Recording a Dungeons & Dragons Audiobook Was One of the Hardest Things Ice-T Has Ever Done

When rapper and Law and Order star Ice-T tried to expand his talents into the burgeoning field of recording audiobooks, “It took me three-and-a-half hours to read 25 pages,” he said on a recent episode of his podcast. That’s because he was trying to read a Dungeons & Dragons book.

The experience of trying to pronounce vocabulary like Zerthimon, Vlaakith, and Krusk was exhausting. “When you read these books, you make up the pronunciation in your head. But to actually verbally say this words? Son,” he said. “I needed breaks. I needed water.”

Recording a 40-page short story eventually took Ice-T two days. “Every word you’re saying is pretty much made up. [Characters] talk like Yoda: Outside I go, into the sun thereof, in, out….how do you read this [stuff]?” the Los Angeles Times transcribes.

If fantasy writing is too much, maybe he could just rap about D&D instead? Verses like “I got my brain on hype, tonight’ll be your night, I got this long-assed knife,” are… almost appropriate. If they were about knights slaying giant monsters in caves instead of policemen.

It’s a great marketing move: an Ice-T audiobook is pretty much the only way you could make us buy anything D&D related. Just don’t call it nerdcore.