought you back to yourself ?
DO: Well it still took until maybe just a few years ago. Because, again, I was so enthralled with being a full time mom, so I mean everything, 100% was about that kid. I was there for everything, even helping out in his class everyday, you know all that stuff. Slowly I started coming into my own, I started getting into everything else, like my fitness instructing, and writing with my co-writer Heidi Sigmund. As a matter of fact, she actually co-wrote Ice's first book, The Ice Opinion. So she and I had a lot of ideas for other things. I also write music, and in the book is a break down of a song that I wrote with a dear friend, Teena Marie--r&b legend!--who passed away 2 months ago. We were friends for 30 years, and one day she said we're going to write a song. And who knew it was going to be that last year. We broke up, Ice and I, and it broke her heart just as much as it did mine. And she said, "This is the year we're going to write for this album of mine." And who knew that was going to be her last recorded album. And let alone, pass away 2 months after we finished it? She asked me what the name of the title of my book was that I was writing that I just started, and I said, Definition of Down, and she says, "We're going to write a song for it." That's the name of our song. So all the lyrics are in the beginning of the book. Her daughter just released the album earlier this year, so 2 years later. So, it's pretty heavy.
Okayplayer: So, in the end, what do you really want to achieve with this book?
Darlene Ortiz: I would like to share how amazing that era was, because a lot of people missed out on it. And I think right now too, the generation nowadays--even my own son and his friends--are intrigued by it. Because I don't think they're being very intrigued by what's going on right now. So everybody's going back. Look, the success of Straight Outta Compton, that was wonderful for them--which I love by the way. And I thought, "Well oh my god, well this is actually another chapter of that story--this is the prequel to it.
