Previously known only as a rapper, Ice-T's work with the band helped establish a crossover audience with rock music fans.

It was voted the 31st best album of the year in The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics poll,[6] and is believed to have helped pave the way for the mainstream success of the rap metal genre.

[7][8] While Ice-T was primarily known for his work in the hip hop genre, he had long been a fan of rock music and formed Body Count out of this interest.

According to Ice-T, "We named the group Body Count because every Sunday night in L.A., I'd watch the news, and the newscasters would tally up the youths killed in gang homicides that week and then just segue to sports.

[4] Ernie C and Ice-T conceived the album with the dark, ominous tone and Satanic lyrical themes of Black Sabbath in mind.

[14] Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote that with Body Count, Ice-T "has recognized a kinship between his gangster raps and post-punk, hard-core rock, both of which break taboos to titillate fans.

But where rap's core audience is presumably in the inner city, hard-core appeals mostly to suburbanites seeking more gritty thrills than they can get from Nintendo or the local mall.

"[15] Despite Ice-T's attempts to differentiate Body Count from his work in the hip hop genre, the press focused on the group's rap image.

"[17] Body Count has since been credited for pioneering the rap metal genre popularized by groups such as Rage Against the Machine and Limp Bizkit.

"[5] The spoken introduction, "Smoked Pork" features Ice-T taking on the roles of a gangster pretending to be seemingly stranded motorist and a police officer who refuses to aid.

[19] In the lyrics of "KKK Bitch", Ice-T describes a sexual encounter with a woman who he soon learns is the daughter of the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

The lyrics go on to describe a scenario in which members of Body Count "crash" a Klan meeting to "get buck wild with the white freaks".

We'd play Ku Klux Klan areas in the South and the girls would always come backstage and tell us how their brothers and fathers didn't like black folks.

"[20] "Momma's Gotta Die Tonight" follows the account of a black teenager who murders and dismembers his racist mother after she reacts negatively when he brings a white girl home.

[20] In The Ice Opinion: Who Gives a Fuck?, Ice-T wrote that the song's lyrics are metaphorical, explaining that "Whoever is still perpetuating racism has got to die, not necessarily physically, but they have to kill off that part of their brain.

[18] The album version mentions then-Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates and the black motorist Rodney King, whose beating by LAPD officers was recorded on videotape.

'"[5] In an interview for Rolling Stone, Ice-T stated that "We just celebrated the fourth of July, which is really just national Fuck the Police Day [...] I bet that during the Revolutionary War, there were songs similar to mine.

[33] However, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, Body Count was certified gold for sale shipments in excess of 500,000 copies, with a certification date back to August 4, 1992.

[34] In a positive review for The Village Voice, music critic Robert Christgau said Ice-T "takes rap's art-ain't-life defense over the top" on a heavy metal album which utilizes and parodies "the style's whiteskin privilege".

[30] He wrote that the music is "flat-out hard rock, short on soloistic intricacy and fancy structures", but that it is set apart from other metal by Ice-T, who "describes racism in language metalheads can understand, kills several policemen, and cuts his mama into little pieces because she tells him to hate white people.

"[35] Greg Kot, writing in the Chicago Tribune, felt the lyrics on some songs are pathologically flawed and off-putting, but the band's take on metal styles is impressive and, "on the stereotype-bashing 'There Goes the Neighborhood,' the humor, message and music coalesce brilliantly".

[26] In a less enthusiastic review for Rolling Stone, J. D. Considine wrote that "messages" are less important here than "the sort of sonic intensity parental groups fear even more than four-letter words,"[27] while AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine called the album "a surprisingly tepid affair" partly because "all of Ice-T's half-sung/half-shouted lyrics fall far short of the standard he established on his hip-hop albums.

"[3] In the Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of prominent critics published by The Village Voice, Body Count was voted the 31st best album of 1992.

[37] The album was originally set to be distributed under the title Cop Killer,[31][38] named for the song, which criticizes violent police officers.

[13] At a Time Warner shareholders' meeting, actor Charlton Heston stood and read lyrics from the song "KKK Bitch" to an astonished audience and demanded that the company take action.

[31] In an article for The Washington Post'', Tipper Gore condemned Ice-T for songs like "Cop Killer", writing that "Cultural economics were a poor excuse for the South's continuation of slavery.

[40] Ice-T asserted that the song was written from the point of view of a fictional character, and told reporters that "I ain't never killed no cop.

[40][43] Others defended the album on the basis of the group's right to freedom of speech, and cited the fact that Ice-T had portrayed a police officer in the film New Jack City.

[42] In July 1992, the New Zealand Police Commissioner unsuccessfully attempted to prevent an Ice-T concert in Auckland, arguing that "Anyone who comes to this country preaching in obscene terms the killing of police, should not be welcome here,"[44] before taking Body Count and Warner Bros. Records to the Indecent Publications Tribunal, in an effort to get it banned under New Zealand's Indecent Publications Act.

[13] Ice-T left Warner Bros. Records the following year because of disputes over his solo album Home Invasion,[5] taking Body Count with him.