Iceman

By Richie Victorino rvictorino@hippopress.com

When someone introduces himself as Iceman, your first instinct might be to jokingly tell him that you are Maverick (that?s a Top Gun reference, just in case you didn't know).

"Oh man, I've heard it all," said Iceman, a.k.a. Curt Felder.

But there is nothing Hollywood about the way Felder got the name Iceman.

"Basically, back in my Brooklyn days, I was stabbed by an ice pick," Iceman said. To his friends, Iceman just seemed the perfect moniker.

Iceman's Brooklyn days come up a lot in conversation, despite his moving from there (to Concord) last year as a way of escaping a lifestyle he grew up in.

Without going into much detail, he confesses he was a street hustler in Brooklyn.

"In the environment I came from, there weren't a lot of opportunities, and you learned from other people in the neighborhood," Iceman said. "And when you would see rappers in videos with all that platinum, you wanted that."

But all that platinum comes at a price.

"I was in a car once that got shot up by a jeepload of Jamaican dealers," Iceman said. "One of my friends got shot in the head right next to me."

Iceman has seen and lived violence. But living through it all hasn't numbed him to it; just the opposite. It's hard for him to talk about his friend who got shot. It's hard for him to watch the news or videos with violence.

"You see stuff like that in real life and it just makes you more in tune," he said.

Iceman's lyrics reflect him as a man. He speaks of his violent past, but not in a way that glorifies that lifestyle. His lyrics are meant to educate.

"Anyone who listens to this [music] with a half a mind is gonna say 'I don't wanna live through that.'"

But still, the thug life is evident in Iceman's approach and way of thinking.

"One of the lessons I learned early in life, which I'm realizing is a falsehood, is that it's easier to say f--- the world than it is to say let's have love, peace and happiness," he said. "No one tends to hear you. But if you walk softly and carry a big gun, people pay attention. It's a bad lesson." - NH Hippo Press

Iceman voted Number one artist in the state of New Hampshire in Vibe Magazine's December 2007 issue.

To view the article clipping, copy and paste this link:

http://www.redzonerecords.net/Iceman-Vibe-December-2007.html - Vibe Magazine

By Victoria Shouldis
For the Monitor

Think there's no hip-hop in New Hampshire? Iceman, Concord's own up-and-coming 'Vibe'-endorsed rapper, proves you wrong.

He's a Granite Stater by way of Coney Island. A businessman by way of the U.S. Army. A rapper by way of urban street life, talking about the adrenaline and the violence of life on the hustle and on the edge. And a graduate of Romper Room.

He's Iceman. These days, he lives in Concord, and he's been named New Hampshire's premier rapper and MySpace hip-hop presence in the latest Vibe magazine.

Vibe described his style as "unrelenting thug rap," but the real Iceman message is a tad more complex. To be sure, Iceman's lyrics talk about life in what he terms the ghetto - his songs are heavy with references to cooking up crack, selling and ingesting certain substances and leaving the minimum wage jobs for suckers. But he also talks about the realities of the street (selling your soul for some dough) and deftly conveys the continuing allure of a lifestyle that's sure to kill you ("making the time / to help me find / a way to leave behind / the city of my mind").

The songs themselves are rhythmic hip-hop numbers composed with enough pop stylings that you may find a repeated verse stuck in your head.

It's not a surprise that Iceman (real name: Curt Felder), 31, grew up with conflicting influences. As he witnessed the rough but seductive life in the 'hood, he was being raised by his mother and grandmother, two strong, resilient women who let him know early that he was expected to be somebody.

As a young boy, he did some work modeling in catalogues; a stint on children's television gave Iceman early lessons in being at ease in a crowd.

When he decided to be a performer, he realized he should get to college and study composition and recording. And when he found himself lacking focus and called by roads not so straight and narrow, he enlisted in the Army. And when major record labels didn't knock on his door, he launched his own record company.

We talked recently with Iceman about rap, burgers and Romper Room.

So when you're offstage, are you Iceman or Curt?

Offstage, I'm Curt, really.

You came of age just at the time that rap was making its first inroads. Was there one song for you, one moment? What were you listening to before that?

Well, church music was very important to my grandmother, so I grew up with a lot of gospel. And my mom and grandmother both liked soul, the blues. But the moment for me? It was "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash. There were life lessons in that song. And the sound: something just clicked.

You were a cast member on Romper Room when you were just a little boy. How did that happen?

My mom had me connected with an agent, and I'd done some print ads. And he got me the Romper Room gig. I don't remember too much about it, really - I was very little - but there was that - what was it? Doing the right thing? Being a Do-Bee? I remember that.

You knew early on you wanted to perform, and you chose from a young age to get yourself educated and keep your options open. What drove that in you?

What was made concrete and clear to me from the youngest age by my grandmother was: Plan B. Always have a Plan B. You know you're talented. Have a Plan B. I came to realize some people who live that urban life can lack discipline. And I look back now - so many of the people I knew are in jail. Dead.

There was a time when you chose that life yourself, though.

There was. And I explain it, but I don't make excuses. Everybody has excuses. The thing was, there were financial hardships in my family, my grandmother was ill. But what I did was, I made the wrong choices for the right reasons. I had a friend, he was sitting in a car next to me. And he was shot in the head. Right there with me. You know every minute of every day what choice you made. What it means. And it isn't right to talk about the cars, the money, without making sure you're talking about the guns, the violence, the lives that go.

Did you avoid police involvement?

Mostly. I was lucky. I did do three months on Rikers when I was picked up on a possession charge. But I didn't end up charged or with a record. That time was enough.

From there, how do you end up in the Army?

It was a choice - I knew I had potential. I liked to read from an early age, I liked to learn. I had drive. But focus was a problem. And the Army was just great for that - you have to develop that ability to totally focus. I was in during the first Gulf War. We never deployed, but we spent like every day up in Fort Drum, N.Y., just waited to be called. Every day. It was like the worst and best experience in the world. I liked it, and I thought at the time we were fighting that war for the right reasons. But I was infantry! If we'd gotten called, we were going right into the front of the battle.

You relocated to Boston in an effort to make the music career pop, and eve - Concord Monitor (12-06-07)