While rap’s young guns are appeasing critics and vowing to keep it clean, one of hip-hop’s elder statesmen isn’t about to let Al Sharpton, Oprah, or anyone else for that matter tell him what he can and cannot say. In a recent interview with SOHH, Ice-T said that he’s going to continue to use the N-word when he’s got the mic in his hand, claiming that the word’s OK when used by someone from the ‘hood.

“I’m (going to) say ‘nigga’ til the wheels fall off,” said the Original Gangster. “My daddy used to say it. I believe that, if it doesn’t apply to you, don’t say it. If you ain’t from the hood, don’t say nigga. That’s where it lies.”

Ice-T then went off on sellouts, saying that he thinks “a lot of black people are too overly concerned with what white people think about them.”

 I wouldn’t exactly word it that way, but I’m kind of on the fence about this. In a way, I don’t think we should use it, but in another way I see nothing wrong with the damn word. It is what it is … a word! “Nigga” is like those surfer boys’ “dude” in my opinion. Now if somebody came up to me and was like “nigger,” then hell yeah! It’s on and poppin! NO ONE should be able to use the “-er” version freely.