The Iceman Goeth

WHEN THE SONG COP KILLER, BY RAPPER ICE-T'S group Body Count, brought the wrath of police -- not to mention Charlton Heston and Oliver North -- down on Warner Bros. Records and its parent company, Time Warner, the entertainment giant defended its artist's right to free expression. But it began taking a harder look at its albums, rejecting, for example, the work of the rapper Paris.

That tougher scrutiny has now sidelined Ice-T himself. Last week Warner Bros. said he had agreed to leave the label because of "creative differences." By all accounts, the dispute centered on the cover art for the album Home Invasion, which Ice-T was scheduled to release in March. The cover Ice-T proposed reportedly showed a white teen listening to music on headphones and imagining black men attacking whites. Warner Bros. preferred a plain, solid-blue cover with only the album's title.

Warner's decision may be a temporary setback for artistic freedom, but probably not for Ice-T's pocketbook. He'll find another label for the album, and industry sources expect him to pull down a higher royalty rate than he got under his Warner contract.